New Vrindaban—Black and white images on film have a grainy look unlike that of digital. It’s only a matter of time when old becomes new again. Video-editing software these days have effects that let you add grain to give it the film look. Film shooters who disliked the appearance of grain from high ISO, don’t fret. It’ll be in vogue again soon. This picture was originally photographed on Kodak Tri-x pushed to 1600. Processed with some strange cocktail which eludes me now.
Prior to digital photography, if you wanted black and white images, you had to shoot black and white film, learn how to develop it and then make prints in a wet darkroom.
With digital photography, anyone who wants to play “fine art photographer†can easily do so without all that hassle.
But before you change that setting on your camera to capture only in black and white, you need to know this:
Assuming you want the best quality, doing so will tell the camera to dump information from your files especially if you’re shooting JPEGs.
All color images are really 3 black and white images in red, blue and green channels.
When you tell the camera to capture in black & white, the camera dumps digital information because the resulting file you get is smaller.
Continue reading Beginners tip: black and white photos →
