B&W techniques

kevvhayes

Hi all,
I've not really been taking photos all that long but id love to start taking more b&w. I use a nikon d60 and have a few lenses. Can anyone give me some advice on what settings to use for taking strong, vivid sharp shots? is there a rule of thumb for correct apperture and shutter speeds that i should be following? any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Kev.

JayEnnis

You want white whites and black blacks with some midtones sprinkled in. Curves + Dodging and burning are your best friends when it comes to b&w.

charybdis

JayEnnis wrote: »

You want white whites and black blacks with some midtones sprinkled in. Curves + Dodging and burning are your best friends when it comes to b&w.

Know how to use your camera and recognise interesting light.

positivenote

follow the light meters advice as every situation has a different amount of light needed to provide a correct exposure, and from there its up to you if you want to open up that appature (decrease your depth of field) and let the amount of light required in for a recomended shutter speed.... or revers the process and expose with a smaller apature for a longer shutter speed. THats my advice anyways

charybdis

positivenote wrote: »

follow the light meters advice as every situation has a different amount of light needed to provide a correct exposure, and from there its up to you if you want to open up that appature (decrease your depth of field) and let the amount of light required in for a recomended shutter speed.... or revers the process and expose with a smaller apature for a longer shutter speed. THats my advice anyways

I recommend you do not do this.

Learn how to use your camera on manual exposure mode and meter for different lighting. It probably won't make your photographs better right away, but it will force you to be more aware of light and how it will appear in the final image.

There is no such thing as "correct exposure".

daycent

Your PP skills will be important here. There's a thousand and one ways to convert to B&W, you'll just have to experiment to find a way you like (the general consensus is that it's better to shoot in colour, then convert).

JayEnnis

daycent wrote: »

Your PP skills will be important here. There's a thousand and one ways to convert to B&W, you'll just have to experiment to find a way you like (the general consensus is that it's better to shoot in colour, then convert).

This is definitely true, but if you shoot RAW you can set your camera to b&w to assess the potential first. When you process the file it will revert back to the original colour image.

daycent

JayEnnis wrote: »

You want white whites and black blacks with some midtones sprinkled in. Curves + Dodging and burning are your best friends when it comes to b&w.

Selective dodging and burning is definitely one of the key things to a great b&w. That and Silver Efex Pro

Iwannahurl

I have a Sony A700. There may be in-camera differences with Mono pre-sets that I can't comment on.

Your options are (1) use a Mono pre-set or (2) shoot in colour RAW/JPEG and convert.

I like to use my own Mono pre-set occasionally. Other times I convert. It depends on many factors, including whether a colour photo (or an actual scene) looks right for B&W. That's a very subjective and personal thing -- you'll need to work out your own preferences.

The reason I use my Mono pre-set is that I have a nostalgic fondness for grainy old film (I used to like Ilford). I find setting the ISO to 2000, tweaking contrast in-camera and bracketing by shooting three exposures below, at and over the meter reading gives me good results when the light is right. I also use old fast film lenses, which requires care with lighting.





Conversion from colour to mono is a whole subject in itself. If you're using Photoshop (I can only afford Elements!) then I strongly recommend Guy Gowan's conversion methods. Guy is The Man, IMO, and his mono technique is very high order. With PS you're talking many more tone levels than Ansel Adams ever dreamed of. General tip: when converting an image to mono, don't use a method that just dumps all your original colour data.

positivenote

charybdis wrote: »

There is no such thing as "correct exposure".

but there is such a thing as incorrect exposure

CabanSail

Three easy steps;

1/ Learn about exposure and then how to intuitively control it with your camera.

2/ Adjust your eyes to see a scene in Tones/Contrast and shoot accordingly.

3/ Practice processing and printing the captured image to get the required range of tones and contrast that the image requires.


This has been the same for many decades.

With Film you may have to consider filters to adjust the density of various colours. The most common is a Yellow - Red filter to get darker skies. In digital you shoot in colour (preferably RAW) and this way you have every filter combination available to you to apply in Post Production.
I too use the Guy Gowan methods to process my Mono's as it's non-destructive and has loads of control. You can add "Grain" in PP and do it in a more organic way than the look of digital noise. Noise and Grain manifest in different ways. In digital it's across the image and shows up a lot more in the deep shadows. On film it mainly appears in the mid tones and is not evident in the highlights and shadows. There are PP techniques to acheive this.

charybdis

positivenote wrote: »

but there is such a thing as incorrect exposure

Arguably there isn't, and falsifiability cannot prove the contrary.

Iwannahurl

Which of these images were shot on digital and which on film?

CabanSail

It can be very hard to tell.

I would guess at;

Digital
Film
Digital
Digital (?)
Film

Probably all wrong.

JayEnnis

Digital
Digital
Film
Film
Digital

Edit: There's a slight difference between noise and grain, that's how I figured most of it out + the dynamic range of some of them is higher. Still though its very hard to tell, let us know soon!

challengemaster

JayEnnis wrote: »

Digital
Digital
Film
Film
Digital

Edit: There's a slight difference between noise and grain, that's how I figured most of it out + the dynamic range of some of them is higher. Still though its very hard to tell, let us know soon!

You're right...

I figured it out a different way - check the exif (or lack of) on pix.ie

Iwannahurl

challengemaster wrote: »

You're right...

I figured it out a different way - check the exif (or lack of) on pix.ie

Cheat!

Correct.

I had written a much longer reply, didn't Ctrl+C as a saver, and then Boards bombed.

The gist of it was that IMO you can use high ISO and a mono pre-set on digital as a quick and dirty way to get an acceptable graininess that's not a million pixels away from images shot originally on film. Plus you have the added advantage of being able to shoot hand held in available light.

Guy using his laptop during someone else's presentation at a conference:

challengemaster

Works especially well if you've a 5D (not sure about the mk2) - unreal at high iso

jaybeeveedub

JayEnnis wrote: »

This is definitely true, but if you shoot RAW you can set your camera to b&w to assess the potential first. When you process the file it will revert back to the original colour image.

This is what I miss most about moving from 5d to 1dsmkiii

i do try and keep chimping to a minimum but I did like being able to review in b&w but have the raw on the card.....