Show us your digital M black and white conversions.

[SteveHicks]

Santa Fe Rail Yard - Mid day..M8, 50mm Sumilux

Santa Fe Rail Yard - Mid day..M8, 50mm Sumilux

On this image, I just used PS with a B&W layer (adjusting color sliders). Toned with a solid color layer in overlay blend mode and masked to limit the toning to the shadows only.

 

[dcsang]

Original:

After SilverEfex Neopan 1600 with some tweaks including control points:

Leica M8 (can't remember which lens and I never coded them 🙂 )

Cheers,
Dave

 

[craygc]

Nice photos, but film still rules when it comes to B&W. Something is missing in digital B&W.

Have to concur... I have been watching this thread with a real interest in the examples. Some nice shots but as someone very focused on B&W I notice that the shadows still fall into solid black very quickly with little to no detail. The shots here that really look good to me are those taken under controlled lighting or a narrower brightness range. Not picking on anything particular but just a note to self - although an easier workflow (effort) would be very nice, still no reason to move away from film yet :bang:

 

[C_R]

M9 and CV 15/4.5II, 1/250 f:8 ISO 160. DNG to TIF with C1, B+W from three layers in PS CS3, separate for sky, horizon area, and foreground. Layers from CS3 calculations menu, using LAB "L" channel, RGB red and green channel.

Sounds complicated, but didnt need much more effort than another verison with Silver Efex.

 

[double-m-7]

Good thread, it took me weeks to find a decent conversion for the M8 files and still not completely happy with the results. Somehow the film negatives are ready to print whereas with the M8 I just keep editing.

1. M8 28 elmarit. Silverefex
2. M8 28 elmarit Lightroom BW conversion

 

[GBR66]

Couple more (fresh from this morning) with an M8 and CV Nokton 50 1.5. All taken at ISO 320, at f1.5 or thereabouts, simple coversion in PS Elements 7.

Guy

 

[C_R]

Guy, great portrait of your daughter, love her expression ! To post an image, click on the loupe in flickr, use the second link to copy and paste into RFF, by the "insert image" icon.

Carsten

 

[Larsgh]

Vinter in Sweden

Vinter in Sweden

Photo of this Years hard winter. Leica M9, Summicron 2/35 BW conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

 

[__--]

Have to concur... I have been watching this thread with a real interest in the examples. Some nice shots but as someone very focused on B&W I notice that the shadows still fall into solid black very quickly with little to no detail. The shots here that really look good to me are those taken under controlled lighting or a narrower brightness range. Not picking on anything particular but just a note to self - although an easier workflow (effort) would be very nice, still no reason to move away from film yet :bang:

Hi, Craig. My feeling is that often it's so difficult to tell what is digital and what is film that the effort may be futile, and that one has to judge from prints and not small, compressed JPGs on a computer monitor. In the latter case, the more problematic issue is treatment of highlights rather than shadow detail: I find that looking at my TIFFs shows more in the shadows than the JPGs that I export. For me the real choice would be looking at silver prints made from film versus digital prints from digital cameras, rather than comparing the latter to digital prints made from scanned film. But even then the conclusion — to the degree that the person judging could really be objective (as in a blind test) — would vary from image to image and also depend on the darkroom skill and digital processing skill of the respective photographer.

Incidentally, I must say that I enjoyed posting the Tri-X picture with blown highlights in post #56 above as I would never had dared to post a digital one of this nature because many people would have screamed that digital is not as good because of issues with highlights — but the reality is that in shooting in harsh tropical light even with the dynamic range of B&W film one often has to choose between highlight and shadow detail.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Bangkok Hysteria Book Project

 

[GBR66]

Thanks Carsten - will do that - and thanks for the kind words on the portrait - looks like we're going to have a couple of orphan lambs coming to stay!

 

[dfxinc]

M9 + 35mm Summicron

M8 + 50mm Summilux

 

[msk2193]

Gene

Gene

Leica M9 - 3mm Summilux

 

[craygc]

Hi, Craig. My feeling is that often it's so difficult to tell what is digital and what is film that the effort may be futile, and that one has to judge from prints and not small, compressed JPGs on a computer monitor.

You're probably right Mitch but rather than try and make judgements on a single conversion I try and get a feel over a number of images - probably a bit of a circular activity. Even that approach still introduces other factors such as the collective's abilities in, and approach to performing conversions, and just plain old personal preferences.

In stepping outside of the usual forums and message boards, this guy would have to be close to what I would consider some of the best digital capture to B&W conversions Ive seen Moises Levy. I had initially come across him in the past while looking for B&W work from the Mamiya 7, and while there is a mix here, I have been surprised by just how much of this work is digital in its origin.

 

[cidereye]

M8, CV Skopar 35mm PII @ f/2.5 - ISO 1250

 

[250swb]

M9, processed in CS4 and Silver Efex Pro

 

[jmoto]

More black and whites with my Leica M8 and Zeiss glass

More black and whites with my Leica M8 and Zeiss glass

All images below were done with the Zeiss 25mm 2.8 or Zeiss 35mm 2 Biogon lens. Converted to black and white in Aperture 2.0.

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

All images below were done with the Zeiss 25mm 2.8 or Zeiss 35mm 2 Biogon lens. Converted to black and white in Aperture 2.0.

Very nice, and the Bio 25 is a very good choice IMHO. Please keep up the good work (but watch the horizon)

 

[lewis44]

M8, 50mm Summilux. Nik Silver Efex Pro.

 

[pachuco]

M9, processed in CS4 and Silver Efex Pro

This is pretty cool!

 

[tightsqueez]

M9 w/24 Lux