So this week it back to experimenting with the Holga. I wanted to see how different coloured filters affect a Black & White photograph.
I had always kind of understood the changes in contrast but what I had never really looked at was how filters render different colours in B&W.
Thus I took 4 pictures of the same object but each with a different coloured filter. These were all taken at the same time of day (lunchtime) and it was quite grey and overcast so a bit disappointed that it does not show effects on Blue sky.
So see the pictures below, the colour written on the picture is the colour filter used. The police box is a pale, pastel blue. The telephone box is a deep red and of course the trees were a bright but deep green.
Whilst not a huge difference in the contrasts in the pictures it is interesting (at least to me!) how the contrast and B&W tones have subtly changed, including the sky. The film used is Kodak Tri-X 400 and the pics are posted as scanned. I hope you find this useful
Updated: here are iPhone pics of the original scene if it helps
52 rolls 
interesting and enlightening, thanks.
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Thanks
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Pretty awesome how these are all side-by-side for comparison. Thanks for sharing!
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👍
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Oops pressed send to quickly, meant to say I have added the colour pics of the shots to help
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I love a good science experiment! Thanks for sharing your results -there are definitely some differences, and some of these color I have not previously tried with black and white.
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Thank you 🙏 I have added the colour versions now as well for comparison
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I have only tried a red filter with B&W before and never really compared it to anything as I usually shot the whole roll with the filter on. There appears to be very subtle differences between the filters, thanks for the experiment 🙂
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Thanks for doing this. I was just thinking that it was time to do another filter test. And I hadn’t tried all of the Holga Filters yet. So why are you unimpressed? With a ‘real’ camera (see below) the differences are stronger. But for a Holga, this is a great result.
http://myvintagecameras.blogspot.com/2011/01/filter-play.html#links
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Not unimpressed, was expecting maybe a slightly stronger difference but as you say with a Holga and plastic filters this is not bad also the day was overcast which in itself is interesting to note. Like your post, I am going to try this again on a bright day with a real camera and also again with the Holga
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Great ! I just saw these tests now…I use a yellow 12 most of the time and the differences are subtle, it seems it mostly helps in improving contrast between different kinds of trees and the sky (I also made some test shots in the parks here in Paris). I also have an orange filter which is good for very dramatic skylines. I think we have gotten used to the very-over-the-top filter effects in software. In hardware is it less striking. For street photography, the yellow filter is seems to be most useful in allowing you to use Tri-X 400 at mid-day under full sunshine :-).
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Oh, and on your tests you can clearly see there is more contrast in the sky with the orange filter…
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Thanks, there are plenty of variables for this test which I will repeat. For example it wasn’t a particularly bright day also this was through plastic so will be interesting to repeat through glass lens and filters
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