Digital B&W images..

Just curious about digital B&W photography... is it better to shoot in B&W, or shoot in colour then post process to B&W? Is there any loss of quality or that 'B&W feeling' that B&W images have? Or am i best ALWAYS shooting in colour (aside from file size/mem card restrictions) and then desaturating in PS?.

Same question for sepia images (although really its the same question I guess).

Ta

That's an interesting question. spelchek has the A85, would be nice if the answer also covers the 20D (if there is a difference).

If you're going to be shooting digital, you would have more processing choices by shooting in color. The simplest way to do the B&W from color would be the obvious Desaturate command but it's not always the best. Another option would be to select one of the color channels or a combination of them and create a B&W image that way. And I'm sure there are other methods that other people can point out.

I've shot in B&W mode using the 20D, not really excited about it but it works. The main trouble I'm having is the slight color tones in the prints. Still trying out printers in store & online to get that real B&W results. Overall if you want more control I say use PS and channel mixer but remember there is always more than one way to do something in PS.

The answer also depends on if you are shooting RAW or merely JPG. If you are shooting RAW the color data is always in the image so you can adjust that before getting the BW result. Sometimes this is better because the camera's automatic BW function isn't as great as we might like.

Also, if you want to shoot BW, experiment with the settings possible. At least for the 20D we can simulate the effect of shooting BW through a yellow filter or other color filters, each of which helps define the BW slightly differently depending on the subject we are shooting.

Personally,

I would allways leave the B&W conversion for later in software.

I'd allways prefer to have the option of color.

Ditto.....what CDS and the others have said. Convert in post processing. The potential results are infinite.

Side tracking now. belmondo (or anybody who speaks Spanish or Portuguese) what is "Tomas es muy gordo".

Thanks

Tomas is very fat.

Well, I guess my dirty little secret is out.

And what does "get some exercise" look like in Spanish / Portuguese

I always shoot in colour.
Then in photoshop ( should you have this) select the layer and click on "create new fill or adjustment layer" in the layers pallette at the bottom
then select channel mixer and tick the monochrome box. You can then work in B&W and play with the channel colours. This give you the same result as with shooting B&W film and using filters in front of the lens. I find it gives me a lot more control than shooting in B&W mode and playing with the contrast etc only
Hope this helps