Woo-Hoo! 10 pages already! This is the sort of topic that requires no specific knowledge or experience, so everyone feels free to chime in.

Including me.

FWIW, any art or engineering form is really about the end product. And just the end product. Does anyone really need to know how the scrap rock was blasted off Michelangelo's David? Or how that method differed from Carravagista's? Is it necessary to know what pigments Rafael or Manet used to appreciate their art?

Were power tools used to make Mt. Rushmore?

No. All these things, and many more, are interesting and complete our understanding of the artist and the work, but are absolutely unnecessary for appreciation of the work, and often even get in the way.

Every work of art is simply the artist's interpretation of the moment.

Which of the over 30 Monet paintings of the Rouen cathedral is the "right" one? And were any of them perfect copies of the view at the time?

Quite frankly, when I see an extraordinary photograph I really don't care how it was made. I simply revel in its beauty. I might wonder how it was made, and contemplate making a similar one myself, but I really prefer to simply be swept away by the magic of the moment. Does a magician's trick ever become more magical once you know how it was done?

Nope, spare me "How things should be" silliness about photography. Like most of you, I spent a lot of time accepting what Kodachrome thought my color palette should be. If it was not close enough, I'd filter or pick another film. How is that so different from post processing?

I also spent a lot of time with Marshall's Photo Oil Colors. Adjusting the contrast of the b&w print and then giving it the colors I want it to have. Sold a bunch of those 20x30s I did.

The end product is the point, not how you got there.

And having the ability to add clouds to a grey sky is a gift, not a cheat.

Of course they do, except for some specific printers with grayscale inks. My question is if they have the feel, and luster, of a silver print.

My first reaction is that if you want B&W, shoot film. Do current imaging chips have the tonal range that film has?

And just how do you print those images? There are special black&white printers, but are they as good as a silver print? As a platinum print?

For years photojournalists and video people have just used blank rims with no glass. It's damn difficult to find just the right angles to reduce reflections, so the answer is to have no reflections.

I have a collection of cheap dollar store readers and sunglasses that look just fine with the lenses popped out.

I made a few in WordPerfect and others in some perversion of Avery's no-longer-downloadable DesignPro. I still have the punch for those plastic spines. May even have some plastic spines around. And I still have an epson large format printer.

Anyway, as much fun as it was, and pride in craftsmanship abounds, I figured it was not worth it after one run when I completely forgot November.

Can't say for sure, but the first thought is light bouncing around the tube. I would try finding the blackest paper or cloth I could find and rolling it around in there to see if it helps. Double sided tape helps.

You didn't say if you were using a filter. Filters can cause ghosting under certain circumstances.

And your lighting-- there's some color shifting between the different pictures. Did you change the lighting?

Last, and oddest, thought... moving the lens further from the sensor than it was designed for might cause some flare. In the old days, we often reversed lenses when putting them on bellows to make the subject roughly the same distance from the lens as the film plane would be. Somebody with degree in optics might explain if it's possible that a short wavelength may focus short of the sensor and make a mess of things. Lenses are designed to make all wavelengths focus at the same point, but all bets are off when taken it's out of expected uses.

They are ALL hard to maneuver. No matter which one you choose, prepare yourself for big time learning curve.

Howsumever, FastStone, Irfanview, and Xnview are pretty damn good for the price (free) but they are limited.

GIMP is also free, and does a lot more-- some say it's up there with Photoshop.

Play with these and other recommended freeware before spending money on your quest.

Lotsa good comments here, but the key is for you to experiment. I don't know the mono capabilities of your camera or software, but you're going to have to play around a lot to get what you want.

FWIW, if Leica has been selling its $10,000 M10 Monochrom for years now, and might even put out a Model 4. It has a chip specifically designed for mono and it seems to work better than playing around with color images. I'd buy one if I had the cash. I remember 120 PanX aan PlusX with the prints developed in a two-bath developer I made from what I think was an Ansel Adams recipe. Nothing like it. And, I believe the original Foveon chip was mono and found itself in Hasselblads making huge images.

But, I digress...

Sit your Rebel on a tripod in your living room and find something interesting to shoot and several backgrounds to shoot it against. Shoot it in raw (if available) and in whatever color and contrast enhancements are available on the camera. Then you download GIMP and start playing. You can play with the contrast on the mono one, and play with reducing color on the others. Eventually, you will find something that works. Near as I can tell, everyone with those spectacular B&Ws did something like this.

Or, if you've got 13 grand lying around... (3 grand for the Summicron lens-- Leitz ain't cheap)

Been using it for years, with few problems. I like it a lot-- does almost everything I want to do.

But, if you are happy with what you're using now, I see no reason to change. It probably won't do much, if anything, more than you already have.

First question is "Are they really?" How do you know many are switching, and how many?

If true, I would tend to assume that since YouTube is video, a lot of people may be finding equipment better suited to the type of video they do. Are these people ditching Nikon for Sony video cameras? Cameras you can pop on a tripod and let run for an hour show?

Do Nikon batteries last for an afternoon running around the park interviewing dog owners?

Adobe is the goto shop for most people, including pros. Expertise is all over the place and many people learned it OJT and stayed with it.

But, many of us started somewhere else. I used a great free program that Corel ended up buying and burying so it could sell more Paint Shop Pro's. Paint Shop Pro is actually a very good program and integrates well with all its other stuff. I haven't used anything for a while, but will use it again when I get set up again. (Major computer crashes and data losses) Corel also has online training sessions. Only a hundred bucks for the Ultimate version, which is money well spent. Regular, and cheap, upgrades which you can usually skip.

I've used GIMP, and it is as good as anything else I've used, but the learning curve has always been enormous. It's open source and free, so contributors are always more interested in coding than explaining how to use it. Like so many other things, you can waste hours digging through menus, and then next time forget where you found your answer. Plenty of forums and help sites, though.

I think someone mentioned Irfanview-- it's incredibly mature now and does maybe 90% of the run-of-the-mill stuff, like color balance, contrast, cropping, sharpness and stuff. And it's free, although sending Irfan a few bucks for his work is always appreciated.

There's Xnview, which seems to be a knockoff of Irfanview, but is every bit as good.

And good old Faststone Image Viewer which is still relatively uncomplicated but still does resizing, red-eye,
and other basic stuff with little fuss.

I prefer the second, pole-less, one. The cheek isn't as washed out. High contrast has its uses, but this isn't artistic so much as story-telling.

And speaking of story-telling, I understand it was a grab shot but the composition doesn't really tell the story of the dog defending the homeland. There's that big boring fence that could be a background, but the dog is in front of clutter, including the cat. And now that I know there's a cat there, I look at it as much as the dog trying to get it in focus. Cropping the fence would help, and maybe playing with perspective getting the dog to look bigger, and meaner.

A-Ha!

I am clearly a fool for misplaced apostrophes, although that was not the only reason for my misunderstanding.

I would add the 50 to that. It's tiny, compared to the others, and might be the sharpest lens you own. And it seems to be the only 1.8 lens you have, which will be important at times. Like inside and at night.

FWIW, I've been all over Europe and the Caribbean (nor Cuba, though) and have rarely used my long lenses when wandering the streets. Maybe to get a closeup of a clock high up there or a gargoyle, but that was pretty much it.

Most of the time you want to go wider-- streets are narrow, and the wider view and deeper depth of field make your life easier and your images more interesting.

If you visit any wildlife sanctuaries, yeah, a long lens will be handy.

Huh?

Kindergarten,

MacBook Pro,

Canon Rebel XSi,

And Lightroom, etc...

What am I missing?