taking digital images in black and white mode
in [Photography]
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From: Brandon Moore on 3 May 2007 22:23 >From what I've been told, the sensor in a digital camera measures only light intensity, not color, and so in order to capture a color photograph three filter (red, blue, and green) have to be rotated in front of the sensor (basically taking three pictures). So, my question is this: if I'm shooting in black and white mode, does the camera only take one picture and, more importantly, does this mean I use a faster shutter speed to get the same exposure? Basically, I'm wondering if shooting in black and white mode has any advantage over shooting in color and just desaturating the image in post-processing.
From: Brandon Moore on 3 May 2007 22:39 Okay, I actually spent five minutes on research and learned that the answer to my first question is no; a permanent Bayer filter of mixed red,blue, and green elements is used, so exposure times are the same for shooting in color or in black and white. But my second question still stands: is there any advantage to shooting in BW instead of shooting in color and converting to BW later. I guess if you have RAW capture, then the answer to that is no, but what if you only have JPEG and the camera is doing the "demosaicing" of the photo?
From: Charles Gillen on 3 May 2007 23:25 Brandon Moore <brandon.joseph.moore(a)gmail.com> wrote: > is there any advantage to shooting in BW instead of > shooting in color and converting to BW later. No. You have no control over how your camera converts to monochrome, while when converting color to grayscale on your computer you can juggle the RGB values to emulate red/yellow/green filters similar to glass filters with B&W film, and also customize the final result for the best effect you can achieve in monochrome. This technique can be used with both RAW and JPEG images for superior monochrome results. For example, emphasize the red channel for grayscale portraits of women, the green channel for men, to get that rugged masculine look. Whether shooting film or digital, when taking monochrome photos you have to THINK and VISUALIZE in grayscale while the scene is still in your viewfinder. Converting color to grayscale later allows you much more time for that thinking, visualizing, and experimentation. Just treat the color image as a "negative" for your ultimate B&W printing. Look on the bright side... you're getting the color for free, plus the opportunity to transform it into an even more interesting monochrome :^)
From: timeOday on 3 May 2007 23:38 Brandon Moore wrote: >>From what I've been told, the sensor in a digital camera measures only > light intensity, not color, and so in order to capture a color > photograph three filter (red, blue, and green) have to be rotated in > front of the sensor (basically taking three pictures). That was how my first digital camera worked - the NewTek Digiview Gold for the Amiga. It came with a color wheel you manually turned between each of 3 manual exposures. And it's also how single-chip DLP projectors work.
From: Koekje on 4 May 2007 07:44
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.photography.] Brandon Moore enlightened us with: > is there any advantage to shooting in BW instead of shooting in > color and converting to BW later. I guess if you have RAW capture, > then the answer to that is no, but what if you only have JPEG and > the camera is doing the "demosaicing" of the photo? Nope, you always shoot in RAW mode. When shooting JPEG you just let the camera convert the RAW to JPEG for you. Koekje |