Important Clarification

So there's that old joke. Man says to his wife, "Honey, you look nice today." Wife answers, "Are you saying I don't look nice every other day?"

In the Sigma DP2M post on Friday, I didn't mean to imply that the Foveon Merrill sensor is the only one that can create natural-looking B&W. It looks to me like it does, but it's not the only one. I also wrote, "I'm seeing excellent digital B&W much more often now, and from different cameras, for example from the E-M5 and the latest Fujis."

Which is like the husband in the joke saying "honey, you look nice today," and then adding, "...of course, you usually do." But I meant it.

I also said, of the rendering of highlights in digital B&W, "...this has been getting better and better over the years, as equipment improves and as digital photographers improve (both of which are happening, I think)." That was meant to imply that, yes, it's partially a matter of individual technique, as Ctein and others asserted at greater length.

There's also the issue, which I did not explore, of peoples' tastes in B&W tonality being different. That's one of the nice things about B&W; it admits of lots of different interpretations and styles. Maybe some of the harsh gradation I see was done on purpose.

It's impossible to fully develop every aspect of every argument or assertion or contention in every post. But saying I like the tonality I was seeing from the Foveon sensor doesn't imply that nothing else looks nice.

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard Newman: "I'm curious, did you try your D800e in B&W? Its supposed to have excellent dynamic range, especially at lower ISO settings, so it should be able to handle the highlights well. And of course resolution is good, so it seems a good candidate for B&W imaging."

Mike replies: Yes, I've done a lot of B&W with Ye Big Dragoon (the D800—I tested the D800e but bought the cooking version). It's capable, and yet I don't get results I'm quite 100% happy with. As you know there are a thousand ways to convert to B&W in digital imaging, though, so it may well be that I'm just not far enough up the learning curve with it yet, or haven't found the best conversion method/workflow for me. More recently I've been doing the most B&W with the NEX-6.

Lars S.: "Coincidentally I just came across an interview with Michael Ernest Sweet, in which he says: 'I could care less about having 50 shades of gray in a photograph. It's not interesting. I'm not Ansel Adams. I don't care about the tones. You could photocopy my photographs and they would look the way I would like them to—gritty and rough, edgy.'"

Mike replies: That falls under the heading of what I said about B&W admitting of lots of different interpretations and styles. And also by coincidence, I was just looking at Michael Ernest Sweet's work.

I've always said that you have to take mature artists at their word—meaning, you have to assume that the way their work looks is the way they want it to look.

Bernie: "It looks like Gianni Galassi has read your monochrome musings and answered. He has posted his monochrome workflow on his website."

Mike replies: That could be very helpful—to those who want their conversions to look like Gianni's. Like Michael Ernest Sweet's, his is a very distinctive style. It works very well for his photographs. If you look at Gianni's B&W style and then look at Michael's, the big difference between them becomes readily obvious.

This is part of the fun and challenge of black and white, without question—developing a look that you really like and that not only suits but enhances your own work.

Comments

[Richard Newman]

Mike,
To continue, did your comments re highlights refer to the D800,or was it different problems?
RN

[Just overall, nothing specific and consistent. --Mike]

[James Weekes]

I am curious as to how much printing you have done on a good printer. I find that the more time I spend making black and white prints, on an Epson 3800, the closer I get to what I want from B&W. The pigment inks and the wonderful range of papers now available make getting to your target much easier than even two years ago. I know you have a good printer in TOP HQ somewhere. Once you move to HQ2 and have one set up you will find you'll advance rapidly.

[Stan B.]

Taking them at the their word- perhaps.
Believing it- maybe.
Liking it- depends.

[Steve Biro]

Stupid question: Could the difficulty some have in achieving the B&W results they want in the digital realm be because, at least in film, it's not really black and white but black and silver?

[Steve Pritchard]

That's all very well Mike, but none of this explains why you hate colour photography so much. I think we should be told!!!

[Tom Kwas]

Last really great digital black & white I saw was shot on a high-end large plate Hasselblad digital (I think it was something in the 40-50 megapixel range), and then was converted to black & white in a film emulator program like VSCO or Alien using the Tri-X setting. Closest thing I've ever seen to "real" black and white...

[Tom Kwas]

BTW, interesting reply to Bernie as above...

It reminds me that if you didn't do your own black & white in the old days, that you'd have to have a pretty good relationship with a printer at a lab before you could talk about getting him to print something in your "style", and pay a lot for it as "approval" printing. Even today, the guy that "prints" my commercial black & white (i.e. scans my negs and does Epson output), only hits it right, to my eye, about one out of three times, which is why I always ask for an approval print before he does the whole thing...

[James Eaton]

I was interested in your comment about the learning curve on conversion to B&W. I have the same issue. So I wondered about this possibility: could you post a straight from the camera color photo and invite readers to do a conversion, documenting their process? It might be interesting to crowd-source this issue.

[Alan]

Always shoot in RAW. I have found conversion to B&W to be much smoother with the extra info from a RAW file than a baked jpg. And yes, every (B&W) image needs a different treatment.

[Richard Skoonberg]

I think individual interpretation is important. I always loved the look and tonal qualities of black and white Polaroid, both 107 and 667. That is the look I am naturally inclined to when I process my digital images for black and white.

Thank you, for pointing out Gianni Galassi, I have followed for years on Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/giannigalassi/,
and he is the most amazing photographer!

[Dave Karp]

Regarding the idea of various interpretations and styles, it is good to point out that even within one photographer's set of work, interpretation or style may change. Ansel Adams' work demonstrates this phenomenon. People generally associate his work with dramatic vast landscapes, but he started with a very different approach. Even after his embrace of "straight photography" his work changed and progressed to that dramatic style many remember.

Even within my own work, I have made adjustments that impact the look and feel of my photographs. Changes in brands or types of papers, developers, and toning processes impact the look and feel of your work and these choices change over time and interact with "artistic" choices to impact a photographer's prints.