 Annette Leibovitz |
Tips on Taking Black and White Pictures I love the look of black and white pictures. I took in a few rolls to a local printer. It is true black and white film. The pictures came back and did not look as sharp as I wanted them to be. They looked more gray and white than black and white. I know the film is sent out to be processed and is printed back at the store on the same paper they use for the color pictures. Any ideas? Thanks.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Even if it was printed on black-and-white paper, contrast is usually controlled with contrast filters when you print. A regular place like that would just print straight. You can also change contrast when taking pictures with colored filters. But with losing some on exposure, it's easier to do it when printing. So, if you want to add more contrast, darken sky, define clouds more, you can use a yellow filter. Orange would be more, and red would be high contrast. It still won't be the same as black-and-white paper, but it will make the ones on color paper look better. If you wanted to, you could look at the sky or anything blue through a red filter and see how dark it appears. Gives you an idea of what it does to a b&w picture.
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Debbie Truesdale |
Wow, what good advice! I love black and white photos. I usually only use it when taking pictures of my girls. I took that film to Wal-mart and they turned out great!! I have never used filters with black and white but I might try it next time. I learn so much on this site! Thanks!
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Debbie Truesdale |
Wow what good advice!! I love black and white photos. I usually only use it when taking pictures of my girl's. I took that film to Walmart and they turned out great!! I have never used filters with black and white but I might try it next time. I learn so much on this site!! Thanks!! Debbie
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Debbie Truesdale |
Wow what good advice!! I love black and white photos. I usually only use it when taking pictures of my girl's. I took that film to Walmart and they turned out great!! I have never used filters with black and white but I might try it next time. I learn so much on this site!! Thanks!! Debbie
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Debbie Truesdale |
SORRY>>> my computer freaked out!!!
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Christopher A. Vedros |
Kodak makes a B&W film that can be developed with standard color film process. Look for a black and white film that says C-41 process on the package. This film can be developed at a standard lab just like color print film. It gives very nice results. I'm not sure if any of the other film manufacturers offer a C-41 process B&W film.
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Kevin Ekstrom |
When shooting B/W film to achieve natural white tones you have to trick your meter. The meter tries to produce 18% gray. That's what it reads, and that's what you'll get. White will look gray. Such as snow not appearing white. So if you point your camera at snow the meter will tell you how to make the snow look 18% gray. Try using a gray card to take a reading. This is a great tool. The 18% gray tone in the card will be produced as 18% gray making all other tones darker or lighter giving you the proper exposure for the print. It's all about exposure and film latitude. This is a whole other subject. I'll stop here. I hope I made sense?
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Made sense but not exactly what I was talking about. Straight prints on properly exposed b&w still are flat, although it could be a look that's what some may want. How much can be personal, but a #3 contrast - which is a very light purple - is kinda considered normal. If you have any filters and a digital camera, you could shoot the same scene with no filter and a yellow filter (or orange) and switch them to grayscale and compare them. A straight b&w print looks more like newspaper b&w. Using a contrast filter looks more like portrait, art stuff that people usually expect it to look. Which is why many are disappointed when they get a roll back.
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BetterPhoto Member |
some labs do great color, like fuji and some B&W like Kodak
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Annette Leibovitz |
I have a Minolta XTsi camera. I can look into getting a light purple lens. I have the B&H catalogue and I think there is one this. I am considering getting a digital camera but am not ready for the investment and not sure how to balance a film SLR camera and a digital SLR if I am out at a party. I have been told that the black and white pictures whould be better from my film camera.
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Kevin Ekstrom |
Greg, I agree with what you say about filters. They can deepen the sky and such. But from what I read in the original post she stated her whites and blacks where looking gray. This sounds like an expousure problem. As I stated your meter has no brains. You have to think for the camera. I can take B/W pics without a filter and the whites are white and blacks are black. If I added a filter, it would be to enhance the tones.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Could be, but she said they look more gray and white, instead of gray looking like whites.
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Kevin Ekstrom |
Greg, I would have to see the photos. I would bet her whites are dingy and her blacks are gray. But without a pick, who's to say. If her blacks are gray something was off in the exposure.
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Annette Leibovitz |
Thanks for the input,
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Annette Leibovitz |
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Collette Photography |
Hey, I'm new here but I had the same problem, I took a roll to my grocery store to develope it and they all came out in a grey tone, and I was really dissapointed, so now I always shoot with the film that Chris suggested, it comes out so much better, cause they develope it in color chemilcals.
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Andrew Laverghetta |
I think a lot of this has to do with the printing and how careful they are with it. If they don't do it without paying enough attention, then they could come out not so good. So sometimes it depends on who is working at the time. The chemicals don't really make the difference. Of course, not having gotten to my darkroom class, there could have been an error in developing maybe, but I'm not sure. It could have sometime to do with exposure too but I don't think there should be a reason for gray cards. Possibly you had some kind of exposure compensation on somehow, or the ISO was off? Check that again maybe? Either way, filters can make a big difference when you're taking the pictures. Also, things that look dark to your eyes because of the color may look only gray to the film. The picture that you posted looks fine to me but yes, it may be a bit out of focus or fuzzy. It could be possible that something was off when printing but I think it was probably caused when the picture was taken. Her hair is black in the picture and not gray, so I don't know what to tell you. I have used Kodak's Black and White negative C-41 process film and have had some good results recently, while other times, I have had a slight blue tint and a slight brown tint another time. You could take your negatives to another place and see what you think about how they make prints and go from there. If they come back the same, it either needs more contrast with a filter or better exposure next time. The other thing is that when I take a photo of something in color that has a dingy gray sky, I'll often convert to black and white because some just don't look good in color. In the same way, some things just don't have enough contrast naturally to look as good in black and white unless you like that. Hope this helps! There's probably something I've missed or forgotten about, but here's what I took off the top of my head.
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Kevin Ekstrom |
The blacks and whites look fine. What I do see here is perhaps a film latitude issue. This photo was taken outdoors? Was there clouds in the sky? The sky seems to be completley washed out. If there were clouds in the sky they could have been captured.This could be a lenghty post. For all negative films the latitude is greater for overexposure than under exposure. So this simply means you have more latitude in the direction of the highlights than in the direction of the shadows. So say you were shooting with PLUS-X, the latitude for this film is seven stops. This does not mean you have 3 1/2 stops in each direction. You have about 5 stops for overexposure and two for underexposure. So we know we cant underexpose the shadows by more than 2 stops. The latitude of the film wont allow this. Youll lose the shadows. But you can overexpose by up to 5 stops and not lose your shadows. Am I making sense. This can seem quite complicated, but it is the key to perfect exposure. I could go on and talk about high contrast and low contrast scenes, but my post is getting too long. If you would like to drop me an e-mail please do. I can help you with this problem if you would like.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
don't think that's the sky you're looking at in the background.
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Kevin Ekstrom |
I think your right. I see a shadow behind her nose.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
That's out of focus hair
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