BW on an SLR

I'm am thinking about getting into black and white photography after having read an article on it.

Would it make any sense to get a BW filter kit for the DSLR? Or would it be better to just shoot color and then mix channels?

How will quality be affected?

I haven't tried all the options on B&W photography, but for the black and whites I do, I like to shoot in color as normal and alter it in Photoshop to get black and white. Also keep in mind that there should most likely be a black and white option on the camera itself if you want to give that a shot.

As far as shooting in color and then converting, I like it because you can have either color or black and white... if you shoot first thing in black and white, you will never have a color version of that. In Photoshop, you can mix channels, play around with levels/curves, etc. to achieve the appropriate effects you want and get a great quality black and white shot.

It's just that potentially, the quality of with the filter can be higher.

I normally shoot color and then convert in PS CS if needed but there are cameras that can shoot BW direct in-camera. 2 models that I own that can do it are the EOS 20D, here you also have the option of serveral special BW filters, and the Fuji S2Pro.

Sometimes the "native" BW can surprise you with the quality of the result

Happy shooting,
Rudi

As for the BW filters, the 20D has some of that functionality built into the BW mode in the Parameters list. Assuming that by filters for BW you mean the yellow, orange, red, green filters which enhance various aspects of a BW shot.

I don' t know if those same filter functionalities are built into the 10D or the rebel but if you're using the 20D you might consider testing out what the camera can do before investing in the BW filters.

Personally, if you want BW pictures I see no need to shoot in color and then alter them -- sounds like too much post-processing work when you can get the desired result in the camera itself.

Or, consider shooting in RAW + jpegL, which will include all the color data but will also give you a BW picture right out of the camera. That way you can see if you can get better BW results in post processing or if the camera gives you better results. Once you determine which way gives the better results, shoot in that mode only.

What I wouldn't suggest doing is shooting normal color jpgs and then converting them to BW. If that's what you want to do, shoot RAW and do the conversion on that data.

Well, theoretically, having a filer between the subject and the camera would make for a lesser quality image than without one, wouldn't it? Although, in all practicality, the filter shouldn't make a difference in image quality.

However, if you do shoot in color without the colored filters, you can always simulate those colored filters in PS. For example, using a red filter would be the same as using the red channel of the image in PS. If you want to control the density of the red filter effect, then you can overlay the red channel image over the luminosity channel image and vary the opacity of the red channel image.

By the same token, you can simulate a yellow filter by using the red and the green channels, and likewise, vary the density the same way as described above.

I think shooting color and converting to BW gives you more processing options than just shooting in BW and using colored filters which really can't be undone if you decide that that's not the effect your really wanted.

It is very simple.

Digital sensor takes in maximum amount of color information without any filter on the lens, any additional filters (except for polarizer) most definetely will diminish the color range that the sensor is able to capture; if you put on the red filter, only the red light will be allowed to pass and you can't really choose anymore later in PS.

However if you shoot normally, with no filters on, you can make virtually anything in photoshop, by, but not just by mixing channels.

Hi,

You cant shoot black and white with the 300D without manipulating the channels in edit on the PC, right? You can, however do this directly on the 20D with IR filters, etc? If so, reason #4 to get one:

1) More mp
2) More fps
3) Its BLACK (JK)