HOT Texas Loc: From the Heart of Texas

First of all I would like to thank everyone for there input, I have learned a lot from each one of you on the previous post, All of you were a big help getting me pointed in the right direction, after hours and hours of testing software, camera's, camera settings and lenses I have found there really is no set way for shooting B&W, it's what ever you like to do, I also finding there isn't much difference between shoot RAW then convert or just shooting JPG with your camera set to shoot B&W, if your good at getting the exposure right JPG works just fine, my camera processing engine on my Sony is so good it's hard to make a raw image look as good as a JPG out of the camera, shooting compressed or uncompressed, I liked compressed better, unlike shooting in color I like shooting uncompressed RAW better.

Software tested was Light Room, Photoshop, Corel, Silver Efex Pro, CS5 and On1 10 Photo and Zoner Studio 18, I'm not going to knock any of these software or go through them, but the least one I liked was Lightroom, The one I kept going back to was On1, Zonner had a high contrast B&W preset that worked very well with a little tweaking, but I made a preset in On1 for B&W that I kept using and going back to.

As I told you I wanted to learn B&W to do a little street shooting. so after some long testing I set out one morning to downtown Waco, TX., Keep in mind Waco is no NY city, Tokyo Japan or Hong Kong China there were very few people out, and much of downtown is now dead dew to new malls, but I had a blast anyway, people were really nice.

After shooting B&W I'm still not a huge fan, but I can now see why some of you like it and I will be shooting more, I have been shooting color for years and years, you have to be a photographer to appreciate B&W.

Here are some shots I took on my street walk that I really liked the way they came out.

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burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Nice. Tonality reminds me of Verichrome Pan film from the 1950s.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

It looks to me like you have the hang of it. Good work.

ReFlections Loc: From LA to AL

I love to shoot B&W. In my opinion, a black and white image has a surreal and almost dreamlike quality; it looks cleaner and has greater depth than a color image. And since it can give even the most devout color photographer a better eye for lines, patterns, contrast and texture, I shoot a lot of it. Well done pics.👍

Treepusher Loc: Kingston, Massachusetts

Nice job with these, Johnny. Have to vote for the clothespin shot as my favorite. Excellent work!

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Have you tried experimenting with the channel mixer or color filter effects? One of the big advantages of converting to B&W in post is being able to change the way various colors are converted to B&W tones. In particular, your shots with skies would benefit from darkening the skies to increase contrast with the clouds.

HOT Texas Loc: From the Heart of Texas

Thanks Bill, maybe the last one

HOT Texas Loc: From the Heart of Texas

Thanks much John!!!

HOT Texas Loc: From the Heart of Texas

Thanks much ReFlections, I agree!!!!

HOT Texas Loc: From the Heart of Texas

Thanks Randy, I Like that shot to

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Johnny, these are really nice. Very good tonality and composition.

I missed your initial post regarding black and white. So, I'll add a bit of advice here. First, make up your mind about whether a scene is going to be color or black and white before you photograph it. Regardless of which you choose, have a firm plan of the post processing steps you'll take after you take the photograph. This will require you to have a good working knowledge of the software which you prefer to use. Know what it will do and how to apply that to achieve the pre-visualized image you had in mind when you took the photograph.

Obviously, composition, DOF, etc. are all needed, again regardless of the choice of color or black and white. I hope this helps a bit.
--Bob

HOT Texas Loc: From the Heart of Texas

Yes I have John, I liked the orange filter sometimes, but brought the lighting back down, it Seams to brighten the image up.

The sky was all washed out to begin with, what I have been reading and videos they say shoot bright as possible when shooting street photography (don't ask why) I haven't tried to shoot a landscape or something yet.

Thanks John!!!

HOT Texas Loc: From the Heart of Texas

Thanks Bob, I do just that, these were shot in RAW + Jpg and RAW converted to B&W that was my goal to see witch one worked the best.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yep. My favorite of these. Nice use of shallow DOF.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Colors are just another tool for composition. They have the advantage of being able to provide a vast degree of sophistication. They have the disadvantage of adding vast amounts of complexity to the work of composition.

Neither color nor BW is always right for any given image. And sometimes either works equally well too!