selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

TriX and I know what we are talking about.

And although I don't have Leica Monochrom I have the next best thing, a camera with the CFA removed.

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Having access to Leicas, I suspect that your modded camera is very likely better than “next best thing”. Don’t sell it short.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

It's as good as a 24MP Leica Monochrom when it comes to the raw data.

But it doesn't produce a truly monochrome JPEG since the firmware still uses demosaicing and loses some sharpness.

But on the computer I can skip that step and get the full benefit by doing the raw conversion without demosaicing.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Disagree -- modern digital cameras (not including the B&W digital of the 1950's) modern as in digital cameras that have been made since Kodak used a Nikon body and marketed a digital camera with less than 2 mbs. These cameras right up to todays 60 mb monsters shoot in color, yet there are lots of B&W being posted every day. I like converting some shots to B&W and I think if color film had been first, there would still have been many people converting those color shots to B&W.

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If there had always been color emulsions, never any BW, there would still be plenty of BW imagery in print. It’s quite simply economics, 1 or 2 plates vs 4 or 6, cheap black ink vs exact pigments, the precision labor involved, etc etc. The use of visuals based on line and form but with no colors goes back at least to the Egyptians and Mesopotamians. IOW using color has not always been the default, even though it goes back to the stone ages. Color was always around but its use was optional.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

I do my pictutes in color and print them in a B&W printer. Cheep ans easy.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I used to think this too. That was until we were baby sitting a friend's dog and onto the TV, there was a mama bear with two cubs. That dog stood up on it hind legs to see better and started non stop barking until the bears were off the screen. I think at that point she was convinced that her barking had scared the bears off, and she was calm again.

Only dog I have ever observed that noticed something like this.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I have done the same. I find the mono camera is so much fun. And I can use all those old filters I have from my TriX days. Plus, it is now a full spectrum camera, and all those IR filters can be used.

I have found that I can't match the same B&W look with color -> B&W as I can get with direct B&W. This image was with a red filter. But I did not use an UV-IR cut filter, so the red filter does allow some IR to also influence the results.

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Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

I do not see colour in B&W photos.
I see the subject.
Actually as I think of it I never imagine colors that would be in the photo like blue skies or green grass.
Just never occurred to me to look at it that way.
Interesting, perhaps I should try it.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

In B&W it is a beautiful and interesting combination of tones.

If that had been rendered as a color IR (by removing only the IR filter) it would have been jarring - also interesting but we could not look at it for long.

Jack Cheasty Loc: Tennessee

Examine the photographs of Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White, Henri Huet or any of the early masters of photography shot in B&W, and what you see in their photographs will stir emotion. That is what art does. Larry Burrows, a contemporary of Huet, shot in both B&W and color. He was with Life for almost 30 years and regardless of his choice of film, the emotional impact is there. Spend your time looking at the photographs of these great photographers and learn what it is that impacts you and you will become a better photographer in your own right. A photograph is a representation and depending on the subject, color can get in the way, and at other times it enhances a subject. Is there an emotional response? The discussion about which is best, misses this point. i shoot a digital camera which allows me to capture both a B&W jpeg and a RAW file giving me access to both, and I can decide which works better at evoking an emotion. If neither, then its doesn't matter.

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Not rare. Seen plenty of it.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Absolutely! I did try this image in color, and the result was something that couldn't hold one's attention for 2 sec. Only in B&W can the beauty be seen. And you are correct. It is the combination of tones, not colors, that make the image more interesting.

cactuspic Loc: Dallas, TX

I do not see color in black and white photography (in which I would include monchromatic prints) any more than I see color in Rembrandt's etchings, any of Escher's monochromatic prints (he also made multi-color prints), black pen line drawings, and charcoals. Great artists, past and present, have used a monochromatic palette.

Black and white is an abstraction. For those who see photography solely in documentary terms, where the a primary goal is to render the subject as close in color and tone tone as it was originally perceived, the elimination of color information is an omission to be remedied.

There is a branch of photography that is less literal and more interpretive. Color can possess such visual immediacy that it grabs the attention and overwhelms other other visual elements. Where some see it as an abstraction that allows the eye to concentrate on elements of form, structure and detail, others will view it as an omission that deprives the image of necessary realism. We all have different tastes and neither viewpoint is right or wrong.

One person's art is another's failed artifice.

Irwin

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