Shoot in black & white or shoot colour and convert later

Messages
255
Name
Ian
Edit My Images
Yes
I have been wondering which would be more beneficial for black and white street photography - to shoot b&w in camera or to shoot RAW and convert later.

What do you think?
 
I'm sure others will have opinions, but mine is to shoot b&w in camera. It will help you to "see" in black & white, understand tone, and (hopefully) get less distracted by colour.

Some cameras though have the option to shoot both raw and jpeg, and (with my Fuji anyways) will display the jpeg on the screen whilst storing both raw & jpeg to card. This is kinda the best of both worlds as your image reviewing will be of black & white, but you'll still have the raw to play with later.
 
Some cameras though have the option to shoot both raw and jpeg

That was kinda what I was going to suggest, but with no indication of what kit the OP was using, I didn't want to complicate matters too much. But, yeah, RAW+Jpeg has almost no downsides - unless you're machine gunning the target or you're using too small a memory card.

Personally, probably because of years of shooting B&W film, I can usually "see" a scene in B&W - to the extent of looking and at a glance thinking "i'd want a red/orange/yellow (delete as appropriate) contrast filter on that one...", but yeah, if you've not had that background, using the digi to preview can certainly help - though as I've not gone mirrorless, I still see everything through the lens in colour anyway, and for any B&W or effect information i'd end up "chimping" anyway - which again, I've tried to avoid doing - for sports/wildlife/gig shooting because if the camera's not to your eye you may miss "that" shot, and for street because, well, if you're looking at the back of the camera, you're not looking at the bloke who's walking up to mug you...
 
Thanks everyone - really helpful.

I went out today to capture the first day of all shops, cafes and bars and did just what was suggested - monochrome ‘fine’ jpeg and RAW.

I might post some in the other sub-forum after I’ve uploaded them to Lightroom.

(By the way - I have an OM-D E-M10 iii (with a 14-42 kit lens, 45mm prime and a Lumix 14mm pancake). Want a longer zoom and a 25 or 30mm prime next.

Cheers!
 
Some cameras will let you display the Raw in a particular manner on screen. Nikon call this Picture Control, not sure what others call it. You can set it to say monochrome but the actual raw image has all the colour data it just doesn’t display it on screen, but will show it in all colour once in a post processing piece of software.
 
Shoot in full colour and convert to mono in Photoshop or Lightroom, which ever floats your boat :)

you may at some point wish to print a colour version

Les :)
 
I shoot in both but set the camera so that the LCD displays BW as I shoot and review.
Find this helps a lot.
 
Some cameras will let you display the Raw in a particular manner on screen. Nikon call this Picture Control, not sure what others call it. You can set it to say monochrome but the actual raw image has all the colour data it just doesn’t display it on screen, but will show it in all colour once in a post processing piece of software.


^That. Shoot in Raw but set your picture style to monochrome. The Jpeg preview will show the monochrome image on the rear screen but you will still have all of the data in the image file.
 
I'm sure others will have opinions, but mine is to shoot b&w in camera. It will help you to "see" in black & white, understand tone, and (hopefully) get less distracted by colour.

Some cameras though have the option to shoot both raw and jpeg, and (with my Fuji anyways) will display the jpeg on the screen whilst storing both raw & jpeg to card. This is kinda the best of both worlds as your image reviewing will be of black & white, but you'll still have the raw to play with later.
Well said. The best option if available.
 
I have been wondering which would be more beneficial for black and white street photography - to shoot b&w in camera or to shoot RAW and convert later.

What do you think?

Raw & jpeg ... way to go ...

Hi Ian ... I see you have a Lumix M43 camera. I'm not familiar with the GF2 but some models have a moody mono picture style called L.Monochome

Here's a photographer I admire, Lumix Ambassador, explaining how he sets his camera up. (skip the first 3:10 if you wish).

Worth playing with imo.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYKlqmr6kZY&t=8s
 
Why not just use RAW?

:D ... good question.

I personally enjoy trying to get it right in camera, then minimal editing of the jpeg in post. And having the RAW file just in case.
 
Back
Top