Lets see your X-Pro1, X-E1 Black and White photos

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GaryLH said:
Ezzie

Looks like u have really bonded with your xe1. Some really nice body of work. Btw how are u post processing your b&w?

Gary
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Thank you Gary. Not that I put much stock into being Explored on Flickr, I must admit I find it a bit encouraging I should have three in a row, the three last pictures I've posted in this thread, all with the X-E1.
 
GaryLH said:
Ezzie

Looks like u have really bonded with your xe1. Some really nice body of work. Btw how are u post processing your b&w?

Gary
Click to expand...

Regarding the processing. So far I have been using the JPEGs, not the RAW files. I hate having to go through another step when processing, as Aperture does not support the RAW files yet.

I set the camera to standard film simulation (Provia) and DR to 100, sometimes DR200 if especially contrasty scene. I set Highlights to -1 and Shadows to +1 to have a little bit to play with in PP. NR to -1 and sharpening to -1. JPEG fine of course.

In Aperture I first convert to B+W. The standard settings are Red +30, Green+59 and Blue +11. I tend to bring down green a bit and increase red for landscapes, but leave more or less alone for most other types of images. You can of course simulate colour filters by bringing one or more channels way up or down. I then adjust contrast by using the histogram view, rather than curves, by re-setting white and black points, and adjusting gamma, and 1/4 and 3/4 gamma until I get a tonal spectrum I am happy with.

I sharpen to 0.75 or 1.00 radius and 1.00 intensity. But may on occasion sharpen just parts of the picture selectively. I also dodge and burn on occassion when I want to protect other areas from blowing or blocking. As with the bath house above, the house came out a shade too grey, whilst the rest of the whites were white enough. So I dodged the house rather than bring up the highlights in general.

And since I often shoot with B+W in mind I use grad colour filters to increase contrast between sky and clouds, no matter that it ruins any chance of a good colour capture.
 
Hi Helen

There´s a 1.5x crop factor to consider. So the 18 is more or less equiv to a 28, and the 35 is more or less equiv to a 52. I also use legacy lenses, the 30/3.5 M42 Pentacon, 50/2.5 LTM Color Skopar and the 90/2.8 M-Hexanon most notably. They all work well. Unfortunately my favourite lens, the Ultron 28/1.9 does not work that well on the X-series sensors. Unless stopped down considerably there is a lot of edge smearing.
 
Ezzie said:
Regarding the processing. So far I have been using the JPEGs, not the RAW files. I hate having to go through another step when processing, as Aperture does not support the RAW files yet.

I set the camera to standard film simulation (Provia) and DR to 100, sometimes DR200 if especially contrasty scene. I set Highlights to -1 and Shadows to +1 to have a little bit to play with in PP. NR to -1 and sharpening to -1. JPEG fine of course.

In Aperture I first convert to B+W. The standard settings are Red +30, Green+59 and Blue +11. I tend to bring down green a bit and increase red for landscapes, but leave more or less alone for most other types of images. You can of course simulate colour filters by bringing one or more channels way up or down. I then adjust contrast by using the histogram view, rather than curves, by re-setting white and black points, and adjusting gamma, and 1/4 and 3/4 gamma until I get a tonal spectrum I am happy with.

I sharpen to 0.75 or 1.00 radius and 1.00 intensity. But may on occasion sharpen just parts of the picture selectively. I also dodge and burn on occassion when I want to protect other areas from blowing or blocking. As with the bath house above, the house came out a shade too grey, whilst the rest of the whites were white enough. So I dodged the house rather than bring up the highlights in general.

And since I often shoot with B+W in mind I use grad colour filters to increase contrast between sky and clouds, no matter that it ruins any chance of a good colour capture.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the aperture settings.. Will give them a try to c how they compare to my current settings. I have not tried gamma setting on aperture before. Will give this a go.

Gary
 
Hi Gary

Once you get the hang of adjusting the levels, you can start playing around with mid-tone controls (highlights and shadows) to get more contrast in the middle of the tonal range. Sometimes may give a flat image more snap. But to begin with, this is where you will find levels (red circle). Make sure to tick off for 1/4 and 3/4 gamma controls too (green circle).
 

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Very basic processing and conversion to BW in C1, then cropped and minor adjustments in LR4. A bit of a pain using two editors, but the results are good.

Kirk
 
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