Share Your B/W Settings

[alienmeatsack]

Hi all. I am, at heart, a film guy, I love the massive variations that one can get in B/W film photography based on the film I use, the developer I use, the dilution, the filters and so on.

I just purchased my first proper digital mirror-less, an X-E2, and I would love to see what setups you each use to take B/W photos and why.

I realize some of you might have a special formula with all things tweaked just so and not want to share, but those of you who can, please post all of the settings you use for your Custom Setting and/or the general settings like ISO, BW mode, if you use the built in filters or use a real actual filter, contrast and tone settings etc. And perhaps some examples of them and a little background on why you use that look.

I've seen shots here and elsewhere where the photography used a very high ISO to get lots of noise, adjusted the sharpness and tone to make it harsher and so forth. So what do you use and why?

I've played with the settings and I so far have yet to find a combo that really thrills me. I am a big fan of strong contrast like is achieved using Dektol or Liquidol on a film stock with some grain in it.

So, with that said... your turn. Share your magic. Please and thank you!

(If this thread has been done I couldn't find it...)

 

[alienmeatsack]

I guess I should have been more specific, I was talking about in-camera settings. Like for example what you use for your Q Menu/Custom Settings for taking grainy high contrast or soft muted BW photos and why.

I've got an assortment of BW filters via LightRoom and DXO's FilmPak, plus I can make adjustments in Photoshop or Lightroom myself. But I want to figure out the in-camera method so I can understand how to get what I'm looking for as I shoot. And also understand your methods for same.

If you use nothing but computer based adjustments via filters, that's fine too. I just was aiming more for the in-camera stuff for this thread. 😀

I've been using the 6400 ISO setting, BW/r (i think) and bumping the shadow and highlight tone up and then using the flash bent back to bounce and force high contrast to get the look I want but it's still not quite there. I think I may try turning off the Noise Reduction and maybe try just using JPGs since I can get the even higher ISOs for more noise. It's not the same as grain but it's kind of what I'm looking for.

 

[back alley]

i convert in pse…camera is set for raw/fine jpeg...

 

[alienmeatsack]

back alley - I use Fine/RAW myself, which means like you I end up with a BW shot and a color shot with all the data. I do wish that the RAW file was a duplicate of the JPG so I didn't have to convert. I'll have to try to build a replica of the look I want in BW in LR and using plugins to see if I can find the right means to replace the JPG's look in the raw form to get what I want I guess.

cug - thanks for sharing! I'll have to try those on mine and see what I get. I think I'm going to just have to make settings, try, repeat with changes, and see what the results I get that I like are. Having 7 places to store everything makes it easy to try lots of ideas. I'm still getting the color side how i want too.

For post-conversion, I have DXO's Film Pack 3 Essentials from when it was free from Sony and it does a bang up job. I just hope to find something in-camera to do the job. I'd shoot JPG Fine if I could for BW to get the right look.

I have kind of two styles of BW I like... Dark blacks, high contrast, deep shadows, sharp... and the more "standard" BW with slightly more mellow tones across the board, almost grey. But I love all BW across the board so it's hard to say what I like more one over the other.

I did some playing yesterday with it and I found that for enclosed spaces or closer images, adding in a flash held up to bounce off the surroundings helps to add in the extra pop I like. I've not tried my plethora of new and old external flashes yet, as so far the tiny little built in one seems to work pretty well. It's capable of lighting my living from in total darkness even on smaller apertures.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Try the in-camera B&W Yellow option for outdoors. Nice skies.

 

[willie_901]

You state your enjoy "massive variations" possible with film processing. You also want to prefer using in-camera jpegs for B&W work.

Starting with raw files greatly expands the possible variations for B&W work. Even in-camera raw processing is better than then relying on the more convenient custom settings menu.

 

[blackfriday]

I guess I should have been more specific, I was talking about in-camera settings. Like for example what you use for your Q Menu/Custom Settings for taking grainy high contrast or soft muted BW photos and why.

My favorite settings are

B/W +R
Highlights +2
Shadows +2
Sharpness +1
Noise reduction -2 (X-Pro), -1 (X100)

I remember Damien Lovegrove talking about these settings in another forum some time ago....Love more contrast in my black and whites

 

[nongfuspring]

NR -2

All BW work done in Photoshop since I'm able to convert to BW by adjusting individual colour channels. IMO far better to have flexible files OOC than baked in BW JPEGS. Having BW mode in the camera is nice for giving a general impression, but no match for PP in any decent editing software.

 

[alienmeatsack]

blackfriday - noted and will try them, thanks!

cug - so what you are saying is to compare the JPG and the RAW from in camera and see what is actually done in camera to it to make it have the BW look I want and then replicate that in LR (or Aperture which I don't use sadly) instead of doing it in camera? Confused. Sorry. I just woke up so...

I was acutally trying to do that sort of. From another direction. I have some BW filters I like that I was trying to figure a way to detail what LR was doing to them via the plugin and make that happen in camera. I just dont see a way to get the amount of detail in the raw file to all the settings to happen in camera.

nongfuspring - I've been playing with the others suggestions as well as trying my own and shooting similar shots to see what I get. I can get some pretty interesting results in camera.

I think I am just trying to get closer to my LR results/final results visually in camera as I can. Coming from a more film background, I think "How can I shoot this, what film should I use, what developer?" to get a look. I am not as much used to just shooting then making it look how i like post processing. Since in the film world, at least to me, once it's developed I only do minimal work to it before posting or being "done" with it.

Having a nice digital in the mix has thrown my film brain into a wierd place it's not sure of. I've done lots of digital in the past but never really tried to make my brain work all the angles how I should.

I've noticed that changing a handful of the BW settings for tone/shadow/highlight/sharpness can have a dramatic effect on a shot in camera. Starting to slowly grasp the way they work. I hope to maybe have 3 different BW settings I can use to at least get close to visually what I want the result to be when shooting. Then make changes post processing as needed.

I like shooting BW as BW and thinking of it as such in film, but with digital I can take it one step further and make it visually BW to me so I Can see in BW as I shoot. I dig that.

 

[rbelyell]

i know exactly where youre coming from, but i do think its difficult, if not impossible, to have settings appropriate to all situations. first of all, 'look' is subjective, and the one i love, you might hate. then, imo, different subjects require different settings. if i have people as my main subject, i really like the green filter and less contrast, landscapes maybe a red or yellow filter and much stronger contrast. i always have my NR to lowest setting. i also find in low light situations with people subjects i like the look i get from spot metering.

imo, what you are trying to achieve is all about trial and error, taking many many shots with different settings, much experimentation (just like you did with film and developing) and really really knowing your camera. i dont think there are any real shortcuts.

on the raw vs jpeg thing, everyones entitled to their opinion, and theres no 'right' answer or both option wouldnt exist. for me, im not a pro, im a hobbyist and my hobby is taking pictures not spending hours in front of a computer. i actually like PP, but to round out, not reconstruct, my photos. my pov is im paying in large part for the engineering brainpower that went into designing a jpeg engine that i like, as in the x100. i want to immediately see what i consider a pleasing result. i like seeing bw when im shooting bw. with this cam and todays tech and engineering, if its your desired choice, theres no impediment to getting from jpegs exactly what you want. again, thats an individual choice we all make from a subjective interpretation of our own trial and error.

 

[alienmeatsack]

The really really knowing the camera thing is the part that will come with use. It's my first digital (besides my Nikon) that I've had in a long time and used regularly.

I've spent so much time learning film ways (and still have a long way to go in that world too) but I'm just trying to find my happy medium for shooting in digital and with the X-E2.

I am sure that this will change as I use and learn but I figure some of you have been using the X system cameras for a long time and have sage advice and input that I can use to my advantage 😀

 

[alienmeatsack]

I think I want a little both both ways. I want to understand one vs the other and how to do a look between the two... and replicate it later.

But I also want to do things new ways as well. I am taking full advantage of the Custom settings placements in the Q menu on the X-E2 for sure, I keep changing around what's there as I play with images.

I think when the weather gets less cold later this week I may take a bunch of the notes here and go out and do some duplicate shoots to see what I can get and what happens with the changes. And maybe shoot some film of the same shots too for comparison.

 

[daveleo]

The easiest will be for you to look up how to process a RAW file in-camera. Then you can take a single photo and apply all the various setting combinations to it and see how it turns out.

Check page 66 in the X-E2 manual.

I adopted this approach with my X100 and its works wonderfully for me.

 

[alienmeatsack]

Thanks, I will try the in camera RAW manipulation stuff. I had seen it could do that but I'd not even tried yet.

Having used the X100s for a week, I kind of just lept right into this body when it arrived and am still digging inside to learn all the fun stuff. 😀

 

[alienmeatsack]

I am finding LightRoom's conversion of my B/W in-camera shots to color and wholly ignoring my B/W settings to be extremely frustrating.

I have 2 settings I use and like currently based on stuff suggested here. My JPGs are what I shoot, but as soon as LR generates the thumbnail for the raw file, it's color. Changing it to BW in LR doesn't make it look like it did. Grr.

The only solution is to import the JPG of those files, which negates the whole idea of the raw file and its abundance of information.

Suggestions beyond just playing with LR's settings for each image until I get the right combo to make a similar result?

 

[willie_901]

First Set the all the HSL Panel saturation sliders to zero. A Development Module preset can make this step fast.

Play with the. Color Temperature. This can make big changes in tonality or at least you can set it to find a a pleasing tonality if the effects are small.

Then just work your way down the Development Module. Even the Saturation and Vibrance sliders affect the monochrome tonality.

The Luminance sliders on the HSL Panel can also make a big difference. They can act act as filters.

 

[nongfuspring]

Cug's dual JPEG/RAW idea is a good one. Your RAW files are supposed to be in colour, this is a benefit not a downside.

Converting to black and white is not difficult when you consider you have only two sets of controls for it - the black and white mix and the exposure/contrast (or using curves is much better if LR has that, I don't really use LR so I don't know). Think of your black and white mix as a set of colour filters on a film camera shooting BW film, except you can balance them however you like. You can achieve any preset BW effect from the in camera jpegs with just these two tools. It doesn't have to be guesswork either - for instance if you want to emulate the yellow filter in camera preset, just turn up the luminance of the yellow channel and nudge down the exposure.

You can mess with things like saturation but after BW conversion the depth of saturation has the same function as increasing contrast, so just keep it simple and get to know the black and white mix.