My first attempt at B & W

myvision

I thought I would try my hand at B & W and would love to hear what you think about them. These are the first pictures I've taken.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

JAG

https://dgrin.com/discussion/262254/my-first-attempt-at-b-w#latest
Thread moved to other cool shots for feedback.

JAG

I just now saw this thread. You might get more responses on a different board so I'm going to move this to other cool shots so hopefully you will get more eyes looking at your work.
It would be easier for others to leave feedback if you were to number your images.

As for my thoughts, I think your first and 5th image needs to be lightened up. When taking black and white, you really need to think about lighting when shooting. Even more so than when you shoot in color. This is because contrast between light and dark needs to be more balanced out. I understand that maybe you were trying to do a silhouette of the leaves, but you need a much lighter background to make it work. You might try using an post editing program to play with the contrast curves to see if it can be better.
Your thistle and berries are the best out of all the images in my opinion. Although again, I would suggest that you bump your contrast just a touch. The berries could also be cropped on the right a little. Shooting in b/w can produce some very good effects for certain subjects, such as people, animals, scenic and street photography, but close ups of plants seem to lack the interest of the plant unless there is strong contrasts (which is strong lighting)to bring out the texture of the closeups.

I hope you continue to practice and improve on developing your new found joy of shooting in b/w.

Stumblebum

Great set! Bravo!

1 is a killer! #4 is awesome too!

Others are fantastic comps and framing, but the light is not as great in #1 and #4. Cheers!

Juano

I like the drama in #1. From a composition point of view my favorite is #5, however, I find the processing somewhat flat. As JAG said play with contrast and light. For black and white processing I use Silver Efex, it can be downloaded for free at:

https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/silver-efex-pro/

Have fun!

myvision

@JAG said:
I just now saw this thread. You might get more responses on a different board so I'm going to move this to other cool shots so hopefully you will get more eyes looking at your work.
It would be easier for others to leave feedback if you were to number your images.

As for my thoughts, I think your first and 5th image needs to be lightened up. When taking black and white, you really need to think about lighting when shooting. Even more so than when you shoot in color. This is because contrast between light and dark needs to be more balanced out. I understand that maybe you were trying to do a silhouette of the leaves, but you need a much lighter background to make it work. You might try using an post editing program to play with the contrast curves to see if it can be better.
Your thistle and berries are the best out of all the images in my opinion. Although again, I would suggest that you bump your contrast just a touch. The berries could also be cropped on the right a little. Shooting in b/w can produce some very good effects for certain subjects, such as people, animals, scenic and street photography, but close ups of plants seem to lack the interest of the plant unless there is strong contrasts (which is strong lighting)to bring out the texture of the closeups.

I hope you continue to practice and improve on developing your new found joy of shooting in b/w.

Thank you for steering me in the right place for posting! I'm still learning the ropes! I will start numbering my images to make things easier.

I appreciate all of your advice as I am not very proficient with the technological side. I am better at composition so any help is appreciated! I will play around with the contrast and see how it goes.

I am thoroughly enjoying playing around with B & W and hope to improve along the way!

myvision

@Stumblebum said:
Great set! Bravo!

1 is a killer! #4 is awesome too!

Others are fantastic comps and framing, but the light is not as great in #1 and #4. Cheers!

Thanks for the compliment! My favourite one is #4, I like how it shines.

myvision

@Juano said:
I like the drama in #1. From a composition point of view my favorite is #5, however, I find the processing somewhat flat. As JAG said play with contrast and light. For black and white processing I use Silver Efex, it can be downloaded for free at:

https://www.google.com/nikcollection/products/silver-efex-pro/

Have fun!

Thank you so much for the tip about Silver Efex! I have downloaded it and have started to play around with some photos. It is an amazing program for free! I'll try it out for a bit and post the results.

torags

Higher contrast on all...

Brighter whites and darker shadows

Good luck with your journey...

Richard

@torags said:
Higher contrast on all...

Brighter whites and darker shadows

I've been using Silver Efex for several years and would be lost without it. It takes some time to understand all the options and how they interact, but it's well worth the effort.