Black and white beach photography can be a really cathartic experience. Standing on the rocks hearing the crash of waves, feeling slight spray whilst watching the sun come down, can help the day’s worries just evaporate! After this blissful experience, you get home hoping for some gorgeous black and white masterpieces that you envisaged, but sometimes you end up with grey, lifeless images.

Let us show you 5 techniques that we use to get around this problem, when doing black and white beach photography. These will ensure that every time you go down to the sea, you will come back with unique photographs to be proud of.

During our recent trip to Cape Town, South Africa, Ally and I took a day trip to a tiny beach called Slangkop. (This means Snake Head in Afrikaans.) If you’re looking to go there, it is right next to a small village called Kommetjie. There is a beautiful old lighthouse there that dates back to 1919. This 33m high round cast iron tower looks so interesting from a distance that we hoped to get some amazing images of the area. We arrived mid afternoon and stayed until just after sunset. As you will see from the images in this article, the lighthouse was probably the least interesting thing to photograph, mainly because it closes at 3pm and is surrounded by a huge ugly electrified and barbed wire fence.

Why use black and white photography

One of the joys of photographing along the shoreline are the subtle colours one gets from the turquoise of the sea to the orange of the setting sun reflected off of rocks to the pale tan sand. It’s a watercolour painter’s dream, so why would we want to give up these amazing subtleties for a black and white image? There are a number of reasons, but the main ones we find are it forces you to look at the shapes of your scene and we end up with much better compositions.

Black and white can give you incredible dramatic images that any colour can dilute.

Everybody has taken photographs of the beach. Sofor your images to stand out you need to present them with something that’s not been seen hundreds of times before. Black and white photography will do this.

The 5 top techniques we use

1: Photography in the Golden Hour

The golden hour is the hour before sunset and after sunrise. It gives colour photographs a beautiful soft warm colour cast that is really desirable but what does it do for black and white photography? Well, we love shooting in the golden hour because the lighting gives objects a wonderful 3D feel with long and dark shadows. All the textures on rocks just come to life and even sand takes on a new textured look.

2: Silhouettes and contre-jour lighting

Of course the golden hour is perfect for photographing contre-jour. For a more in-depth look at contre-jour look at our article here.  By photographing into the sun you will find the scene take on new and interesting shapes as the light just touches the rim of objects, throwing the rest of the object into darkness. With large areas of darkness you can create mystery in your images as it leaves the viewer’s brain to fill in the details. Be careful with the extreme lighting as it’s really easy to totally blow out (lose all detail) in your highlights. If you’re photographing in an auto mode be careful as your camera could be lying to you by giving you the wrong exposure. Exposure compensation is your best friend in these situations.

There are so many interesting things on the beach to photograph and some of them take on a totally different look and feel when photographed as a silhouette. The stacked rocks have almost an alien world feel to them.

3: Details, details, details

The shoreline is like a fractal. The more closely you look, the more detail you see. Worlds within worlds. So why just photograph the big world everybody else is doing. Look at the details and sometimes some of the most interesting landscapes can be found there. Rocks and sand have so many beautiful textures on them but our favourite textures are to be found on old metal. When doing texture photography we look for old rusted structures wherever we go as they always give wonderful detailed images.

4: Polarising the light and filters

One of the must have filters for any outdoor photography is a polarising filter. A polariser will do so many things to both colour as well as black and white images. For our black and white beach photography we use it mostly to darken the sky. However it is also very useful for getting rid of reflections.

Slangkop lighthouse with a dark sky created by the polarising filter

The other filters we use in beach or any landscape photography are red or orange filters. This filter also darkens the sky (black and white photography only). We always have a UV filter on our lens to protect it as well. The protection is not just about damage either. Sea spray on your lens will degrade the contrast of the image and its so much easier to swap to a clean filter halfway through your shooting rather than trying to clean a lens in sandy sea spray conditions.

Be wary however of ‘stacking’ multiple filters on your lens. Unless they are the very expensive multi-coated variety, you will lose quality especially when photographing contre-jour. With wide-angle lenses you will also be adding a vignetting effect.

5: Neutral Density Filters for misty movement

Another technique is to use a long exposure to get a misty water movement. An ND filter will cut the light coming through your lens allowing you to do really long exposures that give the water a misty ethereal effect.

Don’t forget to use a stable tripod for these long exposures. Even the smallest bit of wind can cause subtle movement and ruin an otherwise perfect image. Usually, we try to put the tripod on rocks or really hard compacted sand to keep it totally steady.

If you are using film be aware of your exposure and reciprocity law failure and compensate accordingly. Depending on your exposure time you might even end up doubling the length of exposure to compensate. If you are not aware of reciprocity law then just bracket your exposures like mad.

Extra techniques – safety for you and your camera

The coastline and your camera don’t mix very well. Salty sea-spray will corrode your pride and joy so very quickly. Keep it out of the spray or sea mist as much as possible. This might mean keeping it in a bag when you’re not shooting or, if the spray is really fierce then put a clear plastic bag over it. (The ones you get for keeping food in work well.) Just cut a hole for the lens.

Be aware of changing lenses in areas where sand is blowing around. Once again sand and sensors don’t play well together.

Be aware of your surroundings. When we were photographing at Slangkop, I was so busy with an image that I didn’t see a very shifty looking person hovering around eyeing our stuff. Fortunately Ally was there, and some locals arrived too, so he scuttled off but if I was on my own things could have been very different.

Extra techniques – what settings should I use for best beach photography

We are doing a whole series on aperture, shutter and exposure compensation articles in this blog but the main thing about beach photography is that your camera can be fooled very easily. The bright sand and reflections off the sea make the camera think that there is more light than there really is so your images can turn out slightly underexposed. If in doubt, bracket a lot.

370,000 miles of unique possibilities

Around our planet there’s approximately 370,000 miles of coastline from stunning long sandy beaches to ragged cliffs. There is just so much variety and so many options to create unique and exciting images. Be safe, look for the less obvious and craft your own black and white beach photography and masterpieces every time.

The post Black and White Beach Photography appeared first on ImageExplorers.

So, you’re out with your camera and you come across a really interesting landscape or scene. It looks good from every angle, but it’s not awesome. We’ve all been there and struggled with making an eye-catching image from a great, but not amazing, subject. How do we deal with this? Photograph reflections!

It seems like such a simple answer but adding a reflection to your image will lift it and give a depth that it didn’t have before. A beautiful reflection can add a sense of symmetry to your image, that can very often improve your composition. We’d like to give you some of our top tips on how to photograph reflections and where to find them.

The Obvious!

Ponds, lakes, and very still rivers. These are the usual tools to create interesting reflections, but they’re not the only source of photographic reflective goodness. Anything with a shiny surface can be used for beautiful symmetry and reflections.

Wivenhoe River – River Colne

It was a beautiful, blue sky but cold Autumn morning when we headed down towards the river from our house. With camera and tripod in hand with our trusty ND filter in the bag. We had hoped for a bank of mist hovering over the river as it sometimes does on the cold clear morning and were hoping to do some long exposures to capture the movement of the river in a misty form to complement the hovering mist. Unfortunately, when we got there, most of the mist had lifted and the river was very still.

Best laid plans etc … must get up earlier!

We decided to make the best of the situation and used the reflectivity of the still river to create images that gave the boats a symmetrical floating feel. We put the camera on the tripod and experimented with various exposures (including some 30 second exposures using the neutral density filter).

Symmetrical boats on the River Colne – 2.5 second exposure with an ND filter

Even though it wasn’t what we’d initially planned, Tim’s inner minimalist was overjoyed with the simplicity and symmetry of the final image. This one was converted to a black and white tone as we felt it worked really well. See our tips and geeky explanations for converting colour to black and white.

Not the Obvious – Shiny, Happy Surfaces!

Not all reflective images need to be from water. When we were photographing St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, Rome, we used the shininess of the cobbled street to photograph reflections of the lights which brought the foreground to life and also helped to lead the eye in to the main architectural details. We find that wet streets, after a short downpour can give beautiful results.

Cobbled shiny streets make for great photographic reflections of light

Life in a Puddle

Not every reflection requires a large pool of water. Keep an eye out for even the smallest puddle which will work if you photograph from a low enough vantage point. Our initial image of St Mark’s Square, Venice, would have been quite acceptable. However, towards evening the water starts to seep up from the canal creating small puddles in the square. We crouched down, much to the amusement of our fellow tourists, who thought we were trying to photograph the puddle itself, and used the puddle as a reflective surface during few second exposure. As we didn’t have a tripod with us, this exposure was hand-held by balancing the corner of the camera on the ground for stability.

The initial puddle

The scene from a low vantage point with the puddle in the foreground

Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa and Chewing Gum Hogging Baboons!

After an interesting day where Tim managed to get chased by a baboon that had stolen our fiery hot cinnamon chewing gum out of the car, we managed to capture the sunset dropping down behind Champagne Castle (the mountain) South Africa. As beautiful as it was, it still didn’t have that special something, until we found a small pond and used the reflection to create a symmetrical mountain landscape.

Beautiful symmetry using the lake in the foreground

Spyglass in Paris

During our trip up the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, we were on the lookout for something a little bit different to the usual aerial views over Paris. Tim spotted the spyglass reflections and immediately honed in on the glow of the orange sunset reflected in the metal contrasting beautifully against the dark blue of the Paris skyline.

Sunset reflected into the metal of the telescope adding a strip of red to bring the image to life

Reflective Symmetry to Mess with the Mind

Photographing reflections can lead to really interesting images. Look at the image below to see what we mean.

Now scroll down to see how the scene actually looked.

>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>

Makes your head hurt, doesn’t it? Flipping photographic reflections upside down can create some really interesting, mind-bending images. Have a look at the master photographer, Andre Kertesz’s, classic images for many more examples.

Colours in Movement

You can capture movement during your long neutral-density filter exposure but don’t forget you can also use it to display stunning reflective colours without the reflected detail. This 20 second exposure removes all the reflections of the mountain but keeps the orange sunset.

2o second exposure with ND filter showing movement in the water but also the beautiful colours of the sky

See here for our tips on buying and using an ND filter. If your sky is a little on the light side, see how to retrieve using Camera Raw.

Go Forth and Reflect!

To bear in mind: a reflection can be fleeting, depending on the source of the reflection. A rain shower can cause a puddle that will disappear; moving water will give a completely different feel to glassy, still water; cobbled streets can give a textured matt feeling or a shiny reflective image, depending on the wetness or dampness of the street.

Next time you are out looking at land or cityscapes, keep an eye out for any surface that can be used for a photographic reflection. Try something a bit different – change your angles, change your viewing position, climb up high and go down low … experiment and have some fun!

The post How to Photograph Reflections that will totally improve your photography appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Learn from the Masters

Some days we look at well-known photographers images and something in us just cries out “I wish I could create images like that”! At first I thought it was just me but I have discovered that the majority of photographers feel like this about certain other photographers some time. If you have ever seen the beautiful black and white zen-like work of Michael Kenna then you will probably know this feeling really well. If you don’t know Michael Kenna’s work, have a look at his web site. Once you have finished weeping with inadequacy come back and let us look at how to photograph like Michael Kenna so you too can create similar style images.

Have a look at our other  ‘How to photograph like…’ series that includes Edward Weston and Ansel Adams to see how to create images like they have.

Now before we get started there are a few things to know.

• Michael Kenna creates images on a medium format Hasselblad.
• He uses film
• He has a very zen-like nature about him
• He is a photographic genius
• He is a darkroom super-craftsman

So now the bar has been set so spectacularly high, let’s see what we can do with our DSLR or Mirrorless digital cameras – no pressure then!

I photographed these cranes at the Bristol harbour, UK in a Kenna style with simple shape and no shadow detail

Analysing the Master

When trying to imitate anybody’s style we start by analysing their techniques, so when looking at Michael Kenna’s photography, this is what I saw.

Composition:

Michael Kenna looks for simplicity in his composition, moving closer or framing the subjects to get rid of extraneous objects. He uses a lot of symmetry and rule of thirds but is not afraid to break rules if the composition calls for it. As he photographs on a Hasselblad which has a square format, a vast number of his images are square.

• Pro tip – Michael will often put the horizon on almost the centre of the image. He uses a technique called the optical centre. This is about 10% above the centre of an image and is where the eye naturally rests.

The images have a timeless quality about them, which suggests a photographer who is in no rush, and analyses every scene and possible angle before creating the image.

Black and White film:

In an interview with Procameraman.jp Michael talked about his favourite film as Kodak Tri-X 400 ISO. This is a very forgiving / flexible film and well suited to the long exposures he does. Some are as long as 10 hours. It also has a very distinctive and pronounced grain structure.  See our post on what black and white film to choose to find out more.

ND to blur clouds or water and other filters to darken skies:

In order to create the long exposures, to get the milky water during daytime we need to assume that Michael uses an Neutral Density filter and the camera on a tripod. See our how to photograph with ND filters tutorial.

We can also assume he uses a red and or polarizing filter to darken and lighten parts of the image. We have written extensively about using filters in black and white photography in other posts.

Quite a lot of contrast and high key:

Michael Kenna’s images appear to have large tracts of almost black and almost white in them. The middle tones are there but are in the minority. A lot of his images are also high-key, meaning most of the image is really light although almost every image has something nearly black in it. As a master craftsman Kenna is probably using a combination of film development chemistry and darkroom techniques to augment the original stark image. For more ideas about black and white, see our post on what makes a good black and white image.

I photographed this high key image in Wivenhoe near our home on a misty autumn morning. Not quite Kenna style as it doesn’t have any very dark areas.

How to Photograph like Michael Kenna Step-by-Step guide

Find your Perfect Composition

This is the hardest part of the process but with a little patience you will achieve extraordinary results. Don’t rush things. Leave your camera in your bag until you have found the perfect spot to create an image from. Try to pre-visualise the final image before you touch the camera.

Look around for simple details, structures or shapes. To photograph like Michael Kenna, try to ignore the colour aspect that can be overwhelming.

To help us compose we set the Sony A7R camera to black and white mode so the images appear in the viewfinder as black and white (most mirrorless cameras have a similar feature).

If we’re using Ally’s Nikon D600 DSLR or a film camera that doesn’t have this feature then we view the scene through a strong coloured filter. This gives you one colour, and even though it’s not black and white, it helps to show the shape and form of the scene.

Exposing the Scene

To photograph like Michael Kenna, use long exposures with the camera on a tripod to get movement in clouds and water. Make sure you’re using a solid tripod, as even the slightest movement on the camera during a 30-second exposure can ruin an image. Use a Neutral Density filter to help you get the very long shutter times you need. Our 10-stop filter usually allows us to achieve 30-second shutter times in normal daylight.

We use Manfrotto and Gitzo heavy duty tripods with robust heads. They are a pain to carry but so worth it when you images are stunning. We recently tried out a travel tripod from Manfrotto but it was much to wobbly in even the slightest breeze so it’s going on eBay soon. Don’t forget your red or orange or polarising filter to darken the sky. These will also help to give you longer shutter times.

Not all of Michael Kenna’s photographs are long exposures though but they are all about simplicity. Taking the essence on the scene into a beautiful composition. Michael once referred to his images as a Haiku rather than a literary work.

The Digital Darkroom

Michael is known as a darkroom master artist and artisan and so it comes as no surprise that he does a lot of dodging and burning on his images. He also mentioned in an interview with Camerawork magazine that he uses Ilford Multigrade paper so he can dodge or burn areas at a variety of contrasts.

All of this we can do in our RAW files using adjustment brushes.

Finally, a how to photograph like Michael Kenna post would not be complete without talking about toning. Michael uses sepia tone on his images to give the highlights a bit of colour. We can easily do this to our RAW files in the RAW converter or, (and we prefer this method), use a Gradient Map adjustment layer in Photoshop.

Final and original image from our Michael Kenna style photographic trip. Drag slider to see more.

Putting it all into practice with a trip to the North Norfolk coast in the United Kingdom

The Photographic Process

Ally and I live in a county called Essex, which is about an hour’s drive from central London (or 2 if the traffic’s bad). About 2 hours drive north of us, is the beautiful undeveloped coastline of Norfolk that offers plenty of scope for interesting images. After a long hot summer we set off for 2 days photography knowing that we wanted to create something simple and stark.

The first day was stunning, bright blue sky with small puffy clouds, long sandy beaches with sand dunes, photography heaven. The second day was rainy and overcast and just awful. So how did we do? Well, the first days’ images were ‘pants’. (This is an English expression meaning rubbish!)

Tim looking for the perfect composition on the rocky pier

It was the overcast sky that gave us the beautiful stark and simple images (without harsh shadows) that we were looking for. I find this very annoying as I (Tim) am a sun worshiper and hate overcast days but there we go.

Ally trying a different angle

Once I had viewed all the potential photographic vantage points for the pier I wanted to photograph, I set up the Manfrotto tripod on the rocks and made sure it was secure. I wanted to do some longer (30 sec) exposures to give the water movement so I attached our ND filter. The exposures ranged from 10 to 30 seconds and even though I had a sturdy tripod the wind still gave me a bit of camera shake on some of them.

This is what the bit of wind did to my long exposure when it buffeted the camera

When composing I used a combination of symmetry and the rule of thirds for my horizon.

Rule of Thirds

In the Digital Darkroom

I am using Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud (2018) however this technique will be very similar in any software that enables RAW file editing including Affinity Photo, a favourite of ours on the iPad.

Cromer contact sheet in Bridge including some edits

In Raw, the un-retouched original

In Raw with very basic edit 

The first thing I did when opening the image in Raw was to convert it to Black and White. I also set the options to sRGB (not greyscale) and the channel bit depth to 16.

This gives me an image with smooth gradients that I can add colour to in Photoshop. If you open it from Raw into Photoshop in greyscale mode you will have to convert it to RGB colour to add the toning adjustment layer. Having it as 16 bit rather than the default 8 means that there are thousands of shades of lightness per channel rather than just 256. This gives you smoother gradients without as much ‘banding’.

I then took down the highlights as some of the clouds were overexposed.

Raw gradient to get the dark sky Michael Kenna style

Along the top of the camera Raw window you will see a little gradient icon. I clicked the icon to get to the gradient area and added 2 gradients to darken down the clouds a bit.

Raw dodge and burn edit like Michael does in the darkroom

Clicking the little paintbrush along the top again, takes you to the adjustment brush area. I added a brush, painted the area I wished to adjust and then adjusted the settings on the right. Not only can you lighten and darken but also change contrast, sharpening, clarity and a host of other properties. As you can see by the dots on the picture I did 13 different brushes. Some to lighten the water, some to increase contrast and detail on the rocks. The little mask button at the bottom allows you to see the areas you are painting. I switch it on and off to see what I’m doing.

Overall on the image I lightened the highlights and darkened the shadows to get that distinct Michael Kenna look.

Lastly I added a selenium tone adjustment layer

I opened the image in Photoshop as a Raw smart object. You do this by holding down the Shift key while clicking the open image (object) button in Photoshop Raw.

If you wish to learn Photoshop on the iPad or Affinity Photo on the iPad have a look at our Udemy courses below.

Click here for amazing money off deals to Learn Photoshop or Affinity Photo v2 on the ipad with Tim’s Udemy course

Having my image in Photoshop as a Raw smart object allows me to double click the smart object any time and go back into Camera Raw to make adjustments. If you’ve never converted to black and white before, check out our post with technical and geeky explanations!

I added a Gradient map and chose the Selenium tone Gradient Map. Even though Michael Kenna uses sepia tone over selenium I thought it looked better on this particular image. The difference is that a sepia tone works on the highlights first and selenium toning works on the shadows first.

Final Image

Go Forth and Create Like a Master

As you can probably tell by the tone of this post, Michael Kenna is one of my favourite photographers and although I don’t go out to copy his work, it has always had a great impact on my personal style. Anybody can copy anybody else’s technique; however you need your own personal vision to really create you own image of he world. Learn all you can from all the master photographers but then turn all that knowledge into your own unique vision. See our post on photographing like Edward Weston  and Ansel Adams.

To sum up a post of how to photograph like Michael Kenna we need 2 things. Beautiful simple composition and lots of shadows and highlights in a toned Black and White image.

Try it out. You might find that your own style, added to this technique creates some amazing images you’d never thought of doing before. Mostly, have fun doing it.

The post How to photograph like Michael Kenna – Tutorial appeared first on ImageExplorers.

When you walk into a camera store or look at an online photographic shop there are so many filters for black and white photography that you could buy. The problem is, which one?! What actually makes a good black and white photograph and how can I achieve that? Do you buy into a filter “system” or buy individual filters? The people in the store might or might not know which ones are right for your type of photography.

When I first started photography in the days of film (click this link to see the best black and white film for travel photography), I was so overwhelmed by the vast array of filters that I spent a lot of money on buying up as many as possible. My thinking behind this was that it would improve my photography. I am now older and marginally less stupid but I have learned from years of trial and error.

Here are some of our really essential filters for black and white and colour photography as well as our shameful ones!

There are 5 essential filters for black and white photography that every photographer should own. I’d like to show you them now and explain what each one does and why you need it. If you’ve got some time on your hands and want to know tips and geeky explanations on how to convert colour to black and white, then click that << link!

Using Polariser to darken the sky

The UV or Haze or Skylight Filter

The first filter I am going to recommend is one I always buy for any new lens I get. This filter has 2 main reasons to live on your lens.

Firstly: Protection – I can’t count the number of times I have “dinked” the front glass on my lenses.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a quick knock against my belt when carrying the camera. (We use awesome sling type straps that go across your body. Ally swears hers is the best thing ever and is attached to it like an umbilical cord. She uses a Ladies Black Rapid. I have a Sun Sniper.) I once scratched my Nikon lens coating when putting the lens cap back on the lens. Having  just finished photographing, the rain was about to bucket down, and I was in a hurry. This does not excuse my not having a protector UV filter on the lens.

A filter is also easier to clean than a lens element. I have even dipped mine in water to wash off salt or dust after photographing waves or deserts.

Pro Tip: When photographing in areas that really dirty up your lens (like sea spray) carry a spare filter and change filters when the first gets dirty. It’s faster than trying to clean a lens in an inhospitable environment.

Whenever I buy a new lens the very next thing I buy is a UV filter. $50 to $100 for a high quality filter that doesn’t seem to do much might seem extortionate but if it saves the very soft (and very expensive) lens coating from just one scratch it will be worth it.

Secondly: Sharper and more defined details in the background – A UV filter cuts out the UV light and cuts through the haze making distance objects seem clearer.  With film it is more important to use a UV filter because film is extremely sensitive to UV light. However, digital sensors are generally less sensitive to UV.

This filter works the same with both colour and black and white photography.

Lastly, the UV haze filter is not to be confused with the UV transmitting filter. This only allows ultraviolet light to pass through the lens and blocks out all the other visible light spectrum.

See more useful photography articles here

The graduated filter (Grad)

The graduated filter is the next one in the list, for this filters for black and white photography post. A graduated filter is a neutral density filter that gradually fades to clear. The reason for this is that most skies are darker than the land so the graduated filter darkens the sky but not the land. See more explanations on this with our exposure compensation post, and ‘why your camera lies to you’!

Round screw or system grad filter?

These filters come in either a round screw in version or as a “system” version where you attach a filter holder to the front of the lens and then slot in the square filter of choice. The advantage of this type of filter is that you can slide the filter up or down depending on the amount of darkening you require. The other advantage is you buy different size adaptor rings for the system types that means you don’t have to fork out for multiple filters, only new adaptor rings. Both types of filter allow you to spin them around.

Graduated filters for black & white film photography

The Grad filters come in various strengths of darkening. Buy some cheap ones to experiment with first before spending a lot on one.

In my young college days these Cokin filter systems were all the rage, and from my extensive Cokin system, the grad was used more than anything.

While this filter works just as well in colour photography as it does in black and white there are a few other grads that work in colour too. I used to use a tobacco (orange/brown) to get warmer low sun photographs or a blue/purple to get more interesting cloudy skies.

The Neutral density filter (ND)

One of our favourite creative filters for black and white photography is the Neutral Density filter. It reduces the amount of light coming through the lens thus giving you longer exposures that you are unable to get in bright light even with an ISO of 50.

Why would you want longer exposures?

It will capture movement rather than freezing it. This could be either water, people, vehicles, clouds or anything that moves. On water this produces an ethereal misty effect and with people it can produce water-like blurs. It is very effective if some people are moving and some totally still. We have used this filter a number of times for dramatic effect on water. See our post on how we got on (or not) when we first used our ND filter recently.

Just make sure you have a very sturdy tripod as it’s so easy to get a blurry image with even the smallest bit of camera shake during a 30 second exposure. See our tutorial on how to photograph with an ND filter.

This filter works just as well in colour as in black and white photography.

Single colour filters for Black and white film

Black and white film uses a full range of the visible colour spectrum to create a full range of tones on your black and white negative. What a single colour filter does is to stop some of those colours from reaching the film and thereby making that area darker. For example, the filter we need to use to darken the sky would be one that stops blue reaching the film. Yellow, orange and red colours are opposite blue and so do this very effectively. A blue filter would darken reds and make the blues appear lighter. See our post on how to darken skies for more details on single colour filters.

Filter system of single colours for black and white photography

Buy a full range of cheap filters and try them out to see what you get before committing more money to them.

The Polarizing filter

There are 2 main uses for polarizing filters, reducing reflections and darkening skies.

Here is how it works. Light reflected from a non-metallic surface becomes polarized. A polarizing filter allows light to pass in only one direction. This allows us to reduce reflections on non-metallic objects.

Light from the sky is also polarized, so a polarizing filter will polarize the light and reduce how much light enters the camera. As a result this will make the sky dark in a photo.

Photograph taken without and with polarizing filter

A polarizer will darken down blue sky but not affect clouds. (The effect is most prevalent on the area of sky that is at 90 degrees from the sun – Look at the sun – carefully – and then the darkest sky will be at 90 degrees.) It will also reduce reflections which can make trees etc seem rather vivid in colour. To use the polarizer just turn the filter until the sky goes dark or the reflections disappear.

A few things to be aware of with polarizing filters

This polarizing filter technique will work with both film and digital, colour and black and white. In colour it also increases the saturation of many objects by reducing reflections.

There are 2 types of polarizer. A linear and a circular. A circular CPL polarizer is best for modern cameras as linear polarizers can affect exposure meters and autofocus adversely.

Filters can create so many effects and as we have discovered in our photographic adventures, not all are good. With these 5 essential filters to start your collection off though, you just can’t go wrong. What do you think of our choice of essential filters for black and white photography? Are there any you think we should add to the list? Do you have an embarrassing collection worse than ours? Let us know in the comments below.

Above all else, just go out and create photographs that make you happy.

See our Top 10 Essential Photoshop shortcuts.

Tim’s Adobe and Affinity courses

Click here to get huge money off savings on Tim’s Udemy courses for Photoshop on the iPad and Affinity Photo v2.

The post 5 essential filters for black and white photography you should own appeared first on ImageExplorers.

A Neutral Density filter reduces the amount of light coming through the lens thus giving you longer exposures that you are unable to get in bright light even with an ISO of 50.

Why would you want longer exposures?

It will capture movement rather than freezing it. This could be either water, people, vehicles or anything that moves. On water this produces an ethereal misty effect and with people it can produce water-like blurs. Very effective if some people are moving and some totally still. We have used this filter a number of times for dramatic effect. Our Shongweni Dam images would have been nothing special without it and it made our Drakensberg images really unusual.

Shongweni Dam, South Africa –  with a normal exposure freezing the water is nothing special.

Shongweni Dam South Africa with nd filter and long exposure to add magic to image.

See our post on using this filter for the first time at Shongweni Dam.

Bushmans Nek, Drakensberg, South Africa – Long Exposure with neutral density filter to smooth out water.

What to buy

They come in a variety of stop options, as small as 0.3 of a stop up to a whopping 24 stops. Therefore, with a 10 stop ND filter, your exposure of 1/60 sec at f16 becomes 15 seconds at f16 or 30 seconds at f22 and so on. If you’re not sure which one to get there is also a variable variety. Prices range from cheap eBay plastic versions, through to glass ones that can carry a heavy price tag, by main filter manufacturers.

Doing it on the cheap

If you don’t want to spend any money on a filter before you’re sure you will use one, a quick hack is to buy a plastic welding lens glass for a small amount of change. Attach this to an existing filter with blue tack or modelling clay. Anything to keep the light from entering the gap between the filter and the welding glass. Not the highest quality of filter but it will give you some interesting results for very little money.

Use a tripod

Setting up your image the way you wish to a tripod is essential.

Depending on the brightness of your screen with the filter on you may be able to focus but otherwise focus without it. Then pop your filter on, and set your exposure. You can either do this by working out what it is before putting the Neutral Density filter on then stopping down your shutter speed the number of stops of your filter, or working it out with the light meter when the ND filter is on. Experiment and have fun.

The post How to photograph with a Neutral Density filter tutorial appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Do you ever wake up and think “This is going to be a great day for photography?” We woke up just like that. Well…… the day didn’t start out quite like that though. Little did we know the struggle for beautiful images we would have when we, armed with a new shiny ND filter and a travel tripod, set off for a day’s photography.

Read most blogs on photographing people and you will be told to go to a place where people are relaxed and don’t mind too much if you take their photograph. A market sounds like just the thing.

At Shongweni farmers market (Kwa-Zulu Natal, in South Africa) our hopes for a long exposure image with moving people were very high. Set up the camera on a tripod with an interesting row of stalls behind and use the ND filter to get long 30 second exposures that will turn the moving people into a water like flow … This was the plan! Easy huh! We’ve visited this market a few times and always take advantage of a great breakfast out. Full of food stalls, crafts and food this place is brilliant for shopping, eating and listening to music.

So here is where I tell you about all our amazing images we created…. Errr no. So very disappointed. Tim tried doing a long exposure to get people in motion but the images didn’t really look great. The stall holders were not doing much crafting either, only selling, so no nice creator photographs. The only saving grace to be had however, was a beautiful view across the valley of a waterfall and an accordion player.

What about the live musicians?

Maybe some good photographs there? I really believed that there was an image to be made there somewhere and after a lot of difficult searching the best one I found was from behind the guitar guy with a narrow depth of field (f2.8 at the 70 mm end of my zoom lens), so the audience was out of focus. I popped it into black and white and whilst not award winning I was pleased with the result, but it was a struggle. See our post on what makes a good black and white image.

The moral of the story is? Sometimes the incredible is not going to happen and we just have to do the best we can with what we have.

On to part 2 of the day and not very far away in Shongweni Dam.

Test Driving the new (Neutral Density) ND Filter and the incredible just happened.

Have you ever tried to photograph a dam? They can produce very graphical images. However the large slabs of concrete with “frozen” water droplets are the same images that everybody else shoots on their smartphone. We approached the dam with a bit of trepidation after our disappointing start to the photographic day.

Shonegweni dam is accessible by driving through a rural village with many cows and goats on the road (very picturesque looking but all the little shops along the roadside had bars across the front and a small gap through which to pass money and goods between shopkeeper and customers). Not sure this is a good place to brandish our camera equipment.

After being chased down by the park warden for our entrance fee – (how were we to know we had to stop and sign in if they don’t put up big signs) – we were there.

It’s R40 (about £2.40) each to go in and the dam is home to some spectacular views. We test drove our new  ND filter which allows you to have longer exposures, thus giving you great effects on water. After photographing in the hot sun for a while we knew we had something special.  You can drive down one side where you see the tumbling waters over the dam. We photographed mostly using the ND filter to get the milky water effect which you can see as well as the moving clouds.

Here is the link to our nd filter tutorial so you can see how we did it.

Finally!!! Something we’re proud to call our images.

The post Finding that elusive image and test driving our ND Filter appeared first on ImageExplorers.