Cannon DSLR Help please

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One of these days I'm going to actually buy a reasonable digital camera, but a thought just occured to me about DSLR'S ! On my little point and press camera I can choose Black and white and then see the image in black and white on the rear of the camera this helps me a lot but can you do the same thing on a DSLR ? ( Canon being my most likely make)
 
I'm pretty sure you can set this up within the options of a camera, but it's not particularly easy to access. It'll be within your cameras menu system, much like when you choose to shoot in RAW+JPEG or JPEG, etc.

The best thing to do however is to shoot in RAW or JPEG and convert your photos to B&W with post-processing software.
 
Pretty sure you can't do it through the viewfinder of any SLR but equally sure that it's possible using live view. Helps visualise the shot in B&W but it's far better to shoot in colour and convert in PP.
 
One of these days I'm going to actually buy a reasonable digital camera, but a thought just occured to me about DSLR'S ! On my little point and press camera I can choose Black and white and then see the image in black and white on the rear of the camera this helps me a lot but can you do the same thing on a DSLR ? ( Canon being my most likely make)

You certainly can and also adjust contrast, brightness etc in camera. The viewfinder though does of course stay in colour.
The settings in the camera will be applied to both jpg and raw outputs, but the colour info is only thrown away with the jpg, it is recoverable within the raw file.
 
On my 7d and 5d there are 'picture styles' one of which is black and white. The image you see on the camera screen is a representation of the image you've taken, whether it be RAW or JPEG. If you shoot B+W in RAW, it will still have the colour info, so you can covert it to colour if you choose, you can't do this if you shoot in jpeg, it will be B+W forever.
 
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I would shoot in colour anyway but I really struggle to see an image in black and white unless it actually is black and white so of course this option helps.
 
If you were to buy a mirrorless camera instead of a DSLR, then you get to see the image in black and white before you take it. This really helps me visualise it.

On my Canon, I can set the picture style to be monochrome, but the image you see through the viewfinder is colour. If you change it to use Live View (where you use the rear screen to shoot), then you see it in black and white before you shoot.

Note if you shoot in Raw only, you still only get the colour version (although I think the Canon software may preview it as black and white).

I like to shoot jpeg + raw if I'm shooting in B&W
 
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