Film Filters
By yolanda stapleton
16 Jun 2009
I feel like my lomo obsession has spiraled somewhat out of control lately, taking on a life entirely of it's own while I stand idly by lamenting the state of my depleted bank account. Having forced myself to cut back on the purchasing and to get a bit more creative with what I've got, I've found myself experimenting with making filters.
My first go at it was pretty straightforward, I took some plastic slips and bunched them up and taped it into the back of a Diana. To get some contrast I kept one end heavily bunched with the other side stretched relatively tight, then loaded the film over the top. Directing the lens towards the sun hoping to produce some flares I got mixed results but was quite happy with a final shot of two ladies at lunch. When taping something as thick as layered plastic into the back it was tricky because while it was nice that the filter moved around and shifted as I advanced the film it also made it quite tight to wind on. Taping the plastic down at the sides only (and not the top or bottom) helped to make it easier to wind.
Next up I made some cardboard inserts that I taped into the back of a couple of different cameras. Same as with the plastic the film is loaded over the top and you just shoot as normal. I found the cardboard a little heavy and hard to be precise with. When I got the film back the shapes I'd thought to be oh so teeny tiny when hand cutting them looked like hideously heavy black lines running through my pics. I decided to work with acetate so I could be more precise. I've found it's best to work up a little piece onscreen, print it onto paper, photocopy it onto an overhead transparency then load it into the camera. Working the design onscreen is key as hand-drawn files once photocopied and shot on tend to show any flaws (especially with the line weight) quite dramatically, which is great for adding signatures or tags but not so much if you're dealing with intricate shapes.
A little tip for this stage, when you open up your camera measure the area where the film will be exposed so you have a field to add your image/cutout/whatever too. Then measure the sides of this space so you can create a small tab to fold on the edges of your filter. This makes it infinitely easier to tape inside the back, especially with 35mm cameras which tend to be quite fiddly and cramped and not as easy to add filters too as say a Holga or Diana. Taping your filter all around can interfere with loading and winding the film whereas the sides almost never cause dramas, plus you can keep the tape on the side tabs and not have to worry about it showing up on the image.
The acetate is fantastic as when it's photocopied onto tiny light patches come through so rather than a flat black and clear filter you get the crisp image showing in the sections you left blank as well as a couple of pinpricks of light coming through in the black space. Working onscreen you can get incredible detail in your filters and it's also really handy when trying to make mini ones to fit inside a 35mm camera, no more arthritic bouts after trying to handcraft a 35 x 24mm filter!
In my first test with acetate I placed little circles on the filter thinking the mask would be quite minimal, the result was heavier than I expected so now I've found that creating very light filters is usually best as you can get some good detail in but it will also allow a lot more of your image to shine through.
Another technique I've used is taping gels over the lens and flash to get different effects. It's such a basic technique but has great results. This worked amazingly well with the supersampler where I taped a different colour gel over 3 of the 4 lenses and went shooting at a carnival. The results varied with the softer shades giving a nice subtle tint and the deeper colours saturating the images entirely. I used the gels that came with the coloursplash but cellophane works fine too. Double up on the gel if you want a heavier saturation. What's nice about using this with the supersampler is that each frame is automatically separated with a small black border that enhances the difference in the colour of each frame. For this series I always left one lens unmasked so I could keep the natural carnival colours in the mix too.
Something I've also been thinking about is how filters can be used not just at the shooting stage but also post processing. After getting my negs developed I was set to scan them and decided to pop some of the gels down on the scanner too. The result is a little washed out if the gel is too light but a deep yellow for instance will give your film a really warm honeyed look. I also tried the acetate filters using the text 'don't shoot'. Part 1 and 2 show the original image and then the result with the filter. The black ink reversed out when scanned so to better blend the design I ran some steel wool over the filter to scratch it up a bit.
And there you have it, my foray into film filtering courtesy of credit card debt!
1 response
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Ramon Terrado said (19 Jun 2009):
Great tips, will try for sure acetate and Holga!!!
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