Photo’s: Colour or Black & White. Which do you prefer, and why.

Magna-Carta said:
1, I did shoot in B&W for a short while, but then thought what’s the point. Then quickly went back to shooting in colour only, usually converting to B&W in Adobe Lightroom.

2, I shoot in RAW, mostly. One of my bodies has two slots, CF & SD. I have the body configured to save RAW to the CF, & a copy of the same image to the SD as JPEG.
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Having two slots to deal with the different formats sounds very useful. (y)
 

Gaer said:
In my opinion, the black and white images have a "magic" about them.
I adore the old photos from Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange.
I suppose it depends on the image. If you are photographing people,
I think black and white focuses the seer's vision on the emotions
whereas the above photo you took in the Naddle Valley, You would lose
the incredible hues and shades if you took it in black and white.

Please note: I don't know what I'm talking about. Just an opinion.
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To me, you sound as though you know what you are talking about. :)
 

Magna-Carta said:
Photo’s: Colour or Black & White. Which do you prefer, and why.

When it comes to photography, one of the most fundamental decisions you'll have to make is whether to shoot in colour or black and white. Both colour and black and white have their advantages and disadvantages, and the choice ultimately depends on the photographer's goals and intentions.

If you're looking to capture the mood and atmosphere of a scene, black and white photography can be a powerful tool. By removing colour from the equation, you're forced to focus on the other elements of the image, such as contrast, texture, and composition. Black and white photography can also evoke a sense of nostalgia and timelessness, making it ideal for capturing historical moments or landscapes.
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+1, so true!
 
Trish said:
Wow! sounds serious stuff. Do you still use film or do you shoot entirely with digital?
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Yeah have a dusty museum of old camera gear haha. My Wisner Expedition 4x5 gear has been collecting dust since fully moving to a digital A6000 system in 2013 but is still usable. Most of that old 4x5 film work still needs to be expensively drum scanned that is still about $80 each to create sharp 12,000 by 10,000 pixel files. Provia 100F 4x5 transparencies are all carefully stored and computer file cataloged. Have several dozen decade plus old expensive Lightjet color prints in 28" to 40" width sizes. When professionally framed with glass and all, logistics for more than just a few heavy fragile framed prints becomes impossible. My digital body of work is already huge and ready. With large 8k UHD monitors will just need a small USB memory stick plugged into a PC to exhibit hundreds of huge high detail immersive images. Art...not a $$$ thing.
 
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In a few weeks given big California rains, our spring wildflowers areas will be peaking. Here is a for web downsized image of one place I will be looking at that no one else has ever seen because it is remote, obscure, awkward hike to reach. Only impressive with color. It is a 4 column wide 2 row high focus stack stitch blend of 12,300 by 8900 pixels. Enough to fill tack sharp 3 side by side 4k monitors 3 deep or 9 total. Use a fancy manual panoramic head. So even downsized to fit, standing right next to a big monitor will be IMMERSIVE on an 8K UHD ( 7680 × 4320) at say 65 inch diagonal plus.

QL04186-04229-4x2vy.jpg


Here are three 100% pixels crops. The black specs in the sky are buzzards.

QL04186-04229-4x2v-cr1.jpg


In the middle:

QL04186-04229-4x2v-cr2.jpg


At near lower right frame edge. Only possible to obtain such sharp focus throughout an image with manually processed focus stack blending after using a sharp prime lens at low ISO, sharpest apertures. Not something one can learn to do with any $$$ training or guide books.

QL04186-04229-4x2v-cr3.jpg
 
I love the first and third images with the lavender against the green and the ochres and yellows. Not sure if I understand the technical stuff but, did you take four photos and stitch them together?
 
The image is 4 columns wide by 2 rows deep thus 4x2= 8 total 24mb panels. Note, due to the way our forum software works with images, each image may annoyingly look less sharp than they actually should be unless one sizes a browser image so actual pixel dimension match one's monitor RGB dot densities. Each crop is 888 by 888 pixels. My Dell 24 inch diagonal UHD 4k monitor is 3840 inches wide by 2160 inches deep of RGB dots. A 24 inch diagonal monitor using the pythagorean theorem is 20.9 inches wide. Thus when I adjust the forum image by changing my browser such that the screen image is about 20.9(888/3840)= 4.8 inches wide, then image displays correctly on my own screen. Note, if one uses the popular pc free to download and use Irfanview image viewer, it can readily display images correctly on any pc monitor because it does those calculations automatically by reading monitor parameters. In the future, browsers will undoubtedly do so too.

I use an APS-C Sony A6000 (6000x4000 pixels = 24 megapixels) mirrorless camera with sharp flat field prime lenses on a Nodal Ninja III MK II manual panoramic head atop a Manfrotto MH054M0 magnesium ballhead atop an Oben CT-2316 carbon fiber tripod, for stitching panels processed with Kolor Autopano. 24mb panels are overlapped by 2/3 for stitch blending. Focus stack blending of each jpg panel is first processed with Zerene Stacker. That is the most tedious time consuming step. An expensive Nikon D850 would be easier haha. I use Photoshop CS6 for all final processing that also provides limited stitch and focus stack blending features but they have artifact issues.

size-nodal-ninja-3-mkIII.jpg

I u
 

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