Digital Black and White with MFBD ????

[heinrichvoelkel]

I'm not working solely in digital yet and I don't own a MFDB yet, but rented it before and now and then.
An upcoming portrait project will have to be shot in B/W, I mean at least the output will be in B/W, and the time frame and the working style clearly ask for the use of digital. The volume of the job, will make it possible to get into MFBD and let the client pay for it.

But,....., after searching the web for a while and doing some research  I'm still in doubt, that the digital B/W looks as good as film based B/W.
To be honest I don't have much experience in the digital way of creating black and white files, but the time line for the project allows some more learning.

So, I want to know from you, ladies and gentleman, out there working with MFDB, some general and specific info on the art of B/W with digital. What tools do you use. Are certain backs better for this or ...?


Thank you in advance for your help and thoughts,

Heinrich

[Dustbak]

I don't do a lot with B&W however do find my MFDB an excellent tool to create B&W images. Cannot see a reason why one back would be better than another for doing BW however I have only experience with one brand so don't feel really qualified to make hard comparisons.

Big advantage is the 12stops DR which comes close to the DR of the best BW films.

There are a number of ways to convert a RAW file to BW. I use 2 methods most.

1) The Channel mixer, when I have time to fiddle around to get the best mix between the different colors for the BW image I had in mind.

2) The 'quick & dirty' way, when I don't have a lot of time and just want a good looking BW image. I take the image, put a new layer on top, fill that layer with white (or black) and set the blend mode to color. I have this in an action to do it for me in batch.

After that I might be toying around with dodging & burning to get to where I want it to be.

[AndrewDyer]

I guess it will depend on the digital back you buy as to how easy it is to get the file into Photoshop ACR (latest version) or Lightroom for processing, (nice and easy with my Leaf DB), but the new black and white controls are fantastic. The sliders for tweaking the colour channels are like choosing colour filters for your lens after you have taken the shot - you can get some really nice contrasty stylised shots.

[Eric Zepeda]

Leaf Aptus 75 in Lightroom...

[James Russell]

I'm not working solely in digital yet and I don't own a MFDB yet, but rented it before and now and then.
An upcoming portrait project will have to be shot in B/W, I mean at least the output will be in B/W, and the time frame and the working style clearly ask for the use of digital. The volume of the job, will make it possible to get into MFBD and let the client pay for it.

But,....., after searching the web for a while and doing some research  I'm still in doubt, that the digital B/W looks as good as film based B/W.
To be honest I don't have much experience in the digital way of creating black and white files, but the time line for the project allows some more learning.

So, I want to know from you, ladies and gentleman, out there working with MFDB, some general and specific info on the art of B/W with digital. What tools do you use. Are certain backs better for this or ...?
Thank you in advance for your help and thoughts,

Heinrich
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The first 4 images are a P-30 in lightroom and all black and white effecting was in lightroom

The reamining images are Canon 1ds2 in lightroom

warning: Nudity

[a href=\"http://www.russellrutherford.com/plex3/]http://www.russellrutherford.com/plex3/[/url]

These two images were shot with an Aptus 22 set in black and white, though processed in photoshop which does not pick up the A-22 black and white settings, so it was converted using channel mixer and layers.

http://www.russellrutherfordgroup.com/fash...images/1_28.jpg


JR

[robert zimmerman]

nice work james.

[william]

I can't say that I've noticed any differences in B&W conversion quality with MF digital v. 35mm digital.  The conversin technique used is much more determinative.  I started using The Imaging Factory's Convert to B&W Pro a few years ago and it's good.  I then started doing B&W conversions in Lightroom, which are very good and give you more control.  A few months ago I started using Alien Skin's Exposure for B&W conversions and I really dig it; it does an outstanding job of emulating to look for various B&W films (e.g., "Tri-X pushed one stop") and gives you control over the grain size, etc.

James, I can't let those images pass without saying, once again, amazing work.

[heinrichvoelkel]

Thank you all for you're comments, examples and thoughts. I did use the imagingfactory convert to b/w before, the quality of the file was good, but didn't like the interface too much. Lightroom is much better. Adding the B/W conversion to the raw developer is a great idea, as I always had some trouble developing a good color tiff from Raw, with enough DR for a black and white conversion. As I see Lightroom is the choice of others as well. Though I will have a look at the Alien Skin product.

One more question: Do you light differently if you're going to convert later to B/W, like softer/harder/whatever to gain more midtones??? Or is this thought just plain stupid?

James, thank you. Great work and you're pictures are a pleasure to look at. First I got a little scared by your warning, for Europeans it is a little unusual ;-)

heinrich

[mtomalty]

Heinrich

Manually,I've gotten excellent results converting color digital files to blck and white for
stock and fine art applications using channel mixer in Photoshop.
Lightroom has a pretty intuitive black and white conversion function in the Develop module

For my taste,the 'best' third party software application I've used for conversions
is Alien Skins, Exposure.
They have some very interesting setups that mimic different black and white and color
film responses.
Using these as a starting point you can then customize and tweak further enabling you
to create your perfect 'Heinrich Delta 100' or 'Heinrich Tri-X' looks.

They have a fully functional 30 day trial

Mark

[ericstaud]

Heinrich,

Digital is definitely the way to go.  To come home with all the color information and apply your B&W filters after the shoot gives you much greater flexibility in interpreting the image.  The filters you used to apply in the field (orange, red, green....) can now be applied in the computer during the conversion from color to B&W.

The advantages of MFDB's is the 16bit depth, better shadow detail, better highlight transitions.  You can push around or "massage" a MFDB file to a greater degree before you get unwanted noise or banding.  I always push my B&W work around to a much greater degree than the color images.  In this sense, I think that using a MFDB for B&W work has even an greater advantage than with color work.

[Ethan Schoonover]

Thank you all for you're comments, examples and thoughts. I did use the imagingfactory convert to b/w before, the quality of the file was good, but didn't like the interface too much. Lightroom is much better. Adding the B/W conversion to the raw developer is a great idea, as I always had some trouble developing a good color tiff from Raw, with enough DR for a black and white conversion. As I see Lightroom is the choice of others as well. Though I will have a look at the Alien Skin product.

One more question: Do you light differently if you're going to convert later to B/W, like softer/harder/whatever to gain more midtones??? Or is this thought just plain stupid?

James, thank you. Great work and you're pictures are a pleasure to look at. First I got a little scared by your warning, for Europeans it is a little unusual ;-)

heinrich
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=106261\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I recommend color wheel opposite gels for fill / key / background to allow you to effectively relight the scene using Lightroom's grayscale mixer (a huge improvement over PSCS2's channel mixer... the beta of PSCS3 has duplicated LR's mixer as well).

Not precisely what you were asking, I know, but related.

[marc gerritsen]

and you might be interested to read this if you want to add the old fashioned grainy look

http://www.prime-junta.net/pont/How_to/n_D...ite.html?page=5

marc

[william]

Eric has a good point: with more information (from a MF back) you have more latitude to push the conversion to get the B&W results you want without bad side effects.  Attached is a recent P30 shot converted to B&W in Lightroom (warning: NUDE).  I pushed it around quite a bit to get what I wanted.  I didn't use Alien Skin's Exposure for this one just because it's not yet compatible with Photoshop CS3 and I didn't want to switch back over to CS2 just to do the conversion.

Wait: is there a rule against directly embedding (non-explicit) nudes on this forum?  If so, I'll delete it immediately.

Heinrich,

Digital is definitely the way to go.  To come home with all the color information and apply your B&W filters after the shoot gives you much greater flexibility in interpreting the image.  The filters you used to apply in the field (orange, red, green....) can now be applied in the computer during the conversion from color to B&W.

The advantages of MFDB's is the 16bit depth, better shadow detail, better highlight transitions.  You can push around or "massage" a MFDB file to a greater degree before you get unwanted noise or banding.  I always push my B&W work around to a much greater degree than the color images.  In this sense, I think that using a MFDB for B&W work has even an greater advantage than with color work.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=106270\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[pixjohn]

Greg Gorman has a pdf on his site about how he converts images to black and white.  He spoke at a LAdig group meeting about his digital black and white work. The best thing he said,  this is just my way but you can find another 100 ways to do the same thing.

http://www.gormanphotography.com/bw_conversion.pdf

[Vic S]

I'm not working solely in digital yet and I don't own a MFDB yet, but rented it before and now and then.
An upcoming portrait project will have to be shot in B/W, I mean at least the output will be in B/W, and the time frame and the working style clearly ask for the use of digital. The volume of the job, will make it possible to get into MFBD and let the client pay for it.

But,....., after searching the web for a while and doing some research  I'm still in doubt, that the digital B/W looks as good as film based B/W.
To be honest I don't have much experience in the digital way of creating black and white files, but the time line for the project allows some more learning.

So, I want to know from you, ladies and gentleman, out there working with MFDB, some general and specific info on the art of B/W with digital. What tools do you use. Are certain backs better for this or ...?
Thank you in advance for your help and thoughts,

Heinrich
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This may or may not be useful... B&W only MFDB's.

[a href=\"http://mega-vision.com/products/Mono/Mono.htm]http://mega-vision.com/products/Mono/Mono.htm[/url]

vic...

[free1000]

Alien Skin's 'Exposure' product can produce some very nice effects in terms of B&W conversions of digital files.

You can choose to add grain or not, depending on what you want.
 
There is a fully working demo on their web site, very fair and I'll be buying it. Has some nice colour effects as well. I tried to recreate their 'Astia' look in Lightroom, but I couldn't quite get the same look.

[Ron Steinberg]

I like using Capture One to do my B&W conversions. Using the White Balance tool, select one of the B&W ICC profiles available under Other Profiles. The cool thing is that while the image appears to be in black and white, it actually retains all of it's color information. You can of course adjust contrast and even saturation (remember the color info is still there), but even better, if you then open the image in the Color Editor, you can selectively adjust different areas of the image based on their color. So if you want to make someone's red lipstick darker for example, just select the red lips and adjust the brightness and saturation. After you've made your adjustments, Export the new profile and select it in Capture One. You could create several recipes for different looks.

Cheers,
Ron

[godtfred]

Not entirely relevant, but Dalsa produces their sensors as Monochrome versions. Maybe you could convince Leaf or Sinar to build you a monochrome back without the bayer pattern reducing sensitivity and creating artifacts  

http://www.dalsa.com/pi/products/productde...ductID=FTF5066M

-axel

[heinrichvoelkel]

Wow, so much useful information. Keep it coming.

Thanks to everybody....!!!!


And what about the lighting, anybody sharing secret recepies with all of us....

Regrds
Heinrich

[Ethan Schoonover]

FWIW, I evaluated several of the available grain plugins on the market a while back. I found Alien Skin's grain plugin to be too artificial looking and much prefer Imagenomic's "RealGrain" plugin:

http://www.imagenomic.com/rg.aspx