Trial Session.

[Daisy M]

Not taken B & W before so having a go over the last few days, comments welcome.
Dave

4S7A9054 by David Miller, on Flickr

4S7A9032 by David Miller, on Flickr

4S7A9026 by David Miller, on Flickr

4S7A9023 by David Miller, on Flickr

[Trev B]

Nice set David,I’m not a great fan of B&W but I do like those - I must have ago sometime

[Colin W]

All 4 photos look great in B&W.

My favourites are number 2 and 4.

[Bill53]

Good set David, the last one has most appeal to me.

[bobowen]

Nice set of photos.

I think trees represent a good subject for monochrome work.

[El Sid]

A good start I must say. The first one is a touch muddy and could do with a bit more contrast & tonal separation - simple curves layer boosting the mid-tones and highlights while preserving the black gives this:

[Daisy M]

Must say you have improved the shot Nigel, I have no idea what the process you are talking about, and though I admit all you have done does make a superior shot, the original is how it came out and that remains my philosophy. But thanks.

[Farider]

A very nice set David, nos 2 and 4 are the best for me.

I don’t know if your 7D has this facility but on some camera models you can apply internally different coloured filters in B/W mode to change the contrast, might be something interesting to play with if it’s available to you.

Ian

[ColytonJohn]

Sid has raised the first to a new level and shown you what is possible and I think the last one too, which is also particularly good, can be improved with minimum effort as the clouds need just a tweak to bring out the detail lurking there.

In old days when Ilford B&W film was king a simple yellow filter attached to the lens was all that we needed and different colours produced different results. Moving forward a while to the digital age exactly the same technique can be employed in the software of your choice as they all have buttons to apply those filters that the photographer absentmindedly left at home. If necessary you could even alter the exposure a stop or two exactly as you can adjust the exposure when taking the shot.

I know your philosophy, Dave, and some of the wild HDRs and massively oversaturated efforts can even set my teeth on edge but is doing something at the keyboard where exactly the same result could have been done in camera quite so bad?

Cheers,
John

[ST-EOS]

Nice series David with subjects that suit B&W, as you don't go in for post processing we're these captured with you camera in a monochrome mode?

[Daisy M]

Nice series David with subjects that suit B&W, as you don't go in for post processing we're these captured with you camera in a monochrome mode?

Yes it was..

[NathCarr91]

Nice set. Number 4 for me is my favourite.

Curious after reading you don't like to edit (completely understand why by the way) are you shooting in jpeg? If not it might be worth trying as this will almost bring some more contrast etc out in the image without the need of editing. Raw files need editing as they tend to look a bit washed out in camera

[Daisy M]

Thanks Nath, I do shoot in Raw in case I want some printed off, but simply change them to jpeg for on here and my blog.