CHAT thread weekly competition 19-26th July Subject: Monochrome

[Reinardina]

Chat Thread weekly competition 19-26th July Subject: Monochrome.

It's MONOCHROME this time, and I would like you to set your camera to monochrome or black and white, to shoot the images.
I have never done this myself (I merely convert colour images), but I've been told black and white photography really is an art in itself. It relies mainly on shapes, lines and textures, and you can judge this better, when your camera screen shows a mono image.

If your camera does not have this setting, then by all means, convert a colour image, but try to keep the 'shapes, lines and textures' in mind when shooting.

No restrictions on PP.

Pictures to be taken between now, 19th July 2015 to 23:59 Sunday  26th July 2015 .
Pictures to be posted in the entries thread no later than 23.59pm Monday 27th July 2015.
Poll will be up Tuesday 28th July 2015.
Winner to be announced Saturday 1st August 2015.

The Rules for the weekly competition are...

By entering you agree to take responsibility to
Post a topic on the Sunday (or sooner) following your declared win
Create an entries thread
Create a chat thread
Create a poll for that weeks comp and declare the winner on the Saturday
(if for any reason there is a problem and no subject is posted by the winner by Monday night admin will advise second place winner to post the topic asap, do the poll etc)

In case of a tie, the first entry posted wins.

Photos to be taken during the specified dates, ie Saturday xx to Sunday xx

Pictures to be posted in the entries thread no later than 23.59 Monday night

[DigiDiva]

I love monochrome so hope I can do this one justice.

[Oldboy]

The trouble with Monochrome it's all black and white! 

[kerbside]

Think i will take a picture of my understairs cupboard with the lights off, that will just be black.

[Reinardina]

I had a go this afternoon, as I'm not sure I'll have time later in the week, but I ran into some difficulties.

I had read somewhere on line, that the controls on a DSLR work as normal when it is in the monochrome setting. Sadly it did not work for mine (which is a Panasonic four thirds camera), so I had to take what the camera thought right, and not what I wanted.

It turned out a series of mono Jpegs, some of which were no good at all. Thank goodness I shoot RAW so I ended up editing the RAW images, then converting them to black and white. As I could not adjust the settings, even quite a lot of the  RAW images were far from ideal, but some were okay.

At least I 'saw' with 'black and white eyes,' as the screen on my camera was in mono.

[DigiDiva]

I'm in Edinburgh this weekend. Hope to get something then but not taking all my kit. Will have to take it with my 18-55mm

[Hinfrance]

I've got an 'in camera issue' too. Well, several actually, depending on the camera. With the Lumix set to black and white the images appear as black and white on the camera's screen. When transferred to LR however, they are black and green. With the Pentax and Fuji cameras the images again display as expected on the cameras' screens, but when imported to LR they become colour images. Clicking the 'B&W' button in LR does not reinstate the image to the way it was displayed in camera, but rather applies LR's 'auto' monochrome settings and completely mucks the images up.

I'm to try a few shots as jpegs rather than RAWs to see what happens. Still haven't really got a theme sorted out though, so these may be moot points.

[David Blandford]

I have been trying to set up my Pentax k50, I can make it shoot in B&Wbut the screen/viewfinder is still in colour. Not sure if it is the camera or the operator!

[Reinardina]

And I thought I had set a relatively easy task!

I think it was a Digital Camera Magazine article (on line), that told me that on a DSLR all controls would work normally when set to black and white. Well it doesn't work that way with a four thirds. My camera becomes a point and shoot camera, which gives monochrome Jpegs and, of course, coloured RAW files. I will have to work with the RAW files, and I will have to go with the point and shoot shots I took last Sunday, as it's raining now and I won't have much time to go out later.

I did have a black and white screen though, and also the view finder showed a monochrome picture, so I could (try to) compose the shot with the brief in mind; 'seeing' the world in monochrome and looking for lines, shapes and textures. (That's what the article said was important, in B&W shooting.)

My Sony bridge (Jpegs only) does not seem to have a mono setting at all.

If the camera does not allow you to do it 'properly,' just shoot in colour with the brief in mind, and convert later.

[jinky]

I think Reinardina realises this would not be the way that most black and white photography would be done. I thought she was just suggesting using the built in b&W modes , if people can, to see things in black and white. I`d always shoot in raw normally and perhaps use filters on camera / in processing to adjust nut think I`ll play around with my LX100 and use one of it`s B&W built in filters on a jpeg to play with and see how it goes.

[StephenBatey]

I think Reinardina realises this would not be the way that most black and white photography would be done. I thought she was just suggesting using the built in b&W modes , if people can, to see things in black and white. I`d always shoot in raw normally and perhaps use filters on camera / in processing to adjust nut think I`ll play around with my LX100 and use one of it`s B&W built in filters on a jpeg to play with and see how it goes.

Ah, apologies then. I've removed the post.

[Oldboy]

Strangely, all DSLR's shoot in black and white and it's the software that converts into colour. Some cameras shoot jpeg as B&W but raw files always contain colours.   

[Reinardina]

I think Reinardina realises this would not be the way that most black and white photography would be done. I thought she was just suggesting using the built in b&W modes , if people can, to see things in black and white. I`d always shoot in raw normally and perhaps use filters on camera / in processing to adjust nut think I`ll play around with my LX100 and use one of it`s B&W built in filters on a jpeg to play with and see how it goes.

Ah, apologies then. I've removed the post.

I was wondering what Jinky meant.

I did a bit of detective work, and found the article that gave me the idea for this monochrome malarkey in the first place.

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2014/02/13/monochrome-photography-how-to-compose-strong-images-using-your-cameras-black-white-mode/

[StephenBatey]

Hmm - not too impressed with the article. I can agree that if you go out with colour in mind, you can have a hard time making both colour and black and white images. But I have to say that I never found it difficult to visualise the result in black and white even when I started (back in the 1950s). Then again, I was very familar with black and white images, as colour was rare.

The post I removed simply explained why using a camera monochrome mode to give a final black and white jpg was a bad idea and removed over half of the controls available to a black and white film photographer (which is what I am).

I can't let this post pass though without saying that whenever someone talks about "gritty black and white" it makes me grit my teeth as the point has been missed so completely. To me, it's the equivalent of saying that the colour images to aim at are overdone HDR. The two are pretty much the same sort of thing. The images show the result if you try to force the subject when the lighting is unsuitable; better black and white images could have been created in that light, but the determination to use that tower resulted in some (to me) dire photographs with a poor tonal range.

[Reinardina]

I am still not a proper photographer, and only learn and grasp things very slowly. I tend to take articles like that, as gospel truth. I don't know any better.

In the fifties, when I too started to take photographs (snapshots), with my Dad's Zeiss Ikon, colour photography was not even thought of by most photographers, certainly not the amateurs. I think we all 'saw' with 'monochrome eyes' in those days.

It was only through this article, and trying to get good mono results, that I realised, I see very much 'in colour' these days.

And gritty black and whites ... Could this be a matter of taste, or preference? I personally love late 19th/early 20th century photographs,* especially when shot on location, in often poor light. These can be very gritty, and I love that. I have regularly tried to imitate this look, to give a vintage feel to certain images.

* See Riis' 'How the other half lives.'
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=jacob+a+riis+how+the+other+half+lives&biw=1333&bih=628&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCYQsARqFQoTCI7Aicbo9cYCFQw5FAodEr0LQQ