the changes we go through...

back alley

back alley

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when i shot film i shot only b&w...very infrequently did i shoot colour and that simple system worked ok for me. i didn't miss colour...

now, with digital and photoshop i can shoot colour and then decide later if i want to change it to b&w.

i blame the rd1 for this as it's colours were remarkable and i loved them.

but now, it's come to the point that i cannot bring myself to shoot only black and white in my digtal cameras. it's like i'm afraid of missing something in colour.

i think i'm going to try to break this way of doing things and tomorrow i will head out with my fuji set to jpeg, black & white red filter!!

let's hope my resolve lasts...

anyone else suffer from this photo affliction?
 
back alley said:
when i shot film i shot only b&w...very infrequently did i shoot colour and that simple system worked ok for me. i didn't miss colour...

now, with digital and photoshop i can shoot colour and then decide later if i want to change it to b&w.

i blame the rd1 for this as it's colours were remarkable and i loved them.

but now, it's come to the point that i cannot bring myself to shoot only black and white in my digtal cameras. it's like i'm afraid of missing something in colour.

i think i'm going to try to break this way of doing things and tomorrow i will head out with my fuji set to jpeg, black & white red filter!!

let's hope my resolve lasts...

anyone else suffer from this photo affliction?
Click to expand...

If u do jpg+raw then u have the b&w jpg and the raw can be used to extract the color if u want it.

Gary
 
Yes. Me! 😕

For a time I was using a Panasonic L1 which had several shooting modes - three for color and another two or three for mono if I recall correctly. It was great being able to shoot in black and white and get good results straight out of the camera. Wonderful. But oh those lush lovely L1 colors. Superb. So I began shooting in color then converting afterwards.

Its now a real battle to pick up a camera and shoot black and white - mostly I just can't bring myself to do it as I worry about what colors I may miss. True its a press of a button away but when shooting in the street the few seconds needed are often not available.

So more recently (over the past 2 years during which time I have mainly been shooting RAW in any event) I have stuck with color. In fact if you look at my photo stream you will see little but color. Damn. I am addicted! The truth though is that I will often convert to BW in post - but 7 times out of 10 its the color one I prefer and they are the ones I post on Flickr.
 
I find that when I have color film in, I take too many pictures of things that are colorful, which ends up being the dominating aspect of the whole photo, instead of taking a picture of something interesting. This especially on my SLRs because I'm so used to having a yellow filter on that when it's regular color through the VF I'm just blown away that it's colorful. Somehow with my RF I can imagine it in black and white, but wonder how it would feel to put a yellow piece of plastic or something over the VF window.
 
My dilemma on my M9 is that I love the Jpeg's that the M9 creates in color and b/w but I cannot save both. Shooting RAW and b/w jpeg means if I want color also I have to PP the RAW to duplicate the native color Jpeg that the M9 can create. DRAT! Hard to do. Hmmm it might be easier to do it the other way.
 
I began shooting a lot more color after I got my first digital SLR. I rare;y convert a digital image to BW, since I prefer to shoot film for that, but even when I do shoot a photo with my digital that I think will look better in BW, I still shoot it in color and convert myself. The fact is, digital cameras ALWAYS capture in color (unless you have a Leica Monochrome), and the in-camera conversion to black and white is never as good as you can do yourself with the right software.
 
GaryLH said:
If u do jpg+raw then u have the b&w jpg and the raw can be used to extract the color if u want it.

Gary
Click to expand...

Joe,

this is what I do on the Ricoh GXR-M. Set my JPEG to B&W and record a RAW as well.

Big benefit is seeing the image in B&W in the viewfinder and that gets you instant feedback on balancing lights and darks when changing aperture, shutter or ISO. A well exposed image is easier to accomplish and it's something a color image also benefits from!

With the EVF and LCD in B&W, shooting is like composing a final image in your viewfinder, really impressive.

When importing I only import the color RAW, but I can convert them to B&W with a single click and then decide what to do with the image.

I say give it a try, it has improved my photography with regards for exposing for highlights.
 
One of the neat things I recently discovered w/ the new dp Merrill fw update is that they now allow monochrom using only raw file. They still write a raw file out w/ all the normal info, but provide extra data to process it as a b&w image. The fw update is paired w/ a new version of their raw image editor tat as two tabs... One for color work and one for b&w. a raw file that was shot w/ the camera in raw mode will automatically bring up the b&w tab processing workflow. But since the raw image still has all the color data, if u use the color tab it will give u the color work flow. The work flow type and changes are remembered for each flow type. Whatever the flow tpe u closed the image in will be the one that it will re-open in.

Color images look good up to iso 400 and depending on situation up to 800. B&w on the other hand look good up to 1600.

Lately, I have been experimenting w/ just using b&w for all my shots w/ this camera. The LCD will show monochrome..

I was mainly shooting b&w film (probably 60-70%) and the color was usually slides until good affordable scanners came on the market and I could get color negative develop only from the local one hour, I started moving to all color and scanned everything.

The only time I use film these days is mainly for my medium format folders and it is over 90% b&w. I have about 400ft of b&w for 35mm in the freezer for those times I just have the urge, but that is pretty rare these days.

Gary
 
I really suprised myself when I started using Silver Efex Pro 2 last week. I am very much enjoying the TriX simulation. I never expected this as I was satisfied with my monochrome conversions using LR.

I'm sending off some larger prints to the lab as soon as my taxes are done.
 
I hate digital BW. Of course, I never convert. That's a silly thing to do imo. So I shoot BW film and color in digital and that's it.
 
If convert color files to bw regularly. What I observed is, that after conversion and comparing with the color file I almost never like the bw file at once. When I let the converted file sit there for a few minutes and look at it again without looking at the color version, I like it much better. When I scan bw film I instantly like the result. Don't know what the brain does here.
 
tom.w.bn said:
If convert color files to bw regularly. What I observed is, that after conversion and comparing with the color file I almost never like the bw file at once. When I let the converted file sit there for a few minutes and look at it again without looking at the color version, I like it much better. When I scan bw film I instantly like the result. Don't know what the brain does here.
Click to expand...
Digital photographers have brains?

(Sorry. Couldn't resist. You did say something about not being too serious...)

Cheers,

R.
 
back alley said:
when i shot film i shot only b&w...very infrequently did i shoot colour and that simple system worked ok for me. i didn't miss colour...

now, with digital and photoshop i can shoot colour and then decide later if i want to change it to b&w.

i blame the rd1 for this as it's colours were remarkable and i loved them.

but now, it's come to the point that i cannot bring myself to shoot only black and white in my digtal cameras. it's like i'm afraid of missing something in colour.

i think i'm going to try to break this way of doing things and tomorrow i will head out with my fuji set to jpeg, black & white red filter!!

let's hope my resolve lasts...

anyone else suffer from this photo affliction?
Click to expand...

Must buy monochrome!
 
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