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Xpert said:
Is it easy to make B/W pictures with EOS-300D ? How is the quality
of the B/W pictures ??
Click to expand...
I don't think that the camera itself has much bearing on the results, some images simply work better in monochrome than others, as they rely on tone and detail rather than colour. Someone asked a very similar question earlier today on the Fuji Talk forum and this is the answer I gave then, which was non-camera specific, although I did post 602 images as examples:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1012&message=6358970

My personal preference is to use two adjustment layers to de-saturate and blend between them and the blend mode and level of trasparency can be played with to get your desired result. In order to boost the tonal range of monochrome images, I tend to use the soft light blend mode a lot, it increases contrast and extends the tonal range of the image and you can slide the transparency amount until you get the result you like - usually about 30% visibility or so, more can be too harsh.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z ~ and now the Canon 300D!
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live music tutorial
 
Boo said:
My personal preference is to use two adjustment layers to
de-saturate and blend between them and the blend mode and level of
trasparency can be played with to get your desired result.
Click to expand...
I forgot to add, I also personally like the warm tones that you get from black and white photographic prints, that aren't black and white at all in the digital sense, they're much warmer and easier on the eye. To me, a digital black and white/greyscale looks too harsh and I rarely use it, I tend to warm the colour slightly with a colorize tint, to take away the bue harshness of the digital image. You can vary that so it's hardly perceptable, or make it a feature like a full sepia tint.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z ~ and now the Canon 300D!
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live music tutorial
 
Thanks for the reaction, Boo

If I read correctly, you make the pictures in colourmode and you change them in B/W with a software program ? When you make the pictures in a digital greyscale..., is it then also possible to adjust the pics afterwards ?
Boo said:
Boo said:
My personal preference is to use two adjustment layers to
de-saturate and blend between them and the blend mode and level of
trasparency can be played with to get your desired result.
Click to expand...
I forgot to add, I also personally like the warm tones that you get
from black and white photographic prints, that aren't black and
white at all in the digital sense, they're much warmer and easier
on the eye. To me, a digital black and white/greyscale looks too
harsh and I rarely use it, I tend to warm the colour slightly with
a colorize tint, to take away the bue harshness of the digital
image. You can vary that so it's hardly perceptable, or make it a
feature like a full sepia tint.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z ~ and now the Canon 300D!
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live
music tutorial
Click to expand...
 
Xpert said:
If I read correctly, you make the pictures in colourmode and you
change them in B/W with a software program ?
Click to expand...
Yes indeed. I personally feel that this gives you the most creative control over the results. I personally use Paint Shop Pro, but there are many image manipulation programs that will allow you to convert your colour image to greyscale, including free ones like Irfan View.
Xpert184745 said:
When you make the
pictures in a digital greyscale..., is it then also possible to
adjust the pics afterwards ?
Click to expand...
To an extent, you still have the option to adjust brightness and contrast etc. It depends on what application you're using as to what options you have available to amend the image. As far as I'm aware, the 300D doesn't have the option to take photos in black and white, does it? If it does, I have totally missed that in the spec. I also use the Fuji 602 and that does have a black and white mode and whilst I don't use it to take the picture, it is useful to look at the image in that mode to preview it, to see if it has potential for a monochrome image, when you bear in mind what I said earlier about relying on tone more in black and white images, some images that look great in colour just won't work without it - some images, with pleasing ranges of tone and detail, work better without colour.

I took this photo in the summer with my 602, specifically with it in mind as a potential black and white, but I took it in colour, but I could see there was interesting texture and a very wide tonal range with the highly contrasting areas and patterns of light. You need to think and visualise a little differently if you take a shot with a view to producing the finished result in monochrome.

http://www.zenadsl5251.zen.co.uk/photos/summer/summ2246.jpg

I produce B&Ws for three reasons largely, some because I take the shot thinking it would look better that way, that it would accentuate the tones and textures without the distraction of colour, some because they look perhaps a little uninteresting later, if they were taken in colour and I try them without to see if it makes a difference, as it can completely change the feel and mood of a photo to make it monochrome and thirdly because I take a photo in colour that is a total failure and by converting to black and white you can rescue an otherwise lost image that you felt had real potential at the time of taking, but ended up a failure for some reason.

That happens with a lot of live music shots especially - there are software techniques that can extract detail from an image in black and white that was totally unusable in the original colour version. The bass player I posted in the thread I referenced was one such example. This is another (taken with the 602) - this shot was one I really wanted to catch at the time, there was too little light, but I took a few frames anyway. They were far too dark to use in their original state, but some time spent with software and I was able to extract what is one of my favourite live music shots, although it's heading into the realms of digital art rather than just photography, I did so much to it:

http://www.zenadsl5251.zen.co.uk/photos/photos/astnada42.jpg

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z ~ and now the Canon 300D!
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live music tutorial
 
As others have noted, it is easy to convert color to gray scale, but not so easy to produce stunning B&W prints. Richard Lynch's book "The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements" has some good tricks. One other thing is that for most printers (at least with my Epson 1270) you need to print in the color mode, not the B&W. Frankly, if I know I need B&W, I use film and chemicals. Much easier than digital.
Xpert said:
Is it easy to make B/W pictures with EOS-300D ? How is the quality
of the B/W pictures ??
Click to expand...
 
Boo said:
I don't think that the camera itself has much bearing on the
results
Click to expand...
The camera cerainly does have a bearing! In general the better quality the file (and 16bit files are best) the better will be there sponse to tools such as levels and the chanel mixer.

Consider these examples:

This file was taken using my old digital camera (an Olympus C40) which produces bog-standard 8bit jpegs. It was converted to b&w using the chanel mixer with some fairly extreme setting to replicate the effect of a red filter:



Notice the really visible grain. That grain was not there in the original colour version. It appeared only after the chanel mixer was applied.

The next file was taken a few weeks later when I got my 300D. It was converted to black and white using the same technique (and very simliar settings) as above:

http://aspects.cjo.info/edinburgh/edinburgh%20iv%20 (1st%20Canon%20300D) slides/CRW_0079_RT16.jpg

The main difference here is that the working file was a 16bit tif produce from a RAW file. Something I just couldn't produce from my little picket digicam.

I've also noticed that the gaps you get in a histogram after appling levels to the 8bit jpegs from my C40 are not anywhere near as bad on the 16bit tiffs from my 300D

SO the camera does have an effect, though I'm sure that any good quality camera that can record raw files then produce 16bit tiffs would give this better sponse to levels, curves, the chanel mixer etc.

Chris
----------------------------
http://aspects.cjo.info/
 
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