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Lev Bronstein

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Robin
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Now normally I would take a picture in colour and convert to BW using software and then, also using software. add any filter effects - eg red.

But, suppose I want to deliberately take a BW pic. As far as I can gather there are four options:-
1) The above.
2) Set camera to BW and use software for filter effects.
3) Set camera to BW and use "onboard" filters.
4) Set camera to BW and use optical filters eg Cokin.

I've no idea if there's any difference in the above options, but my instinct would be 4. That is play around with the light entering the camera rather than play around with the copy of the light.

Any ideas?
 
foodpoison said:
But you wouldn't be playing around with the light entering the camera, as the camera just processes the JPEG image to remove any colour from it, ie monochrome.
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Yes, when shooting monochrome film you can, for instance use a yellow filter to darken blues and make clouds stand out or a red filter to almost turn blue into black.
Options like that would not be open to you when shooting B&W on a digital camera.
 
Personally I'd shoot raw+jpeg with the camera set to B+W, that way you see the pic on the camera back as B+W, the jpegs B+W but you have a full colour raw for playing with later. You can then make a number of different versions of the same shot, and keep your options open.
 
Lev Bronstein said:
cheers folks, I'll try swanners idea.
Click to expand...

That will work fine, and gives you so many options. But there is an advantage to using optical filters, even if it's largely theoretical.

When you apply monochrome filter effects in post processing, what you are effectively doing is forcing up the exposure level in underexposed areas. This creates noise, which will be noticeable if you want a strong effect.

If you do this instead with an optical filter, say a red to really darken skies and lighten grass, you would increase the exposure by maybe two stops. The extra exposure at the time of taking suppresses the noise.

I've never done this myself with digital and TBH I'm thinking this is rather more hypothetical than an actual problem, but it does make sense to shoot at lowest ISO so that any amplified noise is minimised, and perhaps also 'expose to the right' of the histogram.
 
foodpoison said:
The discussion isn't about monochrome film :thumbs:
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And TBH what Arclight said also isn't true - if you apply an optical filter with digital, like the yellow one suggested, it will have exactly the same effect as it would with film.
 
HoppyUK said:
And TBH what Arclight said also isn't true - if you apply an optical filter with digital, like the yellow one suggested, it will have exactly the same effect as it would with film.
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Think I can see where you are coming from.
If you shoot digital colour with a yellow filter you'll produce an image with an overall yellow cast. If you then convert to B&W that yellow cast will serve to darken blues (and lighten yellows).

Similarly if you shoot in B&W (letting the camera do the conversion to B&W as you shoot) the same should happen.

Is that your thinking on this?

I no longer have yellow or red filters otherwise I'd try it.
 
arclight said:
Think I can see where you are coming from.
If you shoot digital colour with a yellow filter you'll produce an image with an overall yellow cast. If you then convert to B&W that yellow cast will serve to darken blues (and lighten yellows).

Similarly if you shoot in B&W (letting the camera do the conversion to B&W as you shoot) the same should happen.

Is that your thinking on this?

I no longer have yellow or red filters otherwise I'd try it.
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Yes, it's exactly as you've described :)

Actually you don't need to convert to black & white to see the filter effect. If you do a custom white balance with the yellow filter on, the image you'll get will have darker blues and lighter yellows. And that is something you can't do with film.
 
HoppyUK said:
Yes, it's exactly as you've described :)

Actually you don't need to convert to black & white to see the filter effect. If you do a custom white balance with the yellow filter on, the image you'll get will have darker blues and lighter yellows. And that is something you can't do with film.
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Thanks for that. Most usefull. New possibilities opened up. I'll get yellow and red filters to make dramatic B&W skies "in camera".
Re-living old techniques!
 
shoot as colour then convert
i do this and then have a colour and black to white material

i dont do a lot of black to white so cant really comment on in camera processing but am happy with converting and using filtration to get the desired effect with software

and you can vary the 'mood' with the colour temperature settings...sepia etc
 
arclight said:
Thanks for that. Most usefull. New possibilities opened up. I'll get yellow and red filters to make dramatic B&W skies "in camera".
Re-living old techniques!
Click to expand...

Cool :)

I've just tried it with a red filter (actually a red cellophane sweet wrapper I use as a flash gel). Shooting in colour, I used custom white balance to try and neutralise the red cast to see what actually happens with a pic of some coloured packets and tins from the kitchen. Reds went light pink or yellow, greens went dark or black, but strangely blue went more mauve than dark :thinking:

I guess that's maybe because custom white balance, intended to sort out relatively small colour shifts in the light source, doesn't have the full range of adjustments that would be available in post processing. I had a grey card in shot and that wasn't quite neutralised by the CWB setting.

So, anyway, the theory works and gives some good effects in black & white. Playing around in colour as I did seems like a waste of time - it just robs the pic of bright clear colours and looks generally flat and naff.
 
HoppyUK said:
Cool :)

I've just tried it with a red filter (actually a red cellophane sweet wrapper I use as a flash gel). Shooting in colour, I used custom white balance to try and neutralise the red cast to see what actually happens with a pic of some coloured packets and tins from the kitchen. Reds went light pink or yellow, greens went dark or black, but strangely blue went more mauve than dark :thinking:

I guess that's maybe because custom white balance, intended to sort out relatively small colour shifts in the light source, doesn't have the full range of adjustments that would be available in post processing. I had a grey card in shot and that wasn't quite neutralised by the CWB setting.

So, anyway, the theory works and gives some good effects in black & white. Playing around in colour as I did seems like a waste of time - it just robs the pic of bright clear colours and looks generally flat and naff.
Click to expand...

Good on all that - interesting.
 
:(
filters wont fit on my boy racer
 
Filters is the way, I sometimes use some cokin red/orange then take the saturation to nothing to make it black and white during PP.

A circular polariser will add even more to a red filter for clouds with bits of blue sky.

Looking though a filter (ie red) also helps compose the image as you are seeing it as mono though the view finder, it's strange how differently it makes you look at the compositation.... makes you think how it will look after PP.
 
Gaz81 said:
Filters is the way, I sometimes use some cokin red/orange then take the saturation to nothing to make it black and white during PP.

A circular polariser will add even more to a red filter for clouds with bits of blue sky.

Looking though a filter (ie red) also helps compose the image as you are seeing it as mono though the view finder, it's strange how differently it makes you look at the compositation.... makes you think how it will look after PP.
Click to expand...

Used to be able to get a panchromatic filter that was the same proportion as a 35mm frame. Purely handheld thing that let you view the scene/subjet in monochrome.
 
Gaz81 said:
Could use a cheap 48mm red filter from 7dayshop for a few quid?
Click to expand...

Don't know if that has the same effect.
Panchromatic filters were grey (can still get them, but cannot find rectangular ones now) and they correctly showed the tonal separation in a B&W scene.
 
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