gear-nut
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Resurrecting this thread for the purposes of further discussion on monochrome and how to achieve it. Sorry for the length, but I wanted to include my history searching for "good" mono conversions.
My history. Initially I used PhotoShop to do conversions, but the results were never that compelling to my eyes -- not enough depth. Later I tried two different dedicated mono capture digital cameras, a PhaseOne P45 mono and later I had an earlier Sony 45mp mirrorless body IR converted, but don't recall which specific model. Anyway, while both produced very good monochrome images, I never felt either was truly "film-like" which was my ultimate goal -- plus they had limited use of only mono or IR capture. This was also also when I started using CaptureOne as my raw conversion software and it had a decent, but fairly basic B&W tool box. With it I was able to get reasonably decent mono conversion from various color digital cameras. Still not a lot of depth, but a better spectral response than PS and actually almost as good as the dedicated mono cameras. A few years back, I migrated off the F platform to 100% mirrorless, first the Z7 then to the Z7ii when it was released, and eventually to the Z9. Starting out with the Z7, I had set up a dedicated mono jpeg custom setting and took some time to tweak the internal sharpness, contrast, clarity and filtration settings and actually found it equal to or in some cases even superior to anything I hade created before that. I was now pretty happy, but missed the option of heavier post-processing that raw files give over jpegs. C1 continued to improve it's internal B&W tools, and so now I was satisfied enough, I had no need to convert a Z body to IR/mono. Earlier this year, I transitioned to the Z9. And here is where the newest chapter starts.
I have claimed in other threads I feel there is something about the Z9 (8) sensor that allows for more compelling B&W conversions than the non-stacked sensors. Either that or C1's tool got better at it in the last release, IDK. Anyway, here are a series of example images I wanted to post for discussion -- I am open to honest C&C as I'm wanting to know if others see what I see or not -- I may just be getting complacent with my conversions - ??
All these are from the same Z9 raw file converted in C1 to my normal "color" standard, then I apply custom "styles" I have built in C1 specifically for mono conversions. More on C1: it has a very robust B&W tool that has primary and secondary color response sliders, a split-toning module, 5 or 6 film film grain types with size and impact sliders, and of course then the curve tool to best replicate the response of film. In this tool I have built three separate mono styles: the first is my goto standard color response pack, next is an Acros color response I built from a scan of an Acros shot of a McBeth CC and matched the tonal values to each main patch, then fit the contrast curve to the grayscale patches; and finally a "Film Noir" style to render that particular effect -- obviously the color image I chose to show these different conversions is not ideal for the noir style, but I include it just to show how it renders; I do use this style for many of my nighttime street shots.
Enough blabber, here are the images for comparison:
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