Shooting Black and White

[snerd]

So, you decide to shoot a few in B&W. Do you shoot in Monochrome, or just use regular color and then convert? Is there any benefit to one over the other? Is anything lost converting color to B&W?

 

[tirediron]

If you're shooting raw, then nothing is lost, no, however, most in-camera monochrome processing is nowhere near as good as specialized applications such as NiK's Silver Efex Pro.

 

[snerd]

If you're shooting raw, then nothing is lost, no, however, most in-camera monochrome processing is nowhere near as good as specialized applications such as NiK's Silver Efex Pro.

Thanks. I shoot only raw. So if I know I want b&w, it doesn't make any difference if I shoot color or monochrome in-camera? Yes, I do have Silver Efex Pro II.

 

[IzzieK]

One thing I had recently learned is that when you intend to shoot in B/W, try to think in B/W how the shot is going to turn up or happened. Then shoot in colour and RAW, then you have more leeway to play with.

 

[sscarmack]

RAW > Color > Convert to Black and white > Sliders, Red, Yellow, blah blah blah

 

[TCampbell]

If you're shooting raw, then nothing is lost, no, however, most in-camera monochrome processing is nowhere near as good as specialized applications such as NiK's Silver Efex Pro.

Thanks. I shoot only raw. So if I know I want b&w, it doesn't make any difference if I shoot color or monochrome in-camera? Yes, I do have Silver Efex Pro II.

When you shoot using B+W film you could thread colored filters onto your lens ... this might be a bit baffling... why thread on a colored filter when you are shooting black & white film which cannot see the color anyway?

The answer is... it's because light is composed of all the colors. When you use a colored filter, you are blocking the colors which do NOT match the color of your filter. The filters aren't 100% efficient (a red filter does let through a little of the non-red light... but MOSTLY red light goes through the filter. If something is "red" in the scene and use use a "red" filter (lets use a stereotypical red fire-hydrant) then that "red" object will appear to be very bright (near white on the b&w tonality of the image).

Suppose I put a "green" filter on a lens to shoot a B&W landscape shot. Since there's lots of green foliage in the grasses and leaves that light will mostly pass through unimpeded -- in other words you get a high delivery of light from green sources when you use a green filter. Since the black & white film is converting everything to a gray scale... when you get a lot of any light it just shows up as brighter tonality... things closer to white. But the sky isn't green... it's blue. So the sky will be darkened somewhat in contrast to the grasses in the foreground. Suppose I want to darken the grasses and the sky but bring out the rocky bits of the landscape. I might use a red filter because the red hues of the rocks will appear brighter but the skies will be darkened (because they're blue) and the grasses will be darkened) because they're green.

The next question is: How do you know what to do at the time you are shooting?

Well you can use experience and learn from mistakes. OR... you can just shoot RAW (in color) and then use your computer to try all the different conversion processes after you shoot.

You own NIK Silfer Efex which is a VERY good B&W conversion and processing program/plug-in. This allows you to just collect everything and then make your decisions later and not regret being locked in by a less optimal conversion process.

Lastly.... just to help you make more sense of this, I'll show a real-world example.

A while ago (this may have been last year or the year before) I took an image of an old electric generator.

Here's the actual color image of the object just so you can see what it looks like:


B&W Conversion Example - Original Color by Tim Campbell1, on Flickr

Notice it's painted red.

Here's the "straight" b&w white conversion (this is not a different photo... it's the same color photo you saw before, but it's been converted.)


B&W Conversion Example - Straight Conversion by Tim Campbell1, on Flickr

So that's not super contrasty -- it's just a straight conversion. But notice the red parts of the engine come out this middle-ish gray tone.

NOW... watch what happens when we use a "red" filter to do the B&W conversion:


B&W Conversion Example - Red Filter by Tim Campbell1, on Flickr

Notice the red painted parts of the engine appear to be practically white. So white, actually... that they're practically blown out (even though in the original color photo you could see that the image was not blown out.)

Now I'll show you one more conversion... this time I'm doing a green filter on the conversion.


B&W Conversion Example - Green Filter by Tim Campbell1, on Flickr

Notice that now the red painted parts of the generator have a deep charcoal tone.

Which one is best? Well that's up to you. The point is, had we done the conversion in-camera we would have been locked in. Since I opted to shoot RAW and convert later, I got to play with the conversion choices. In this case, if I'm going for an industrial machine look, the white look created by using the red filter doesn't look as industrial as the charcoal look of the machine I got when using the green filter. But at least I have options.

Regards,
Tim

 

[snerd]

Very informative! Thank you everyone! That's pretty much how I've been doing it, the couple of times I've tried. I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't doing it backwards. I've yet to figure out how you all get those contrasty, very clear results, though! Great conversions above!

 

[480sparky]

ALWAYS convert in post. Most camera merely desaturate the image. That's about the worst method available.

Shoot raw, so you have the most data to work with in post. There's a gojillion ways to convert in post, depending on your software.

 

[Civchic]

Tim, thank you for your post - that was VERY informative, and helped me understand waaaaay more about B&W conversion.