 Lisa W. Illingworth |
B&W Photos Is there a trick to taking clear black and white photos, where the people don't come out grey? I took a roll of black and white to practice, indoors, with natural light from the window and a flash with a defuser and everyone came out grey tone. What am I missing?
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BetterPhoto Member |
What exactly are you looking for? Do you mean you want the people to come out white? I'm no experienced photographer but from my limited experience I can say that I'm pretty sure that's what black and white does (it did for me). Black and white film merely records the AMOUNT of light hitting the film and the film becomes darker or lighter, depending on how much light hits it (if I recall correctly). The result is a combination of greys, varying throughout the photo, giving the illusion of an image. Unless the object (or person) you're photographing is either extremely lit (and/or overexposed) or completely white (and adequately exposed), it won't come out white.
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Kerry L. Walker |
Why don't you create a gallery (it's free) and post a few for us to see. Then we could help better.
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Kevin Ekstrom |
There was another thread similar to this. Your meter will reproduce 18% gray.Try using a gray card. Being that skin tone is not pure white, you'll get a gray tone of some shade regardless.
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RJ Pieper |
Try using some Zone system adjustments. If you don't know what Zone System is, here ia a quick rundown. (if I get somthing wrong or miss somthing please correct me) First off, the Zone System was invented by the great Ansel Adams in the early 1940s The zone system is made up of 10 zones, zone 1, being the darkest, i.e. Black and zone 10 is the lightest or White. Zone 5 is of course right in the middle, called medium grey which is also what the camera reads to be 18% reflectancy. So, as an example, if you have a snow scene, and you want you snow to be a pure white with some texture, you would have to adjust your exposure, becasue if you just metered it and exposed it, it would be medium grey and not white, so you need to decide what zone youre shade falls into, regardless of color in real life. thne underexpose or over expose to adjust to ger the shade you want on your negitave and print. So, in the case of the snow I would over underexpose by 2 stops to make the snow lighter. I usually use 2 stops as a rule of thumb but you can adjust as you see fit, This site has a great overview of Zone system and it also has some charts that show about what shade is for each zone.
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RJ Pieper |
Try using some Zone system adjustments. If you don't know what Zone System is, here ia a quick rundown. (if I get somthing wrong or miss somthing please correct me) First off, the Zone System was invented by the great Ansel Adams in the early 1940s The zone system is made up of 10 zones, zone 1, being the darkest, i.e. Black and zone 10 is the lightest or White. Zone 5 is of course right in the middle, called medium grey which is also what the camera reads to be 18% reflectancy. So, as an example, if you have a snow scene, and you want you snow to be a pure white with some texture, you would have to adjust your exposure, becasue if you just metered it and exposed it, it would be medium grey and not white, so you need to decide what zone youre shade falls into, regardless of color in real life. thne underexpose or over expose to adjust to ger the shade you want on your negitave and print. So, in the case of the snow I would over underexpose by 2 stops to make the snow lighter. I usually use 2 stops as a rule of thumb but you can adjust as you see fit, This site has a great overview of Zone system and it also has some charts that show about what shade is for each zone. http://www.normankoren.com/zonesystem.html#History Also as mentioned before, a grey card will meter the shade as its true meduim grey, setting you meter right for a correct exposure.
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