With the lens EXIF saying 0mm and f/0.0, were you using a legacy lens or an adapter with no through-connections?
On my Sigma camera in that case, I usually set the aperture in-camera to match the aperture ring on the lens so that EXIF is correct in that regard.
As to "0mm", my Panasonic DC-G9 detects "no lens" and asks me what the focal length is.
Pardon the pedantry!
I usually use the luminance method for conversion to b&w, only occasionally changing it to obtain some special effect (e.g. increase the contrast between different colours).
However, I am less inclined to follow the fashion for high-contrast images. Sometimes low-contrast, high-key images are more to my taste. It is not always necessary to make the histogram extend from black to white.
When I shot on B&W film the full range from black to white with smooth gradation was my ideal. But as you show us, in some cases the high-key looks much more pleasant.
When I shoot with adapted lenses I sometimes add such lens data like aperture and lenses name in exif with exiv2 program.
Sometimes I let it be f/0.0 to anonymous lens.đ
Let me assure you that if there's a 'fashion for high-contrast' I won't even take notice. đ I feel pretty free from any influences while doing my conversions to B&W, even though they tend to be more on the darker side (likely because my color shots are as well). In the instances where I tend to go for a high key look, I usually prefer having a little bit of color though. That being said, your sample image is very nice the way it looks!
Yeah... all of that would be nice in theory but unfortunately almost impossible practically in my case. I use a VAST amount (I'm speaking more than double digits) of manual lenses regularly, so it's just not viable to change all of that every time I switch lenses. Even with cameras which feature profiles of manual lenses I'm having my difficulties, because a.) many of the lenses have weird focal lengths like 48.5 mm or no markings at all, b.) many don't have click stops or markings for aperture, so there would be lots of estimations as well...
So I just try to mark which lens was used by naming the images that way, when I import them. I always add the lens to the description of my images on flickr. This is an exception because I've only uploaded it directly to show a quick conversion.
If you are using Windows you can use the Exif tool to add the lens data in the picture's exif data. Look at : exiftool.org/ and you can ask questions here: exiftool.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=096556d64b993f531e455534a4617ec5&
In my Linux system I use exiv2 which is a little limited fork of Exif tool.
My comment was not aimed at anyone here, but just an observation that most of the b&w images I see tend to be high contrast. If you look at the b&w forum on DPR, I think you will see what I mean. Of course, I haven't done any sort of systematic survey so I could be wrong. Also, it is my subjective judgement, I haven't attempted to give a precise definition of "high contrast".
What do others think?
I love "strong pictures". They can be strong by any way. High key or low key, high contrast or almost no contrast. As I said I love pictures with full gradation, but also other ones. I love vivid colors or desaturated, if the picture is the reason to do it that way.
As to "high contrast" it is my understanding that converting a color image to grayscale, particularly with the ever-popular luminance method (CIE Y), causes an apparent loss of visual contrast because color contrast per se goes away ... for example, look at the top row of the illustration in the OP. Therefore, some folks tend to increase the tonal contrast following conversion, sometimes to quite a large extent.
For measuring but not necessarily defining contrast, it is quite instructive to view the histogram of an image set to RGB, then Luminance, then HSV Value ...
I agree with that! Particularly with B&W it's a lot of fun to go 'all in' on contrast, texture, abstract shapes or whatever... Doesn't mean that it has to be that way all of the time, but leaving out an important feature of a natural image (color) without compensating in some way on another level will likely lead to boring/flat looking results in comparison. So I think it's kinda natural that B&W images will go more often for 'clear contrast' than color images.
Here's another example:
Making hard work light work by simple.joy, on Flickr
It was very fun experimenting with 'light only' without having to consider the effect of the colors and it certainly led to a different result. But not one I would have anticipated or that is necessarily my 'go to B&W look'. It really depends on the image at hand in my case.
It's also a good way to save on printer ink!
