BW Conversion help?

[ShSutherly]

I took this picture of my children on a camping trip last weekend and decided that I wanted to try to convert it to black and white.




EXIF info
Canon Rebel XTi
35mm
f2.0
1/3200 sec

I have a couple of issues with the way that it turned out.
It seems more grey and white rather than black and white?
Is the baby's face too washed out?
Should I ditch the vignette?
The baby had some dirt on the palm of her hand that I had not really noticed on the color version (can post the color if any interest) that I tried my best to edit out. Can you tell?
Anything else I can do to make this photo better?

Thanks so much for your help!

[RecurrentNerve]

If it was literally black and white you'd have no shading - even though it's called black and white it's actually greyscale. You can have very grey, flat B&W images with little contrast, but this isn't the case with this shot - you have some true blacks and whites in there which is great.

As for the vignette, I'd reduce it a bit but not remove it completely.

[ShSutherly]

Originally Posted by RecurrentNerve

If it was literally black and white you'd have no shading - even though it's called black and white it's actually greyscale. You can have very grey, flat B&W images with little contrast, but this isn't the case with this shot - you have some true blacks and whites in there which is great.

As for the vignette, I'd reduce it a bit but not remove it completely.

Thank you!

This photo was looking a little grey to me but that is possibly just the too-heavy vignette. I'm glad you don't think it is too flat looking!

[MrJones]

Beautifull photo... I would leave it just the way it is.