OK, perhaps not every but I think B&W is usually better
Aug. 9, 2024
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Why do you think b&w is usually better than colour?
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To me b&w helps to reduce clutter, making it much easier to simplify. Thus, it's easier, reducing variance in quality, but it's not necessarily better.
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For films, I can’t say exactly that I love BW films more, as very few are made nowadays, but I have greatly enjoyed the ones I’ve watched.
When it comes to photography in general, it’s easier for me to absorb and less distracting to view others’ photos in black and white. For my own work, I can express my vision better in black and white, which often emphasizes composition, shapes, lines, and geometry. I find that colours can often be too dominant, making it harder to appreciate these elements.
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I like many b&w photographs and I like many old b&w films, but I would not say they are generally better than colour, they are just different.
Personally, I also like to play around with going in the opposite direction. A b&w photo has all the colour removed, but it is possible to go the other way and remove the luminosity information while retaining the colour (hue and saturation). The result is very often weird, but in some cases may also be strangely attractive and interesting.
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Color is information. Using BW removes information from the photo/video, akin to how shallow DOF removes information. Furthermore, by adjusting the contrast higher, you can remove even more information, just like shooting with an even wider aperture. Sometimes, this is desirable, other times, it is not, and still other times, neither here nor there -- just a different look. An option (with regards to color vs BW in digital) to achieve the desired artistic result.
Of course, like sexuality, it's on a continuum. We can mute color for an intermediate response. That is, we don't have to go BW or color, we can mute the color by reducing the saturation/vibrance, although this technique is akin to reducing contrast in BW, and can make the photo/video appear "washed out" unless the contrast is concomitantly increased, which may or may not be desirable. Lastly, we have tinting, such as sepia, cool, or warm renditions of a color photo/video (so many movies use a warm tint when scenes are in Mexico, for example).
I think I went through a bunch of my photos a while back, and, on average, I tend to process about a third of them as BW (or, more accurately, closer to BW than to full color), and I also make copious use of shallow DOF (though less now than in the past).
If the goal is an "objective" representation of "reality", then deep DOF full color video is typically the way to go. If the goal is a subjective representation of the emotion that inspired you record a scene, then we would be more likely employ tools like shallow DOF and adjustments to color/contrast.
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Hi,
Heck, the title makes me think the subject is producing photographic prints on B+W paper from color negative film.
So, Never Mind. Carry on....
Stan
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I grew up in 40's and 50's England, when most movies were B&W and my Dad shot B&W negatives with his folding camera. Over the next decade or two, the transition to color everything was a joy to behold ...
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When I watch b&w movies like The Third Man, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Ealing comedies, etc, I do not miss color. But James Bond, West Side Story, North by Northwest, etc, would definitely lose out in b&w.
The techniques of the director, lighting and cameramen need to be attuned to the medium in each case. An exception is Blow Up, which I saw in colout for the first time recently. It had been just as good on b&w tv.
When it comes to still photos, I rarely enjoy b&w, though there are exceptions. I particularly cannot take black skies in b&w.
David
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I mostly shot in B&W in the analogue years. I had a proper darkroom with water built in the loft space. Colour was almost impossible to do at home.
My performing arts photography is almost entirely in monochrome, shot on pushed 135 film. I shot landscapes on 120 film. My early London street stuff was also entirely in B&W, but I did do a little colour as well. My only published street London street shot was a colour shot taken in Brick Lane London, in the eighties.
I find there is always something lacking in digital monochrome, which is trying to mimic film. For street and performing arts, the grain and imperfections, add something to the picture, in some unexplainable way. Digital B&W is somehow just a little to perfect. It is if I had shot my street stuff on Pan F. Black and white digital landscape gives me the impression of a photographer stuck in the Ansel Adams period of photography. In fact monochrome photography gives a dated vibe to a picture. Those black skies you talk about are so nineteen sixties!
I love the way digital photography has given me the freedom to work in colour. I was looking at some modern colour dance photography the other day and I wished I could have done pictures like this back in the day. I am sure my old music photography , would be just as good in modern digital colour. I have done a little concert photography in colour and it did not detract from what I was trying to do.
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Yes, there's certainly more to the digital conversion of color to grayscale than meets the eye ...
The ever-popular luminance method (CIE Y) pales in comparison to other methods!
Here's a pretty deep paper on the subject:
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As Minor White would have said (and did often to his students) - the key to photography is to see the see the photograph before the shutter is snapped. The beauty of B&W is the freedom to interpret an image or scene in a movie in a large number of ways because of the lack of distraction of color. Pre-visualization is critical in B&W photography which requires the artist to see in monochrome instead of color. Of course photographers like White, Adams, Weston, etc., manipulated the spectral response of the film in order to make the negative resemble their vision by the use of color filters on the camera lens. There are even crutches around to help those whose previsualization chops are not well honed, the viewing filter.
One of the fallacies I think in the conversion of color to B&W in the digital era is that the critical step of seeing and visualizing an image in B&W is skipped and replace with "well I'll just worry with it during the conversion." You cannot save a meaningless image by converting it to B&W. There are a lot of tools out there to perform B&W conversion. One can use predefined "styles" in Capture One and tweak them. One can use desaturation and color mixer in Lightroom. One can use the dedicated tools in DXO Film Pack or what I would consider the most complete, DXO Silver Efex Pro. Silver Efex provides a what closely mimics a B&W workflow. While popping an orange filter on an image in Silver Efex will not enterly mimic screwing a orange filter on my Q2M, it will do a better job and be more flexible than the other tools I have tired.
As far as movies, there are some notable movies that had to be made in B&W to tell the story. For example "The Last Picture" could have been done in color but - it would have lost its power. The same for "Dr Strangelove." The use of film and particularly B&W film in "Oppenheimer" was s stroke of genius. Would have "Schindler's List" have been as powerful if Spielberg had used only color? How about Raging Bull? There there were the classic B&W films of the 1960's long after color was established, "The Hustler", "Judgement at Nuremberg", "The Longest Day", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Zorba the Greek", etc. Lest we forget Woody Allen's greatest film, "Manhattan."
variety.com/lists/black-and-white-films-best-movies-mank/the-last-picture-show/
www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_best_modern_movies_made_in_black_and_white/s1__30346697#slide_1
www.vox.com/22745191/black-white-movies-belfast-passing-cmon#I do B&W conversion - in fact I am not a real fan of color. However, with the lack of a wide selection of monochrome digital cameras, one has no choice if they want to produce B&W from digital. I ignore the fact my Z8 is a color camera 95% of the time. I've been doing B&W for over 50 years - so I see in B&W. For those that want to do B&W - using a monochrome preset will show the image in the EVF in B&W which can help some. However, as good as the current tools are, the B&W images from my Q2M are much preferred. Most of the time I have a light orange filter screwed onto my Q2M since I prefer that spectral response imparted to the sensor for most scenes. A 28 mm lens can be limiting which is why I have the Z8. My desire is for someone other than Leica to come out with a true monochrome camera. I, however, am not holding my breath.
