A trick from the dark side.
When you have to shoot in low light, and I mean super-super low light (think f/1.4 at 1/15th sec at 3200 ISO), you can underexpose and pull up the image later.
This introduces nice (grain).
So then you… and here’s the trick…..Convert it to black and white.
Noise looks OK in black and white, and muddy colour disappears.
So sometimes b&w just means “it wasn’t good enough for colour”.
And then, sometimes an images just looks better in b&w.
It seems almost too obvious, but one time you may want to consider going to black and white is… when you see strong blacks and whites. Like in this shot I made at a recent wedding:
Strong blacks, strong whites, nice greys, and an off-centre composition. That makes this shot, wouldn’t you say?
Assignment: shoot one photo in black and white today. You can shoot in B/W in your camera or do it in Lightroom/Photoshop/etc.
I love black and white, so I thought you might too – in which case you might be interested in the following Quick Tips:
As an illustration, here is an image converted automatically:
Here, I have butchered it (and me – ouch) by dragging ‘orange’ and ‘yellow’ down:
Here, I have done more of an appropriate conversion:
See what I mean? This is equivalent to the old red-yellow-green filters. Except much more interactive and much simpler.
We ought to all shoot in Black and White sometimes, I keep saying.Reducing all colours it shades of gray can make even mundane subjects interesting. It works well with brick:
How do I take one of these with my new 7D?
I set the camera on a tripod and use pocketwizards to fire one flash into an umbrella. One flash gives me that severe look, but to slightly lessen that, I have a reflector on the other side (camera left). I used a 35mm f/1.4L lens on the 7D, meaning an effective lens length of about 50mm. The “Nifty fifty”!
I set my camera to 100 ISO – best quality, and background light does not upset the shot. And I am in manual mode, at f/8 (enough DOF) and 1/125th second. I use autofocus where the camera selects a focus point, This time. I will – because as the subject I cannot see what I am doing.
Finally, I use the timer of course. So I can press the shutter while I hold my hand out; then sit down as the camera beeps.
And then I check: sharp enough? Nice graduated tones from dark to light? Catchlights in the eyes? Check!
…and grey. Underrated, as said before, Here’s a recent snap of the day.
Port Credit, September 2009
My advice to all of you is to do more black and white photography. Ideally, shoot in RAW (but preview in B&W on your camera) and use Lightroom (or if you must, Photoshop) to intelligently convert the images. Some will work; others will not; and you will learn from this process. As I do, every day.
..is underrated, I think; especially for portraits. Or else why don’t we do it more?
A good black and white photo can full of character; moody, even. Especially in portraits, where the absence of colour means the absence of distraction, and the ability to concentrate on the essence of the person.
35mm f/1.4, 1/30th sec, available light
For a good B&W picture, you need to realize that the background and the subject need to contrast, and that where we see clear colour contrast, in a B&W picture we may see none.
B&W works especially well where colour distracts. It can work where the subject either has blacks and whites, or is high-key or low-key. A good B&W picture can be a study in shades of grey.
35mm on 1.3 crop camera, f/8, 1/200th sec, strobe in umbrella.
When I shoot black and white, I do the following.
This last step in particular has made B&W a practical endeavour once again for a busy guy like me. You know what they say: “no rest for the wicked”. And if I were, oh, 35 years younger I would add a “LOL” at the end of that.
Finally: B&W does not have to be moody – or rather, the mood does not have to be serious. Here’s my friend Keith, and his happiness and intelligence, big parts of his personality, really shine though here:
50mm f/1.4, 1/1000th sec, available light
Go ahead, give it a go. Have fun shooting B&W. And because you are shooting RAW, you can always go back to colour at the touch of a button.