Is Black and White photography better?

B&W is all about light to me. If you shoot in color, the colors is what you see first. They distract from the light. A B&W is nothing if the light is bad or not interesting. OK, some B&W can be good without the light being special, but in general. Think you take a picture of a flower in B&W. In flat light it's picture of a flower, in interesting light it goes wow.

I miss it. I've never come to terms with digitial B&W. Could very well be lack of skill, but not only that, I think. Digital and film simply are different, something with the curves, I guess. ;-)

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...of this thread with your other asserting that it's all about color.

- Gary

mujana said:

tony field said:

Tom Axford said:

Bobthearch said:

Black and white is superior for emphasizing shapes/geometry and textures.

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I very much doubt that. Can you produce any evidence to support your assertion?

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It is sometimes true depending upon what you intend to emphasize. Fo example, two different emphasis of the same image:

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Nice images. Although I do agree with you, I think the vignetting on the B/W image is a bit too strong, whereas there seems to be no vignetting at all in the colour image (?).

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Thank-you. You are correct: the only editing for the colour of is general lightness

--
Charles Darwin: "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
tony

tony field said:

Tom Axford said:

Bobthearch said:

Black and white is superior for emphasizing shapes/geometry and textures.

Click to expand...

I very much doubt that. Can you produce any evidence to support your assertion?

Click to expand...

It is sometimes true depending upon what you intend to emphasize. Fo example, two different emphasis of the same image:

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I agree completely. I prefer the b&w image.

However, the colours are quite subdued in that image, the luminance component dominates.

Here is the colour component with luminance removed:

Rambow said:

I have loads of black and white family pictures.

That's because in the old days color film was either too expensive or simply not available.

Technical reasons are also why photography started out in black and white only.

Many of the images we consider iconic today were taken in B&W.

Also B&W photography has a certain look about it, that's for sure.

But today color is free and it's not a limiting factor anymore, you can even tweak colors to suit one's taste.

So why do some people still shoot in Black and White? Is it about art or tradition? Is it about being different? Or does it have something to do with focusing on shapes and light rather than color, which is perceived as a distraction from the true meaning of a given image?

Please explain.

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As Jay Maisel (https://www.jaymaisel.com) once said to me, "black and white is the most abstract form of photography. It is nothing but form."

So guess not much of choice then right. It has to be more about some emotional connection as opposed to anything else. Something ingrained into the human psyche. Like so many other strange things about humanity.

Tom Axford said:

tony field said:

Tom Axford said:

Bobthearch said:

Black and white is superior for emphasizing shapes/geometry and textures.

Click to expand...

I very much doubt that. Can you produce any evidence to support your assertion?

Click to expand...

It is sometimes true depending upon what you intend to emphasize. Fo example, two different emphasis of the same image:

Click to expand...

I agree completely. I prefer the b&w image.

However, the colours are quite subdued in that image, the luminance component dominates.

Here is the colour component with luminance removed.

Click to expand...

Seems to me that this is a representation of the l*a*b* two colour layers ??

I will have to revisit after supper.

Tom Axford said:

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--
Charles Darwin: "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
tony

Rambow said:

I have loads of black and white family pictures.

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I'll bet those black and white pictures are actual prints and I'll further bet they look just like they did the day after they were printed.

I got married in 1981. Before the wedding, my fiancé (now wife) and I were shopping for a wedding photographer. All of them were shooting film, of course. One shot only black and white film. His work was terrific, but we were young and naïve and we passed him by in favor of another photographer we liked shooting color.

The color prints and wedding album we received were outstanding. Wedding albums at that time were basically leather wrapped binders with fancy pages that held real photo prints. My wife's grandmother paid for a beautiful 16x20 framed bridal portrait of my wife and passed it back to us when she eventually passed away. We still have it, however we don't display it. The colors have shifted toward and orangish-red tone. The album prints rarely saw any light because of how they were stored. They also have significant color shift after 40ish years.

I wish we would had chosen the photographer shooting the black and white film. Those prints would still look like they did the day they were printed.

Modern inkjet prints, color or b/w claim all sorts of long life. Their actual life in practice is still to be determined. If you want to be sure the photos will be around for 100 years or more, you have to print them. (Almost nobody will put in the effort to maintain digital files for three generations.) And the prints need to be actual black and white chemical prints properly fixed and washed. Put them in a drawer somewhere and your great-grandchildren will get to see them.

Rambow, I didn't read any threads but I'm 81 and have been a photo shooter since I was 6 or 7 and all were B&W with a Brownie Hawkeye. When I became an adult I mostly shot slides with a Nikon and 35 mm. In 2005 I switched to Canon dslr and began to process some in B&W a few years later. I am very selective about which I convert to B&W mainly because I don't think every photo would look better in B&W.

I've found that for a really good conversion Nik Silver Efex Pro is the best program. Just my opinion.

Kent

Mike B USA said:

...We still have it, however we don't display it. The colors have shifted toward and orangish-red tone. The album prints rarely saw any light because of how they were stored. They also have significant color shift after 40ish years.

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Mike - you should take the time, scan those prints so you have a digital version and then fix the color shift and re-print.

Then you can display your wedding photo and be happy that it looks great!

Rambow said:

That's a... great image, congratulations.

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+1 and so is the whole gallery linked.

JustUs7 said:

Curious that people will pay thousands for a Leica that only does black and white when all anyone has to do is click a button for black and white. I’m guessing there’s something magical about completely removing the rgb pixels, but I don’t get it.

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Leica is a luxury brand that sells for more than they could get even if they were a monopoly. So that particular factor alone makes dollar value unimportant.

However, a monochrome sensor has about a stop or so greater quantum efficiency, allowing the same dynamic range of what would be the green pixels at the proportionally higher base ISO, and what would have been the red and blue pixels—or half the sensor—get several stops more exposure, leading to less overall noise.

Also, color aliasing is eliminated, giving cleaner fine details. Blurring of the chroma channels is a standard technique in raw processing, and elimination of this step improves resolution even more.

It’s arguable whether this extra dynamic range and resolution is actually needed for most photographic purposes. I can think of some.

I wouldn’t purchase a Leica even if I could afford it, and I’d only rent one if my client expects something special and is willing to pay extra for it.

I think there should be a market for a popularly-priced monochrome camera, and I’d be interested in that: maybe a large-sensor, fairly low resolution camera by modern standards. Sigma Foveon cameras, which aren’t known for generally low-noise images, do exceptionally well with monochrome.

--
http://therefractedlight.blogspot.com

Rambow said:

I have loads of black and white family pictures.

That's because in the old days color film was either too expensive or simply not available.

Technical reasons are also why photography started out in black and white only.

Many of the images we consider iconic today were taken in B&W.

Also, B&W photography has a certain look about it, that's for sure.

But today color is free and it's not a limiting factor anymore, you can even tweak colors to suit one's taste.

So why do some people still shoot in Black and White? Is it about art or tradition? Is it about being different? Or does it have something to do with focusing on shapes and light rather than color, which is perceived as a distraction from the true meaning of a given image?

Please explain.

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Simply nostalgia also because BW photography is fresh in our living memory i.e 20th century. How many people now talk about Daguerreotypes of 19th century.

Rambow said:

Is it about being different? Or does it have something to do with focusing on shapes and light rather than color, which is perceived as a distraction from the true meaning of a given image?

Please explain.

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I think that is the core of it. I lovehate photography because it's so hard to find angles of view, framings, moments and circumstances where the subject isn't overwhelmed by clutter. B&W eliminates some of it. And thanks to digital, we can now apply color filters in post which greatly increases our possibilities to manipulate tones and thus alter the overall appearance of the image.

tony field said:

Seems to me that this is a representation of the l*a*b* two colour layers ??

I will have to revisit after supper.

tony field said:

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Every pixel has been brightened to the maximum possible without clipping. Brightening each pixel makes its colour more visible as our eyes do not see colour as well in poor light.

This is easy to do in the HSV colour model in which V is defined as max(R,G,B). I simply make V=255 everywhere. In practice, this is done by creating a white layer (V=255 everywhere) of mode "HSV Value" above the image layer.

I have to use GIMP for this as most photo editors do not support HSV colour.

By the way, to demonstrate how colours become more colourful when their brightness increases, look at the image below. This is a computer generated colour spectrum in four bands of decreasing brightness (top to bottom). Any vertical line contains exactly the same colour (hue and saturation) from top to bottom. Only the brightness varies.







The top band has V=1, the second band V=0.5, the third band V=0.25 and the bottom band V=0.125 (using the scale 0..1 instead of 0..255). The gamma used is 2.2, so each band is 2.2 stops brighter than the band below it.

Rambow said:

I have loads of black and white family pictures.

That's because in the old days color film was either too expensive or simply not available.

Technical reasons are also why photography started out in black and white only.

Many of the images we consider iconic today were taken in B&W.

Also B&W photography has a certain look about it, that's for sure.

But today color is free and it's not a limiting factor anymore, you can even tweak colors to suit one's taste.

So why do some people still shoot in Black and White? Is it about art or tradition? Is it about being different? Or does it have something to do with focusing on shapes and light rather than color, which is perceived as a distraction from the true meaning of a given image?

Please explain.

Click to expand...

It depends on the subject I guess, I love black and white photos for certain subjects because of the contrast that you can create but if the subject is say some flowers or a butterfly, then you would not really want that in black and white. I also like using point colour to highlight a particular colour

Rambow said:

I have loads of black and white family pictures.

That's because in the old days color film was either too expensive or simply not available.

Technical reasons are also why photography started out in black and white only.

Many of the images we consider iconic today were taken in B&W.

Also B&W photography has a certain look about it, that's for sure.

But today color is free and it's not a limiting factor anymore, you can even tweak colors to suit one's taste.

So why do some people still shoot in Black and White? Is it about art or tradition? Is it about being different? Or does it have something to do with focusing on shapes and light rather than color, which is perceived as a distraction from the true meaning of a given image?

Please explain.

Click to expand...

Many years Past, through a Photography Club Membership Experience and taking part in Photography Competitions in both Colour and Monochrome.

Photo Entries to the Competitions were subjected to a variety of invited along Visiting Judges throughout the year.

The Judges were usually somebody who revealed themselves at their introduction, as having a Professional Role or Involved in Imagery as part of their daily activities.

One such Individual was to Judge and made it known they are a Team Lead for a Interior Design Company that model the interiors of Coffee Bars, Internet Cafes and Restaurants.

The Judging started on the Colour Images, and the Judge in their wisdom asked the attendees to share what was the most noticeable detractor in the image, which usually was the prominence of one colour.

I was soon learned that in a Image with a range of Colours, the better balanced the palette of colours the more favoured it was.

When having moved onto the Monochrome, the Judge revealed their reasons for the allowing the attendees to assess the images in unison with the official Judging.

The description from recollection, but not forgotten, is that each individual is attracted to or will repel a particular colour, and depending on the presence detected, will lose sight of the Subject of the Image and develop an impression resulting from the effect of the colour.

The Judge stated that now the images are Monochrome the Subject and Composure of the Image are the main point of interest and this proved to be correct, as there was plenty of discussion developed about the images being Judged.

The Judge went on to make it known, the use of Colour is very carefully selected in their daily activities, as the idea is to create environments that individuals are happy to stay in, return to.

The coupling of this along with the having a moment with an enjoyed drink or meal will mean more footfall that is wanting to be on the premises.

Our story as a couple parallels yours, in 1971. A friend of my wife’s family was the local newspaper’s full time staff photographer. He came as a guest, and shot photos of our wedding ceremony on Tri-X B&W. That night he brought his 8 X10s to the reception as his gift. The wedding party and guests crowded around his really great work. Those are still perfect prints. The color work of the other photographer was also beautifully done, though having the color cast you describe. The prints from the friend of my wife’s brother are our favorites now.

Chemical colour prints use dyes that are prone to colour shifts as you have noticed. Modern pigment ink inkjet prints should, theoretically, and I think practically, have much better longevity (after all, paints used for artwork are pigment based and last for literal ages - with some colour shifts for particular pigments but much less than dye based photo prints). I have pigment based ink jet prints on display in daily direct Sun for years, in conditions that would have destroyed dye prints, which are practically unchanged from the day they were printed.