p.2 #1 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
old-gregg wrote:
@freaklikeme@ The options of full or filtered conversions are both explained on the website. But the author advocates for unfiltered conversions. I am not making any assumptions, I am saying that this recommendation is not attractive because it comes with the usability annoyance of filtering light with lens filters.
One point I overlooked, and thank you for correcting, is that filtering out the invisible light doesn't affect exposure. But I'm still skeptical regarding the attractiveness of the spectral sensitivitiy of an unfiltered sensor. To achieve (for example) an attractive skintone or foilage a photographer will need to filter the visible light as well, so that extra sensitivity is not always going to be available....Show more →
Very true, though one nice thing about digital is it gives you more latitude to play with different color filters. For example, shooting film, I never would've considered using an old FLD (pink) filter for shooting people in daylight, but it works very well. And it is the best thing about having an full-spectrum conversion; you can use IR pollution to soften an image for a specific look or get deep B&W with white foliage. It just adds more arrows to your quiver if you're willing to deal with filters.
p.2 #2 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
chez wrote:
I’ve never lacked resolution shooting my A7r3 and converting to b&w. This chasing the ultimate resolution game has extremely little impact on a photo.
p.2 #3 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
pfoiles wrote: BUT
Using the color information in a color raw file to control the B&W tonalities in monochrome images is a powerful tool that is lost when using a monochrome camera. When I was in my monochrome phase I also had a Leica Q2 Mono and took a workshop in digital B&W from a photographer who I knew owned and shot a Leica monochrome camera. I was surprised to learn that 80% of her monochorme work was from her color Leicas not her monochrome for the reason above. I have given monochrome shooting a serious try with both the Leica Q2 Mono and my converted A7RIII and have gotten some great images I am very happy with. But at the end of the day they are not any better than what I get from converting my color files. So even though I prefer to work in B&W fas much as possible my Sony mono gets very little use.
It very well may be that a monochrome camera is an itch that you just have to scratch but don't be surprised if the itch goes away after awhile. ...Show more →
While I understand that monochrome only cameras are a popular but very niche thing among some folks, as a photographer who creates and prints black and white photographs and who shot black and white film for decades, I don’t understand it.
First of all, you can produce absolutely first rate monochromatic images from color raw files. While some will tell you that the mono-only cameras as supposedly capable of sharper results, the images from converted color files have excellent resolution and sharpness. You can easily print them at 30” x 45” sizes if you are using a high resolution FF body and they look great — and larger is possible.
Second, and even more important, the monochrome-only cameras give up the color data and don’t allow you to bring it into post. We worked that way with film because we had little choice. (Color film did not convert to monochrome as well as color raw files do today.) But the advantages of bringing full color data into the post-processing stage are quite significant. For example:
1. filtering is much more powerful. You can apply any color of filtering in post and you can control its intensity in ways that were nearly impossible with physical filters on the camera. You can even apply the filtering selectively with masks — and even apply different color filters to different portions of the image. Put a red filter on the sky and a green filter on vegetation if you want, while leaving other areas of the image unfiltered.
2. Not only do you no longer need to carry around a bunch of color filters, but you don’t even have to commit to one color filter interpretation at the time of exposure. Let’s say you think that a red filter might be good — just shoot the scene and then apply it in post and see if you like it… or how intense you want it to be… of if you want it everywhere in the image… of perhaps you want a different filter color.
3. Unless you are 100% committed to BW-only photography, sometimes a subject simply works better in color. Sometimes you have a hunch that monochrome or color might be better, but you aren’t sure. The color digital camera allows you to mentally commit to either… but with a full color capture you have the option of going either way in post.
p.2 #4 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
Just throwing this out there, but have you tried shooting your camera in RAW in monochrome ? This allows you to see in B&W, while still having the benefit of having the color RAW files to play with in post processing.
I know some photographers that work that way and it can even help you achieve better color files as you are looking more into shapes, lines, highlights and shadows.
p.2 #5 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
See "Monochrome Astrophotography Techniques" here.
Astrophotographers use monochrome sensors and narrow-pass colored filters. I presume that surveillance satellites which point down towards Earth from space, use similar methods.
p.2 #6 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
mholdef wrote:
Just throwing this out there, but have you tried shooting your camera in RAW in monochrome ? This allows you to see in B&W, while still having the benefit of having the color RAW files to play with in post processing.
I know some photographers that work that way and it can even help you achieve better color files as you are looking more into shapes, lines, highlights and shadows.
p.2 #7 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
I do that as well. But I was following this thread because I was considering going to the next step and having a cam converted so I can be in mono completely. However, after much thought, I’m not sure I see the extra resolution as a benefit. I find digital and modern lenses to be too sharp as it is. I think I would tire of the extra sharpness of the files from a mono camera after awhile.
mholdef wrote:
Just throwing this out there, but have you tried shooting your camera in RAW in monochrome ? This allows you to see in B&W, while still having the benefit of having the color RAW files to play with in post processing.
I know some photographers that work that way and it can even help you achieve better color files as you are looking more into shapes, lines, highlights and shadows.
p.2 #8 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
gdanmitchell wrote:
While I understand that monochrome only cameras are a popular but very niche thing among some folks, as a photographer who creates and prints black and white photographs and who shot black and white film for decades, I don’t understand it.
First of all, you can produce absolutely first rate monochromatic images from color raw files. While some will tell you that the mono-only cameras as supposedly capable of sharper results, the images from converted color files have excellent resolution and sharpness. You can easily print them at 30” x 45” sizes if you are using a high resolution FF body and they look great — and larger is possible.
Second, and even more important, the monochrome-only cameras give up the color data and don’t allow you to bring it into post. We worked that way with film because we had little choice. (Color film did not convert to monochrome as well as color raw files do today.) But the advantages of bringing full color data into the post-processing stage are quite significant. For example:
1. filtering is much more powerful. You can apply any color of filtering in post and you can control its intensity in ways that were nearly impossible with physical filters on the camera. You can even apply the filtering selectively with masks — and even apply different color filters to different portions of the image. Put a red filter on the sky and a green filter on vegetation if you want, while leaving other areas of the image unfiltered.
2. Not only do you no longer need to carry around a bunch of color filters, but you don’t even have to commit to one color filter interpretation at the time of exposure. Let’s say you think that a red filter might be good — just shoot the scene and then apply it in post and see if you like it… or how intense you want it to be… of if you want it everywhere in the image… of perhaps you want a different filter color.
3. Unless you are 100% committed to BW-only photography, sometimes a subject simply works better in color. Sometimes you have a hunch that monochrome or color might be better, but you aren’t sure. The color digital camera allows you to mentally commit to either… but with a full color capture you have the option of going either way in post. ...Show more →
Also, the masking features in Adobe Lightroom/Camera Raw may not work as well with a monochrome raw file compared to a color raw file. Have to give credits to Hugh Brownstone (3 Blind Men and an Elephant) for mentioning this.
All this made me give up the idea of getting a monochrome camera, even though I shoot in B&W by default.
p.2 #9 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
addieleman wrote:
Also, the masking features in Adobe Lightroom/Camera Raw may not work as well with a monochrome raw file compared to a color raw file. Have to give credits to Hugh Brownstone (3 Blind Men and an Elephant) for mentioning this.
All this made me give up the idea of getting a monochrome camera, even though I shoot in B&W by default.
That’s a great point. It is often very helpful when making selections to create masks to be able to select areas by color. Without that. you can only use luminosity, and sometimes different subjects have nearly the same luminosity but quite different colors.
p.2 #10 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
gdanmitchell wrote:
That’s a great point. It is often very helpful when making selections to create masks to be able to select areas by color. Without that. you can only use luminosity, and sometimes different subjects have nearly the same luminosity but quite different colors.
I've never had a problem using masks on any mono image.
It would never have occurred to me that it could even be some kind of drawback, because I use masks easily in mono, just as I do in color.
Or maybe I'm missing something here?
My mono workflow is unchanged from color, except, as noted, I run mono images through Monochrome2DNG first.
p.2 #11 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
ATPphoto wrote:
I've never had a problem using masks on any mono image.
It would never have occurred to me that it could even be some kind of drawback, because I use masks easily in mono, just as I do in color.
Or maybe I'm missing something here?
My mono workflow is unchanged from color, except, as noted, I run mono images through Monochrome2DNG first.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that you cannot use masks on monochrome images — clearly you can. For example, you can still apply gradient masks and brushed masks regardless of the color content of the image.
Note that I wrote that it is very "helpful," not "necessary in all cases."
However, there are some things that are going to be quite difficult if possible at all. Imagine a green field full of red and yellow and blue flowers. Imagine that the blue flowers are not as bright as you would like or that the yellow flowers are too bright. With a color raw file you can create a mask by selection the blue flowers (if that is what you want to work with) or the the yellow flowers (or both, for that matter!), and not the red flowers — then apply whatever adjustments you wish to those colors.
That's going to be quite difficult if not impose with a monochromatic-only file. (One fun thing is that you can even bring the full color smart object file into PS from ACR — if that is your workflow — and use the ability to select colors to target specific areas of your ultimately monochrome image.
And, of course, this doesn't get at what I regard as an even more important issue, namely the ability to apply color filters with far greater flexibility than what is available either by putting filters on the camera or by trying to filter the monochromatic image in post.
And all of that against the backdrop of the very dubious advantages of monochrome-only campture.
p.2 #12 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
To isolate any tone, I can use the Luminance Range mask, and adjust a very specific object or tone in the image.
Even if two different things are the same shade of grey, I can isolate one of them.
To someone else's remark: I wouldn't say that mono cameras are sharper.
Yes, the images are "crisper" (compared to converting a color image) and offer loads of gray tones.
The main technical advantage they offer is less noise than color cameras at the same ISO.
Not a big deal to me, maybe to some.
For me, after working with mono cameras for a number of years, B&W-converted-from-color images pale in comparison.
They're also a lot more work to get the same result.
Shooting with a mono camera is more than about the specs. I do it because I converted color to B&W for many years and rarely liked the results.
I'm also someone who usually prefers a B&W image of almost any subject over its color counterpart.
If that sounds like you, you should use a monochrome camera.
I'm not a purist by any means. I regularly shoot color for work, and I love the colors the GFX offers with some lenses.
But when I want a monochrome image, the conversion doesn't do it for me any more, and I shoot enough to warrant having a dedicated mono camera.
p.2 #13 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
I have a Q2 monochrom and it's my daily carry around camera. I certainly find that the files seem to have a unique 'look'. I like being limited to only having black and white and in fact find that liberating. For me one of the main advantages is it's incredible high iso performance especially for street photography where I can just set the camera to f8 1/1000sec minimum shutter speed and auto iso with a maximum of iso 50,000!!
all this said I find that it still takes quite a bit of work to get the best out of the files and if shooting at lower iso's then it really is hard to see the difference between a colour conversion and a B&W file
p.2 #14 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
ATPphoto wrote:
To isolate any tone, I can use the Luminance Range mask, and adjust a very specific object or tone in the image.
Even if two different things are the same shade of grey, I can isolate one of them.
Yes, situations in which a luminance mask works will still work similarly (though not identically) with monochrome files. But see my example mentioned earlier in which luminance among the subjects to be differentiated may be similar if not identical in the monochrome files yet a color mask will quickly select them independently.
someone else's remark: I wouldn't say that mono cameras are sharper.
Yes, the images are "crisper" (compared to converting a color image)…
What does “crisper” mean here, if not sharper?
and offer loads of gray tones.
That is the claim and there is evidence that it is, at some test-bench-measurable level, true. Two points, however:
1. I don’t see any evidence in actual prints that this ostensibly measurable difference in “tones” is visible in prints.
2. To get this claimed advantage, you lose the other capabilities I have mentioned.
The main technical advantage they offer is less noise than color cameras at the same ISO.
Not a big deal to me, maybe to some.
That might have been more broadly meaningful 15 or so years ago when noise at ISOs above base could sometimes be a problem and when NR possibilities were far more limited. But today noise is rarely an issue, since cameras produce far less of it at a given ISO and because post-processing software now has almost miraculous abilities to diminish it. (For example, see the new AI NR features in Adobe software.)
For me, after working with mono cameras for a number of years, B&W-converted-from-color images pale in comparison.
As someone who first worked in BW many decades ago, I don’t share your evaluation.
They're also a lot more work to get the same result.
There may be more “work” involved in converting from color image data to BW in post because… you don’t do that with an originally monochrome file, so sure. But — my main point — having the color data allows you far more control and flexibilty in post _because_ you have the full original color data to work with. For example, with BW capture any traditional filtering that ou would do simply happens at the time of capture (with more limited options and control) whereas the same operations (with far greater control) now happen in post.
Shooting with a mono camera is more than about the specs. I do it because I converted color to B&W for many years and rarely liked the results.
I'm also someone who usually prefers a B&W image of almost any subject over its color counterpart.
If that sounds like you, you should use a monochrome camera.
As to ‘rarely liked the results,” my experience has not been that at all, nor has it bene so for the great number of us who make BW work from color files.
That goes for people who prefer BW images, too. (Though some of them that I know do prefer alternative printing technologies, and some of those are convincingly different, especially with the right papers.
In the end, I have no objection if people want to dabble in mon-only cameras, and I’m glad that someone experiments with the technology, just as I’m glad someone tries things like Foveon sensors, etc. But I do not see the photographic evidence (in the form of prints) that persuades me that giving up the control afforded by workign with color files is producing compensatory advantages in print quality.
p.2 #15 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
I'm not going to convince anyone, I know that I like the look of a monochrome sensor, that's enough for me to use it.
"Crispy" here doesn't mean sharp, it's more about contrast, especially mid-tones, that really pop with a monochrome sensor.
Color conversions don't inherently have that, and they also have a kind of mushy, low-contrast feel to them.
I only noticed this after doing my first color conversion in a year, and this is what stood out to me.
I think many of us come from film backgrounds, but it doesn't mean we all agree on what makes a good B&W neg or print.
I was still shooting 8x10 right up until after Covid (I hung around film far too long), and I much prefer the results I get now vs what I got with film, darkroom and enlarger.
p.2 #16 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
I definitely see a difference in the files between a mono camera and a color converted file. But what I don’t know is if those differences show in prints. I would need to have access to a mono camera to test that.
p.2 #18 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
Kenneth Lee wrote:
Perhaps someone can share some side-by-side comparisons that demonstrate the differences they see.
And who can guarantee that the photo that looks comparatively worse is because it was taken with this or that camera and not because more effort was put into editing the photo that you wanted to make look better?
p.2 #19 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
I have seen comparisons which show differences in resolution, but none based on aesthetics. As someone who shot black and white film for a long time, I'd appreciate seeing any compelling differences.
p.2 #20 · Your experience having a Sony camera converted to Monochrome?
jwpstl wrote:
I definitely see a difference in the files between a mono camera and a color converted file. But what I don’t know is if those differences show in prints. I would need to have access to a mono camera to test that.
I asked this on a printing forum a couple years ago.
I thought the mono camera would have a slight advantage in printing true B&W images, but no.
The printer still uses colors to reproduce specific tones.
So the only way to print without color is to disable the ICC profiles and print in B&W mode.
