Do you take black and white photos at all?

[yoda313]

So do you take black and white photos at all? Or do you post process color photos for the effect?

I personally never do. Anyone in to this for an artistic effect?

[gadgetguy]

No. I'm all digital and I always shoot in color, but I'm strictly amateur. My camera has a setting for b&w, but converting to b&w after the fact on the computer is just as good or better then my camera's setting. I don't know if digital b&w is supposed to be as good as film b&w, but of the digital b&w that I've seen, that I know were digital originals, they aren't as good as b&w film. I'd be interested to know what some of our professional photographer members think about digital b&w compared to film.

[Captain Satellite]

Indeed I do.

[Constant Gardener]

Of course - I have a black and white cat.

[ofbarea]

Yes. But I usually convert them to sepia.

[VegasBud]

I haven't taken a black and white photograph in many years, and doubt I'll ever take another one.

An artist should use what best conveys their vision, but to me, emphasizing light and shadow by excluding the dimension of color seems a waste of opportunity.

[guns1inger]

I shoot digital in colour, but I often process heavily before printing. Sometimes this means black and white, sometimes I mimic bleach bypass, sometimes it means extreme colour tones. It really depends on the subject, the feel I want out of the shot, and sometimes it just comes from serendipitous play.

[Ethlred]

guns1inger said

sometimes I mimic bleach bypass,

I know that Perfect Dark used a partial bleach technique for the daylight scenes. I am curious as to how would mimic this digitally.

Guess:

Convert the color original to B&W and maybe pop the contrast, while dropping out all the shadow detail. Then combine with the color choosing appropriate transparency levels for each color. (for a moment there I was thinking you might reverse the contrast on the B&W but that would emulate no bleach on transparency film.)



Shooting B&W requires that you set your brain for contrast, shadow and texture and try to ignore the color. Shooting both B&W and color at the same time is a good way to get mediocre photos. However if you choose the photos carefully it should be a lot easier with digital methods to try getting both out of the same shoot.

I only recently got a digital camera and haven't gotten back to taking photographs. I started with B&W. Sometimes color just gets in the way of a good shot. Raging Bull just wouldn't be the same in color. And Citizen Kane would have been crap visually.

[redwudz]

When I use my film camera I still shoot some rolls in B+W. Not so much lately since I went mostly to digital cameras. If you want to see what can be done with B+W film, just find a gallery showing some Ansel Adams prints. http://www.anseladams.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=7

[impmon2]

I've always taken color photo since I could hold a camera, waaaaay back when 110 was second most popular format (35mm being #1, this predated APS, digital anything, and even home video camera) My first digital camera was an Apple Quickcam 150, I think I paid over $400 for one new. Today's $20 pocket digital camera can take comparable quality as the old Quickcam 150 does. (geez am I really old or what???)

With digital camera I can easily manipulate photos I took with photoshop to get desired effect like B&W or sepia but original is always color. I can't even remember seeing a plain vanilla digital camera that takes only B&W images, some offers it as option (usually under effect).

One recent example, I was helping compile a book of memories for my church, whose original building had burned down a few years ago. I used photoshop of the front of the church to get an B&W image that looked like sketched artwork.

[Ethlred]

Redwudz, thanks for that link. For some reason I have never been to the site. The shop yes, the site no.

The Ansel Adams gallery is the last shop in any National Park that is not owned by a giant conglomerate.

[dadrab]

Back when I was a newspaper reporter (and sometimes photographer) all I shot was B&W. Newspapers didn't run so much color then.

I haven't shot a B&W photo in years, though. More of a "point and click" puppet now. Just grab the moment...

[lordsmurf]

Newspapers still don't run much color, aside from section fronts or on pages that twin to paid-for-color ads.

Therefore I shoot color digital, but save a tweaked-for-B&W copy for press.

[dadrab]

Newspapers still don't run much color, aside from section fronts or on pages that twin to paid-for-color ads.

Therefore I shoot color digital, but save a tweaked-for-B&W copy for press.

Sounds like you've been around the business for a while. You're exactly right, of course, and most newspaper photographers have systems in place very similar to what you do. Most shoot digital color and go from there, however, I recently talked to a guy who still shoots B&W film on occasion. He maintains there's a quality about B&W film that can't be reproduced in the digital realm. He has a dark room in his house because the newspaper doesn't even have one anymore.

[Ethlred]

He maintains there's a quality about B&W film that can't be reproduced in the digital realm.

I have been out of that for a while and have no experience with using a digital camera but I can think of a number of things that would be difficult to simulate anyway. Not impossible just a bit difficult.

Toe and shoulder should be different. However that can't be difficult to match. Same for grain. Just use a mask based on your favorite film type, TriX for photojournalists considering as how Agfa is gone.

The tricky part would be halation. I just can't see bothering with trying that hard to match B&W film. Especially for a newspaper that will lose all that subtlety in the printing process anyway.

Maybe he just loves the smell of stop bath in the morning. That acetic acid smell. It smells like victory.

[JimJohnD]

I have just started doing IR photography, now that there are some leaves on the trees I've taken some pics without the R72 filter and processed them to B&W with Bibble and shot the same scene with the filter just to compare the 'standard' B&W to the IR shot. Really amazing, it brings some fun back to B&W. And with a DSLR, no developing chemicals As far as 'matching' the old film, I'll take a DSLR capturing RAW with a good processor any day. You can get ANY look you want, IF you want to take the time. Moreover, you can get them ALL from the same shot