Best D-SLRs For B&W

There’s more to getting a good black-and-white image than just shooting in color and doing a conversion. In the field, take advantage of your camera’s settings and you can unleash its inner TRI-X!

By Mike Stensvold

Labels: Cameras, Gear, Buyer's Guide

This Article Features Photo Zoom

There are two basic ways to produce black-and-white images digitally: Shoot them that way in-camera or shoot them in color and convert them to black-and-white using imaging software. Both offer advantages. Most of today’s D-SLRs provide a monochrome mode. When you use it, the images you see on the LCD monitor will be monochrome, which will help you think in monochrome. The LCD image also will show you at a glance if you have any annoying tonal mergers so you can do something about them using colored filters (more on this shortly). And you can apply in-camera colored filters and toning, too.

Shooting in color and then converting the images to monochrome using your RAW-conversion or imaging software has its advantages, too. For one thing, you’ll have color images as well as black-and-white ones. For another, you can use a wide variety of software and techniques to get a wide range of monochrome “looks.”

But there’s a method that gives you the best of both worlds: Shoot black-and-white (or would-be black-and-white) images in RAW rather than JPEG format. RAW images are better than JPEGs because they contain a much wider range of tones from black to white, aren’t compressed (or are compressed losslessly) and can take a lot more manipulation in the computer without suffering quality loss. And because RAW images are just data until you process them using a RAW converter, you can process them to monochrome or to color. If you shoot a JPEG image in monochrome, you can’t change it to color.

Since memory cards are relatively inexpensive these days, I set my cameras to shoot RAW + best-quality JPEG images simultaneously. That way I have both—a high-quality JPEG image processed in-camera to monochrome and a high-quality RAW file that I can process as I see fit.

Colored Filters For B&W?
When you shoot in color, the colors help differentiate among subjects in the image. Many scenes look great in color but dull in black-and-white. That’s because two very different colors might be about the same brightness and thus record as about the same shade of gray. For example, if your subject is a plant with red flowers and green leaves, in color, the contrasting colors provide interest. In black-and-white, the red flowers and green leaves reproduce as about the same shade of gray.

You can make the flowers lighter or darker than the leaves by using colored filters. Shooting the black-and-white image through a red filter will make the red flowers lighter and the green leaves darker than in an unfiltered image.

Another popular use for colored filters in landscape photography is to make cloud formations stand out dramatically against a dark sky. Use a yellow filter, and the sky darkens while the clouds stay light. Use an orange filter, and the sky darkens more. Use a red filter, and you get a very dark, dramatic sky.

With film, you have to carry a set of colored filters to achieve these effects. And you have to remember to apply the filter factors to your exposures, since the filters block some of the light from the scene. But most digital SLRs that have monochrome capability also provide built-in yellow, orange, red and green filter effects, so there’s less need to buy and carry filters. And better yet, the digital filters don’t require increased exposure.

Predicting The Results Of Colored Filters In B&W

A colored filter will lighten objects in a scene of its own and similar colors, and darken objects of its complementary color. For example, a red filter will lighten red objects, and to a lesser degree, yellow and magenta ones, while darkening cyan (blue-green) objects. This color disk will help you visualize which colors will be lightened and which darkened when you shoot a black-and-white photo with a colored filter.

Colors on the same half of the disk as the filter’s color will be lightened and colors on the opposite side of the disk will be darkened when you shoot with a given filter. The farther along the rim of the disk an object’s color is from the filter’s color, the less it will be affected by the filter; the closer the object’s color is to the filter’s color, the more it will be affected. For example, when you shoot through a red filter, red objects in the scene will be lightened most, yellow and magenta objects will be lightened less, cyan objects will be darkened most, and blue and green objects will be darkened less.

Few real-world colors are pure, so results will vary somewhat from scene to scene and filter to filter, but this will give you an idea of what to expect when you shoot with a colored filter over the lens (or use a digital camera’s built-in colored filter effects). It’s a simple matter to review a shot on the camera’s LCD monitor after taking it to see the actual effects of the filter on that scene.

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17 Comments

Spencer makes this comment

Thursday, 11 December 2008

The title of this article is deceptive... there is no recommendation for the "Best DSLR for B&W". The information provided on shooting in B&W is good, but not what I was expecting.
Sherwin makes this comment

Thursday, 11 December 2008

Looks (and titles) are deceiving. I guess I'll just keep loving my Nikon D-200.
Jim makes this comment

Thursday, 11 December 2008

D-SLRs see the plural "s" Sherwin and Spencer ?
Prass makes this comment

Friday, 12 December 2008

I have a Canon EOS Xsi and eventually shoot B&W. I´m very happy with the results even shooting in JPEG (I very rarely process the image afterwards). I never convert color pictures in B&W. The quality of the pictures with the camera´s monochrome setting is very good.
odell makes this comment

Friday, 12 December 2008

Agree with Spencer....deceiving article title. guess I'll keep my Pentax 6x7.
MC makes this comment

Friday, 12 December 2008

I like the Sony Alpha 700 for black and white. The shadow detail and highlights are nice. I use Aperture's conversion from RAW color. My lenses are a mix of new (when I bought them) Konica Minolta and new Sony primes. No G's but some "D" glass (D not being digital but rather a lower designation than G). But frankly, the little plastic bodied lens that came with the camera is very fine as well. Check out this third place winner of the Nat Geo Traveler photo contest: traveler.nationalgeographic.com/2009/01/photo-contest-winners-photography It was shot with an Alpha 700 and that little cheap lens (the 28-70 is a typo, it is the 18-70). BTW: The grand prize winner was shot with a Sony Cybershot F717!
John M Esparolini makes this comment

Saturday, 13 December 2008

WHERE is the article on the real subject indicated by the title? Don't your editors actually READ an article before clearing it for publication?
Edward makes this comment

Sunday, 14 December 2008

Like many others, I was expecting an article about D-SLRs, but not a word about cameras. Disappointing.
Rick makes this comment

Friday, 19 December 2008

All of you making comments about no camera info need to look at pages 2 and 3. You are not looking at the entire article. Plenty of info on cameras.
mike makes this comment

Monday, 22 December 2008

There is no hyperlink to pages 2 & 3 of the article which it sounds like has the info on the cameras
Ruby Pecot makes this comment

Tuesday, 23 December 2008

In your article you state "With earlier Nikon models (D40, D60, D80, D200, D2XS, etc.), you get monochrome via the Optimize Image feature, which converts already-shot images in-camera. This article implies the D80's only capability of producing a monochrome image is to convert an already taken image. This is incorrect. Actually, the D80 shooting menu preferences (represented by the green camera symbol offers a submenu offering otions for fine turning the color, contrast, sharpness, saturation and hue of photos. The Black & White submenu has 2 choices: Standard, a normal black & white image; and Custom, which enables you to modify image sharpening, tonal conpensation as well as apply yellow, orage, red or green filters to the image.
Mike makes this comment

Tuesday, 23 December 2008

The easiest way to shoot B&W with a Nikon is to use NEF, and shoot in monochrome or B&W in-camera. For my D200 I shoot it in B&W, which gives me B&W on the LCD, then I browse my photos in Photo Mechanic, which allows me to view the embedded JPEG from the NEFs. RAW & JPEG is a waste of space especially when a program like Photo Mechanic can extract a full-size jpeg from the NEF should you really want a JPEG version. When I have found a photo I like, I open it in Capture NX, and it's still in B&W, and RAW. I don't have to see even one second of color when I follow this work flow.
RW makes this comment

Monday, 19 January 2009

I grabbed my D300 while I was reading this article and played around a bit. Thanks for the great info and especially the color wheel with the filter defs. It's always nice to refresh ourselves after so much digital dumbing down. My playing around got me several B&W photos with filter enhancement right out of the camera, no need for post processing - great article (as long as you're able to read past page 4).
Daniel Meacham makes this comment

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Deceptive title for the article. I still get better B+W images with 6x7 film scan! In camera filter selection is crude. Channel mixer processing is not bad, but still crude compared to other ways. Also omitted is the problem of glare! The only way to correct for glare is before the light hits the sensor or film. The polarizer must be used before the image is recorded. After that the image is processed as normal.
Phenominal Smith makes this comment

Thursday, 16 April 2009

The easiest way is to just make sure there is no color in your subject matter.
Joe H makes this comment

Thursday, 23 April 2009

A few comments. The gentleman who stated that you get better B&W prints off 6X7 film is correct, (imho) but you can't compare the two. Come on, I'm all for large format cameras but I'd like to see film stack against digital with a sensor that size (no one makes one but Leaf and Red Cinema come the closest). I am sitting here right now scanning 35mm B&W and am getting some excellent (also huge (130mb+)) files from them no $$$ digicam or post required. Also, people should quit whining so much
Byron makes this comment

Monday, 28 December 2009

this article has the wrong title

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Best D-SLRs For B&W

There’s more to getting a good black-and-white image than just shooting in color and doing a conversion. In the field, take advantage of your camera’s settings and you can unleash its inner TRI-X!

17 Comments

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