b+w photography

[draconianstudios]

are there any tricks/techniques for black and white photography

[draconianstudios]

this is the best of what i have tried

[OsmosisStudios]

The trick to black and white is getting the highlights and shadows right. Most B/W shots are simply desaturated colour shots, so there's no real black or white, just shades of grey

I personally prefer the Channels method: eliminate two of the three RGB channels and you end up with quite dramatic shots, as linked below.

Roadtrip To Nowhere 1 by ~OsmosisStudios on deviantART

[kencaleno]

If your camera will let you-shoot in black and white. But first you must learn to see in black and white-for instance primary colors share the same tone of grey and secondary colors also share a same tone of grey-By using filters:Red,Green,Orange, you can control some contrast. Red filter (Wratten 29) produces black sky emphasising clouds, Red (wratten 25) - not quite so harsh-almost black skies-Orange filter is a good medium range filter-once used by black and white portrait photographer to tone down freckles.Green filter is a good landscape filter,which can separate green areas into suitable tones. Blue filter is hardly ever used,it becomes a haze maker,and yellow filter makes hardly any difference.

Regards, Ken

[OsmosisStudios]

Ken, while your information is pretty spot-on, it hardly applies to Digital work. All the filter effects youve mentioned can be effectively re-created in postwork.

[kencaleno]

No, the filtering needs to happen before taking the shot-for post-processing,if you take shot using blue filter,or tungsten white balance this renders a better image after post processing-as a blue filter is useless if you are taking shot in black and white-reduces contrast, and creates haze. Ken

[inkista]

Start with this tutorial and explanation. Be sure to play with the mouse-over examples of how different color filters affect the same image.

Converting a Digital Color Photo into Black and White

And shoot in B&W on your camera, so you can review what you took in B&W (B&W visualization is a whole 'nother skillset), but make sure you're shooting in RAW. Digital post-processing and RAW gives us the ability to use any color filter combination we want after the picture is taken.

If you shoot RAW, even with your camera set to B&W, you will be retaining the full color information captured by the camera. You can even revert the image back to full color if you change your mind. With JPEG, the color information will have been discarded, and you can no longer do the digital magic filter thing.

[nicotine]

In my opinion if you really, truly want to understand b&w you need to go out and shoot some b&w film.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by kencaleno

No, the filtering needs to happen before taking the shot-for post-processing,if you take shot using blue filter,or tungsten white balance this renders a better image after post processing-as a blue filter is useless if you are taking shot in black and white-reduces contrast, and creates haze. Ken

Im sorry, but no.

If you take a look at the shot I linked to, it was shot without a filter. I was able to get a Red-Filter look by removing both the Blue and Green channels once in Post and by tweaking colours prior in my RAW developer. If you shoot with a coloured filter on a dSLR, youre just going to confuse the WB system and end up with strange tones.

[kencaleno]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Im sorry, but no.

If you take a look at the shot I linked to, it was shot without a filter. I was able to get a Red-Filter look by removing both the Blue and Green channels once in Post and by tweaking colours prior in my RAW developer. If you shoot with a coloured filter on a dSLR, youre just going to confuse the WB system and end up with strange tones.

Ok, try this take a predominantly green shot,(forest,mountains etc.,) and try to separate the green tones,as you can when using a green filter when taking in black and white mode.Ken