Shoot monochrome, or shoot colour, and convert later?

Neilmack

Neilmack

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My cameras offer a choice of colour and monochrome shooting options. I seem to always have the camera set to colour. Yet I like mono, and frequently convert a colour image to black and white. Does image quality benefit from being shot in mono in the first place, or is it simply more convenient and easier to see what a mono image will turn out, if the camera is set to mono?

When we loaded cameras with film, the answer was obvious enough.

Now, I'm not so sure.
 
It's a good question. Obviously you are shooting RAW, and deciding later.

The only point I'd make is sometimes I picture something in black and white before I've even pointed the camera at it, although because I see in colour 99% of what I do is colour.

A point I would make is I assign an index finger top button to picture profile on my camera and toggle it to black and white sometimes check a composition out in black and white as well as in colour, it makes seeing shapes easier. The picture will nearly always be taken in colour and kept that way but it's a good aid.
 
Shooting B&W in camera limits the amount of colour info you're capturing and therefore limits your processing options.

If you're going to shoot B&W JPEGs in camera, you need to carefully set your preferences before you take the shot, you can do it, but why would you?

If you want a B&W preview on the rear screen, choose a B&W preset and shoot raw.
 
As Phil says, so much more control (if you want it) by shooting colour and converting to B&W. With Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom you have control over 8 shades of colour in the underlying image in the B&W conversion. Most in camera B&W filters, if the camera has them, will offer one colour. Orange and Red being the most popular as they can make Blue Sky's look darker in the B&W scene. You can do that with the colour image you take as well during B&W conversion of courses, but also make the red bus be brighter or darker, the green trees be brighter or darker etc.

I will do a shout out for the free NIK software from Google, as the Silver Efex Pro plugin offers control of the underlying colours and a bit more. Though you may want to practice with the software you have first.
 
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Raw + Jpeg.

I shoot black & white film, and most of my photographs are black and white. I see my images in black and white before I shoot.

Shooting Raw + Jpeg with digital allows me to have black and white on the screen as a basic guide/ see in real time, and then I will use the raw file and edit to what I see in my mind/ edit later on.
 
Neilmack said:
Does image quality benefit from being shot in mono in the first place, or is it simply more convenient and easier to see what a mono image will turn out, if the camera is set to mono?
Click to expand...

Image quality benefits from being shot in colour (IFF we're discussing digital). For reasons given in other threads, if you start with the raw file the tonal range will be better; and even if you don't, you can be spared some of the problems of different colours merging into the same shade of grey if you do your own conversion from colour.
 
TBH unless you absolutely don't want to do your own processing it's hard to imagine why you wouldn't want to save the image in colour & convert later.
 
redhed17 said:
As Phil says, so much more control (if you want it) by shooting colour and converting to B&W. With Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom you have control over 8 shades of colour in the underlying image in the B&W conversion. Most in camera B&W filters, if the camera has them, will offer one colour. Orange and Red being the most popular as they can make Blue Sky's look darker in the B&W scene. You can do that with the colour image you take as well during B&W conversion of courses, but also make the red bus be brighter or darker, the green trees be brighter or darker etc.

I will do a shout out for the free NIK software from Google, as the Silver Efex Pro plugin offers control of the underlying colours and a bit more. Though you may want to practice with the software you have first.
Click to expand...

I had forgotten about the NIK plug-ins. Tried out the Silver Efex and was very pleased with some of the results - especially the way it could dig out low level detail in the shadows and highlighted areas at the same time. Clever stuff.
 
I always shoot in raw but I nearly always have it setting to monochrome if shooting a monochrome image. Nicer to see a closer representation of the outcome.
 
Thanks for the advice, guys. So, short of buying a camera with a dedicated mono sensor, shooting colour is the way to go.
 
Me too, I guess horses for courses. I would hazard a guess that they also own one with a colour sensor.
 
redhed17 said:
I can't see the point of limiting oneself by having a mono only camera no matter who makes it. :rolleyes:
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The point is, that these aren't just colour sensors with the colour disabled.

They have sensors and processing engines designed for monochrome images and are capable of higher quality monochrome images than you can get from converting colour images to black and white.

From the few reviews I've seen, people rave about the black and white quality they can get from these cameras compared to the colour equivalent sensors with black and white conversions.

But they are obviously very specialist as well as very expensive.
 
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