Shooting Digital B&W

[daleeman]

I am looking for a DSLR that will allow me to shoot in B&W without converting an existing color piture to B&W. I have a Nikon D300 and a D100 and they will not allow me to do a straight B&W digital image.

The D300 will let me one at a time create a JPG from a Raw, but I wish to shoot directly in B&W. any ideas?
Lee

[DarkPenguin]

Switch to Jpeg mode?

[Roger Calixto]

My Canon 30D has a monochrome mode that is applicable to the raw file. It shoots it as a color photo, but applies the B&W shooting presets to it, making it monochrome.
What I like about it is you can change back to color if you want, but if I batch export my shots, they export as BW.

Does that help?

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KT

[Peterretep]

I am looking for a DSLR that will allow me to shoot in B&W without converting an existing color piture to B&W. I have a Nikon D300 and a D100 and they will not allow me to do a straight B&W digital image.

The D300 will let me one at a time create a JPG from a Raw, but I wish to shoot directly in B&W. any ideas?
Lee

Why would you not want the options that shooting in raw would give you?

Peter  

Architectural Photography by Peter Montanti, www.mountainphotographics.com

[daleeman]

That was not the question. Shooting raw is fine, I desire to shoot directly to B&W. I'd be fine in shooting in raw or jpg.

Why would you not want the options that shooting in raw would give you?

Peter  

Architectural Photography by Peter Montanti, www.mountainphotographics.com

[Chris Nutt]

Shoot in RAW and then do a mono conversion in PS / LR / Aperture. You will have infinitely more control over the look of the final image than using the cameras own bland intepretaion. It's the equivalent of coloured filters - but without the expense of buying them or the bind of fitting them. I belive all cameras will shoot in colour if using RAW.

[Rob C]

I understand that it´s not the question, but you have two friends here, and now a third, trying to stop you from committing suicide. Shoot RAW and convert after the event, in the computer. You have no way of knowing just how valuable your colour file might one day become to you. I know we live in difficult times, but that would be one saving that could pay interest.

Rob C

[DarkPenguin]

That was not the question. Shooting raw is fine, I desire to shoot directly to B&W. I'd be fine in shooting in raw or jpg.

If you want to shoot directly to B+W you can either set your camera to B+W and shoot Jpeg OR find one of the rare B+W digital cameras out there (kodak made one I think like 5 years ago) and use that to shoot RAW.

You can't get a B+W RAW file from a color camera as the RAW data has color information in it.

[mitchdob]

I shoot in b&w modem but not with a DSLR.... with a hybrid/bridge camera (Sony R1).
Note Shooting in b&w allaows me to "see" in monochrome while I'm shooting - not having to guess or imagine what it would look like. That also allows me to treat the sensor like a film plane.... filtering and seeing the results realtime (ie: live view). And though the R1 was one of the first (out over 2 1/2 years ago) with live view, live histogram and zebra with APS-C sensor and a great lens it isn't made anymore. A shame.
Results at: http://www.mitchdobrowner.com

- Mitch

[Hoang]

Does the Nikon D300 allow you to shoot both JPG and RAW?
If you set up JPG+RAW and set the camera in B&W mode, the JPG will be in black and white

[daleeman]

I understand that it´s not the question, but you have two friends here, and now a third, trying to stop you from committing suicide. Shoot RAW and convert after the event, in the computer. You have no way of knowing just how valuable your colour file might one day become to you. I know we live in difficult times, but that would be one saving that could pay interest.

Rob C

Hi Rob,
Certainly did not wish to be short, guess I was, I probably should not communicate before 0Dark30. Anyway I do apreciate the idea of color info being desirable in the future, I'm just a die hard B&W lover. I've never missed the color of a red barn, or orange sunset in my shots.

I find myself moving back in time and  shooting more and more Ifford Delta 100 MF. I'm looking to find a way to use my digital to perfect my B&W shooting in the digital world. I realize the analogy of darkroom / photoshop, yet I was taught to compose and expose in a previsualization mode.

So, I have always shot in raw after moving from my D100 to the D300. The D100 was a dog in raw, 3 shots and the buffer was full for as many minutes. The D300 can do about 30 raws in 6 fps before waiting on the buffer, so it is a better camera. I can not find in the manual or menu's a way to shoot direct to monochrome.

Further down in the thread someone is saying to shoot in jpg. I'll see if there is a way ince menus change when leaving raw mode.

So I do appreciate your message and I'm not up to photo suicide.  

Lee

[daleeman]

I shoot in b&w modem but not with a DSLR.... with a hybrid/bridge camera (Sony R1).
Note Shooting in b&w allaows me to "see" in monochrome while I'm shooting - not having to guess or imagine what it would look like. That also allows me to treat the sensor like a film plane.... filtering and seeing the results realtime (ie: live view). And though the R1 was one of the first (out over 2 1/2 years ago) with live view, live histogram and zebra with APS-C sensor and a great lens it isn't made anymore. A shame.
Results at: http://www.mitchdobrowner.com

- Mitch

Mitch
Stunning photos on your website. I remember a digital range finder caled an R1, but I thing Epson made that. I have no idea what a Sony R1 is, I'll have to dig and fine more.

I'll see what JPG setting on my D300 will do. I'm still very happy dipping my hands in chemistry and shooting 6x6 negs on Illford Delta 100. Gotta keep exercising those manual masterpiece cameras.

Lee

[Olli Wendelin]

I am looking for a DSLR that will allow me to shoot in B&W without converting an existing color piture to B&W. I have a Nikon D300 and a D100 and they will not allow me to do a straight B&W digital image.

The D300 will let me one at a time create a JPG from a Raw, but I wish to shoot directly in B&W. any ideas?
Lee

The D3 will allow you to shoot directly to B&W Jpeg.

Last year I did a shoot in an art gallery where we shot customers and then directly printed them out as B&W 8x10s. Workflow was fast because the D3 could output B&W 8x10 format which could be sent straight to a printer. No adjustment/ conversion/ cropping required.  I also kept a RAW (color) copy of each shot on the second CF card in the D3 for backup.

[mcbroomf]

In Lightroom you can create a Preset that converts the image to B&W as it's imported.  This way you only "see" B&W images, aside from the thumbnail on the back of the camera.  As others have said the advantage of this is that you still have effective colour filter control in LR so that you don't need to add degrading glass filters in front of your lenses.  In fact LR offers better filter options.

[bokehcambodia]

I would also recommened trying out NIK Silver Efex Pro filters.
Shooting with a modified DSLR for B&W infrared is nice too  

[250swb]

I'd agree with the last two comments, an ACR Preset in Lightroom or Photoshop, or using Silver Efex Pro give far more control over the final image, both allowing for black and white filters to be applied using the original colour information. I'm not saying they wouldn't have jumped at the idea of an immediate B&W review image, but for the last 170 years photographers have been looking at the world in colour but pre-visualizing the end image in B&W.

Steve

[daleeman]

I'd agree with the last two comments, an ACR Preset in Lightroom or Photoshop, or using Silver Efex Pro give far more control over the final image, both allowing for black and white filters to be applied using the original colour information. I'm not saying they wouldn't have jumped at the idea of an immediate B&W review image, but for the last 170 years photographers have been looking at the world in colour but pre-visualizing the end image in B&W.

Steve

You speak true words.

We have been seeing in color and previsualizing in B&W. Although in digital world I shoot far to many images on each setting because I almost see them as free, I will not be able to ever surpass the number of photos I took in B&W up to the time I purchased my first digital device. Costing more than a Hasselblad body, it sits in a old camera bag because its pixel count is too low now. BUT... the Hassy was out shooting B&W just yesterday, producing better images than when it first snuggled into my hands, because film keeps getting better.

Tonight might be te first time to see if my D300 will work in B&W in JPEG. Life is what happens when you are making other plans. Grandson broke leg, wife sick, people at the office morphing into idiots. So I am encouraged by the D3 mentioned earlier by Olli, going into B&W in JPG mode, but that is a higher end camera.

Who knows maybe I can invent a wonderful tranquil plugin for Photoshop that emits the ever so soothing sounds of running water that comes with a red light bulb for when I work on my digital photos.

Lee

[Tyler Mallory]

If you really want to go hard core B&W there is the old Kodak DCS 760m. It's an old thing and you'll be giving up many of the conveniences of modern DSLR development (size, weight, battery life, dynamic range, IR wavelength response, and buffer sizes, to name a few) but it is a monochrome camera in the way that none others can be: it's sensor has no bayer pattern. You get what you get without pixel interpolation. That's as old school as you get in this day. Read about it in the old review on this site.

That said, I agree with what others have voiced: Just shoot color RAW and convert. It gives you more flexibility for less effort. Save your energy for the conversion part. There's no escaping computer time if you want to fine tune your results with digital.

If you've been shooting Ilford B&W film and emphasizing previsualization, then just keep your camera monitor covered up and go on instinct.

[Jimlizard]

Most of the Canon models do it, however it's a big mistake to use those B&W modes, since it's throwing a lot of information away. You won't get for sure the same richness of tones as if you do a proper B&W convertion.
It's not the same as using B&W film, because digital sensors only capture colour information.

Conclusion: You better forget about those modes if you want the best quality.