B/W Question

[Philhorn]

Do people feel that taking digital photo's with your DSLR in the B/W setting produces better contrast that simply changing a colour shot to B/W. I'm thinking about if the starting point for post production brings better final results or no better.
Thanks

[OsmosisStudios]

When you make a colour picture into a black and white in post, you need to do more than just lower saturation.

There are countless tutorials on how to properly transform a colour photo to black and white, so I won't google any: most are pretty good.

That being said, even B/W film has a tendency to be very un constrasty at times, especially if it's over-exposed by more than 1/3 of a stop. I always digitally alter my B/W photos, be they film or digital.

Originally Posted by Philhorn

Do people feel that taking digital photo's with your DSLR in the B/W setting produces better contrast that simply changing a colour shot to B/W.

Nope.

~Eric

[dcclark]

Right. I always take the shot in color, then convert to B&W using Gimp's channel mixer, plus some curves/contrast adjustments. That can produce a much more dramatic and contrasty effect than just using your camera's defaults.

[FoG]

Originally Posted by Philhorn

Do people feel that taking digital photo's with your DSLR in the B/W setting produces better contrast that simply changing a colour shot to B/W. I'm thinking about if the starting point for post production brings better final results or no better.
Thanks

I tried my Black and white setting for the first time the other day and although the pic was ok it had a slightly over exposed feel to it when I reduced this it was still just ok ... I took the same shot in colour and messed about with in PP and BINGO it got the wow factor...

I think to get a picture right in B&W with instant WOW takes some practice and knowledge so practice practice practice

[zarquon]

I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with this, but I was told once that if you want to do B/W photography with a dSLR, take all your photos in RAW, that gives you the greatest control over the output. NEVER shoot in any sort of color mode from your camera, you can reproduce any one of them from your PC, doing so only limits your output options.

[FoG]

Originally Posted by zarquon

I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with this, but I was told once that if you want to do B/W photography with a dSLR, take all your photos in RAW, that gives you the greatest control over the output. NEVER shoot in any sort of color mode from your camera, you can reproduce any one of them from your PC, doing so only limits your output options.

I dinne have RAW capability so did not know that if it is true. I know RAW saves more bits in colour and that is about it ... but surely shooting in RAW and colur gives more options or do on of each and the play in PP to see which works best anyhoo

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by zarquon

I'm not sure if anyone else agrees with this, but I was told once that if you want to do B/W photography with a dSLR, take all your photos in RAW, that gives you the greatest control over the output. NEVER shoot in any sort of color mode from your camera, you can reproduce any one of them from your PC, doing so only limits your output options.

Most cameras wont allow you to use colour modes and such if youre shooting RAW.

[zarquon]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Most cameras wont allow you to use colour modes and such if youre shooting RAW.

I must have merged the two, shoot raw if you can, but if you shoot JPEG, always shoot in normal color mode, do any effects you want in PP.

Same thing you'd do with video.

[BryanC]

...This thread has me really curious about some things. I have a Sony a200 dslr that came bundled with it's own software: Sony Image Data Converter. I shoot pretty much exclusively in Raw format. When I upload my images from the camera, this is the program that's used to open them.
... To start with, in Raw format, I can shoot in any of the color or 'creative styles', as it's termed in camera, that the camera has to offer: Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape, Night View, Sunset, B&W, or Adobe RGB. And for each of these settings, there is Contrast, Saturation and Sharpness settings. In addition to these, there are White Balance controls, D RangeOptimizer settings, Color Temperature and Color Filter settings, and Noise Reduction controls. All of these can be set in camera, in Raw mode.
... When I upload images to the computer, and open them in the Image Data Converter, all of the above settings are available to me, in addition to a few more (Tone Curves, cropping, etc). I can change the camera settings in the program, which I assume is using the sensor data, to alter the images as if those settings were used when the image was taken.
... As an example for this particular discussion, I can shoot an image in color, in Raw, upload it, and convert to b&w. I can also take an image in b&w, upload it, and convert it to color. Again, I'm assuming since it's in Raw, it's using the sensor data to do this. I have done comparison shots and see no difference in the images.
... After discovering this capability, I keep the little detail settings on either 'auto' or at zero value. I then do the tweaking when uploaded. I couldn't imagine having to play around with all of those settings in camera while out shooting different subjects, in changing conditions. If I'm purposely shooting for b&w images, I will put the camera in that mode. It's more of a mental thing, seeing them in b&w on the LCD, getting the feel for what I'm accomplishing. Knowing, at least it seems so, that the sensor is still capturing all of the data it can.
... So I guess the curious part is, do Nikons, Canons, etc...have these capabilties or is this a 'Sony thing'? Do they come bundled with Raw software like this? It's something I haven't really heard mentioned, and there's been so much discussion regarding shooting in Raw vs. Jpeg, where there's been the certain opinions that 'Raw' is a pain, too much work, etc., etc., etc., that it makes me scratch my head sometimes. After uploading my images to the computer, I can do all of these tweaks while still in Raw, and then save as Raw, or either Tiff 8 or 16 bit, or 4 different levels of Jpeg quality and compression.
... I have rambled on enough, but as I said, was very curious if the other brands have these capabilities.