M10 B&W shooters

[evikne]

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I love colors, but I have probably been too picky about having them as natural as possible. So I have been almost addicted to use an ExpoDisc or a WhiBal white balance card in most situations, even for candid family shots. Lately I have been a little more playful with the colors when editing. But I also use more and more black and white to avoid all frustrations about colors. And I have discovered that there is a whole world of editing possibilities with black and white too!

Maybe I’ll even be tempted to buy a future model of an M Monochrom.

Edited December 11, 2018 by evikne

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[Tailwagger]

My percentages vary by mood coupled to the time of year and day.  Occasionally, I'm surprised to find that I've gone the opposite way to what I had believed at the time of capture, but for the most part, it is for me as Adan says, something largely dictated by circumstance and the imagined result.  

[Rambot-M]

I have mostly taken color photos. I convert, may be, 10% of them to BW in Lightroom.

For my film camera, i use BW roll alternate with color. that means 50%.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Actually, I have run film through film cameras on a number of recent occasions, developing, then scanning, but only B/W.  My efforts with color and scanning left me convinced that, as others have said, film got B/W right, but only digital can get color right.

[JDFlood]

Thanks for your comments. I think I was interested because I have been toying with the idea of doing more B&W. But for me it is like manual focus. I can turn off auto focus on my Fuji X-pro2... but no matter how I try, I turn it back on. To get the benefit of carefully controlling focus I had to buy a M10. I suspect I need to buy a Monochrome, then once in the field there is no choice. One note, an aspect of the M10 I really love is the nuanced deep mid tones and dark tones... especially when in burnt Siena and deep ochre.

Edited December 14, 2018 by JDFlood

[wolfloid]

4 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Actually, I have run film through film cameras on a number of recent occasions, developing, then scanning, but only B/W.  My efforts with color and scanning left me convinced that, as others have said, film got B/W right, but only digital can get color right.

Seems like an odd comment. It might apply to print film, but slide film, Fujichrome and Kodak, has always been lauded for colour. If I look at old slides I've taken over the years, the colour still seems stunning.

I think the 70% estimate is a reasonable guess, if, as others have commented the whole of Leica's lifespan is included. For decades professionals only shot B&W film.

Edited December 14, 2018 by wolfloid

[scott kirkpatrick]

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Kodachrome was special, but for images that end up in a print or on screen, I think digital has a distinct advantage and a much greater range.  Kodachrome also has the charms and the limitations that the Daguerrotype suffered.  Excellent for individual viewing...

Edited December 14, 2018 by scott kirkpatrick

[JDFlood]

Kodachrome was my favorite film, but I could never get greens correct.... or even close. I have processed myself but not usually. For decades I wanted to photograph the Rainforests and capture the lush nuanced deep infinite variety of greens, but film never captured them. Now finally the last ten years I have been able to. So i’m with Wolfloid on this. Kodachrome was the best we had but it wasn't great.

 

Edited December 14, 2018 by JDFlood

[schattenundlicht]

Maybe I‘m the one who skewed Overgaard‘s statistics 😎: I shoot 100% b&w on my film Ms and 99% b&w on my digital Ms (no Monos).

It just seemed to turn out that way. From my youth, I shot color slide. When DSLRs became mature, I stayed with color. After my transition to digital Ms, my way of looking at things changed (and I was often dissatisfied with the color rendering).

Adding an n=1 statistic will, however, not clarify the overall picture

 

[Simon]

It may well be the case within the confines of trendy hipster Copenhagen galleries that 70% are black and white.  

Flickr searches tell me otherwise.

[schattenundlicht]

2 hours ago, Simon said:

It may well be the case within the confines of trendy hipster Copenhagen galleries that 70% are black and white.  

Flickr searches tell me otherwise.

I have to confess to being neither trendy nor hipster (too old for that), neither do I come from Copenhagen. I do love b&w, nonetheless

[250swb]

There was a time when B&W was a necessity.

Then there was a time when B&W was accepted in the art world, and it became both a necessity and also an aesthetic.

Then there was a time when previous necessity became a choice, between colour or B&W, and both became an aesthetic.

Then there is the time when colour became ubiquitous and only B&W was left to sustain the aesthetic.

[LocalHero1953]

10 minutes ago, 250swb said:

There was a time when B&W was a necessity.

Then there was a time when B&W was accepted in the art world, and it became both a necessity and also an aesthetic.

Then there was a time when previous necessity became a choice, between colour or B&W, and both became an aesthetic.

Then there is the time when colour became ubiquitous and only B&W was left to sustain the aesthetic.

Could I translate this as: "if I screw up the composition in  colour I can always turn it into B&W and get it accepted as an artwork"?😉

[scott kirkpatrick]

My feeling is that if I screw up the composition in color, it doesn't work in B/W either.  How do others feel?

[adan]

Doesn't work as a general principal. Quite often it is true in individual pictures.

It is certainly true that good color compositions can lose a lot if the color is simply removed:

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However, we have to consider whether composition is the "be-all and end-all" of photography. Or whether mood, lighting, gesture, moments, expression, emotion and "cultural memory" also count, and whether color may interfere with or distract from those other characteristics.

Photographs are inherently "abstractions" - the transformation of the real world into a different thing: a photograph. Removing color can be a part of that abstraction process, just as is cropping away distracting elements with 2D composition/framing. As I said before (I think), color carries its own message (blood-red captures our attention, that is hard-wired into our human minds) - and that message may interfere with our intent (unless we can control the color in the studio).

Which picture tells which story? And as a pop-quiz, would Gordon Willis' compositions in Woody Allen's Manhattan have been as effective if they were shot in color? I don't believe so.

https://tammytourguide.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/manhattan-looking-for-woody-allens-new-york/

 

Edited December 17, 2018 by adan

[scott kirkpatrick]

Andy, taking your shot as an example, in color, the bike stands out nicely, and since I like bikes it might have been a nice record, but the painting on the house in back distracts.  When you reduced it to B/W the bike isn't well separated from the house, and to me, at least, the image is less clear.  To me this is fair example of a picture that you might take into B/W to reduce a distraction, and end up without a clear composition.  But that's just my own reaction.  The first example, again to me, needs the color.

[JDFlood]

Ok, now this has taken an interesting turn. Maybe that is why I have difficulty in making the transition. Stalking a color picture requires a different mental process since it is a different aesthetic. So, while Brilliant professionals can juggle both in their head, us mere mortals have to think one way or another. I have been taking color photos exclusively for 40 years... I don’t think of composing in B&W although I really appreciate them. I am sure that is why turning my M to do both hasn’t helped me. I am drawn back to the color since I use color as a major compositional component. So my photos are poor (usually in B&W). Also, my personality runs toward single minded pursuit. So, if I am going to do B&W I need to get a B&W camera only and start stalking / learning to shoot in that aesthetic. That is for me, different people approach / learn differently. 

[250swb]

On 12/18/2018 at 4:56 PM, JDFlood said:

So, if I am going to do B&W I need to get a B&W camera only and start stalking / learning to shoot in that aesthetic. That is for me, different people approach / learn differently. 

In all seriousness whatever the film they have in the camera the photographer puts either their B&W or colour head on before they leave the house in the morning. They can imagine the scene in front of them rendered in Kodachrome or Tri-X, but nobody has ever needed B&W glasses never mind a B&W camera to successfully make B&W photographs. Digital photography doesn't change this, with a monochrome camera you still need to look at the colourful world and imagine it in B&W. Save yourself the money because it's willpower and thought that makes B&W images, not being forced into it by the camera. 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[JDFlood]

8 hours ago, 250swb said:

In all seriousness whatever the film they have in the camera the photographer puts either their B&W or colour head on before they leave the house in the morning. They can imagine the scene in front of them rendered in Kodachrome or Tri-X, but nobody has ever needed B&W glasses never mind a B&W camera to successfully make B&W photographs. Digital photography doesn't change this, with a monochrome camera you still need to look at the colourful world and imagine it in B&W. Save yourself the money because it's willpower and thought that makes B&W images, not being forced into it by the camera. 

Yes, that is the logical thing to do. I know that. And “flip”, the button goes back to color. Yes, I am weak... on the other hand this is a hobby, not a life threatening addiction, so maybe i’ll Be weak and stupid. You only live once.

Edited December 20, 2018 by JDFlood

[schattenundlicht]

Ansel Adams strongly advocated b&w viewing filters in his teaching classes and in his books. That was decades before the advent of LCD preview monitors and in-camera b/w conversion, of course.

These filters will work only for the first few seconds one looks through them, markedly desaturating any scenery - then the massive parallel postprocessing machinery (aka brain) kicks in and readjusts color view. They can be fun to carry around even at times when one is w/o camera. However, these filters are rather hard to come by nowadays. Once I eventually sourced a viewing filter, however, I found that I very rarely used it on location, because my aesthetic vision had turned mostly to b&w by then, without any accessory. 

 

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Edited December 20, 2018 by schattenundlicht