Photography Thailand Forum

[fred]

There's an old guy I lean on with camera questions because he was born into a camera repair, modification and design business. He's didn't become a photographer until he retired and adopted digital as camera of choice. I asked him B&W questions, and he replied with excerpt from a technical dissertation.
"Photography preceded cameras from the time someone discovered photo sensitivity - and it still does. Cameras were designed to satisfy the needs of photography - and still are. Camera technology is the result of demand by commercial users, and market desires of buying public. Manufacturers have responded to commercial need from the beginning with product improvement often derived by adaptation of commercial customers design.
Public demand was satisfied with spin-off technology assembled as economically as possible. Some was quite good, but the public market didn't respond profitably until the 80's when manufacturing advances improved optics, and "compacts" were designed for the convenience of 35mm film.
Mass marketing was introduced too. Everything was in place for introduction of digital that took off like gangbusters. About the only thing missing was B&W. Digital does alright, and with fiddling can be quite good. But for the public digital doesn't have the demand yet to perform like B&W film that experienced a hundred years of perfection.
Photography still precedes camera design, or in this case, digital computer programs that replaced darkrooms. Programmers with enough input from users will probably get B&W closer to right first. Camera manufactures faced with recovering enormous cost have the task of adjusting electronics perfected for color to accept pure black and white".
In a prior conversation, my friend spoke of equipment constructed for NASA that composed B&W in camera. So the technology is there, and I expect we will be seeing it as soon as its size and cost is reduced to showcase size.

[Marc Schultz]

Interesting subject matter, but by design I don't see how a digital sensor can behave like the grainy emulsions that B&W film provides. If they did, then it would mean taking a step backwards in digital sensor technology in terms of the added sharpness and detail that digital adds over film. My experience is that all of the moody effects that B&W film offers in terms of grayscale contrast, depth, grain and etc, can all be achieved, if not even possibly better than from B&W film itself, by mastering the techniques in Photoshop. Good B&W results digitally take some time in post processing to achieve, but so did good printing and development of B&W film in the old analogue dark rooms. I think the biggest problem people face with B&W from digital is the printing. Since most digital print paper is RGB based you often have trouble controlling hues and tones to make the prints appear as pure B&W. There is however B&W digital print paper available, although I have not tried it myself. So the solutions are out there already I think. It is just a matter of exploring them further. 

[fred]

Thanks for the RGB paper information Marc. It's something I never considered. It's details like this that add to the "ah-ha's" collected from Forum. It maybe explains too why B&W printed on watercolor paper displays better than photo stock. I've never seen B&W photo paper on display. I'll give it try when I find it.
 
Is there an over-the-counter digital camera designed for B&W? Just curious, since I'm satisfied with what I have.
 
Another question. What's the relationship of pixels to physical size of digital sensor? I own, or have used digital from 2-12 megapixels. Within range of the print size they produce, the difference in quality of B&W is difficult to detect, except for one premium priced 4MP model. The photos it produced were better suited to B&W conversion than average and they enlarged easy to print 8.5x22". A 12MP version of same model wasn't any better, or worse, than other cameras. That got me to wondering about pixels.
 
Out of habit perhaps, I still look to the camera to record best possible results. I don't have the visual stamina anymore to stare at a computer screen for long. My expert Photoshop neighbor moved to new airport too. That leaves it up to me and camera to get it right at the beginning.
 
 

[Marc Schultz]

Your welcome Fred and glad the information was of use to you.

I am not sure where you could buy B&W digital photo paper, but IQ Lab does offer it for print processing from what I understand.

Basically all digital camera sensors capture light the way it is seen, which is in color. So no, there are no digital cameras that I know of that shoot in pure B&W. There are some digital cameras which have a mode for coverting to B&W in the camera to save time. But there is a price to be paid for that as you have no control over how the B&W tones are applied in the various color channels. So I would not be in favor of that and am more in favor of making the conversion from color to B&W on the computer where you have total control.

If you are not so versed in Photoshop, there are various after market plug-ins offered by 3rd party software companies that will help to convert to B&W in Photoshop. Fred Miranda on his web site also sells a good and inexpensive action script for converting to B&W in Photoshop.

I am not sure I totally understand your question about pixels, but yes, if a photo was shot with a low end digital camera and it has a lot of noise and posterization occurring then those short comings are much easier to hide within a photo converted from color to B&W.

What the higher end DSLR cameras will offer, which also have larger pixel counts, are generally lower noise and greater sharpness and detail if you are using a good quality lens along with it.

Although you may not see the differences so clearly on a small sized print, the vast differences in quality between a photo shot with a digital camera of 3-6MP and one of 10-16MP can clearly be seen at the larger print sizes.

Personally, I can often tell on screen how good the DSLR was that shot the image, but I am quite used to looking various types of pixels.

In addition, results in general from digital color to B&W will have a lot to do with the overall dynamic range of highlight to shadow detail in the picture, what kind of light the photo was shot in and how much noise and other technical issues the photo may or may not have to begin with.

Hope this helps...

[Marc Schultz]

Hi Fred,

I am attaching a shot I took with digital and converted to B&W. There are a few halos and artifacts around the edge of the coconuts and a few other edges becuase of sharpening on such a low-res image where pixels got quite compressed, but in a larger resolution those issues wont exist. I could have selectively sharpenned to avoid those areas, but didn't.

I think you will agree though the grainy atmosphere of the image is very much like B&W film and most people would not know the original image was shot on digital.

It just comes down to post processing really I think.

[kinginexile]

Hi mark, Your toning work is beautiful, enriches the image and gives it punch, still, and I am no expert  in film sharpening, just having looked at 1000s of processed dig pix the last 2 years, I think his face shows the type of sharpening digital.  If I understand, digital sharpening means that evry pixel is worked on, whereas film sharpening is, well  you tell me, but I do not think it's about the snallest part of the shot, individually. And I stand to be corrected, as I am a bit on a technical limb on that, quite frankly.

[bjorn slis]

Great shot, and great conversion, maybe the whole hand would be even better.

[Marc Schultz]

Thank you KIE and Bjorn.

KIE, sorry, but I am not sure I understand exactly what you mean by the difference between digital and film sharpening? All digital images, wether from film scans or a digital camera normally need some sharpening to make them look sharp because of low pass filters on scanners and digital cameras that soften the pixels from the start. If you were to do a direct print from film you wouldn't sharpen it though since the sharpening process is purely a digital workflow step. But sharpening is done using digital filters in programs like Photoshop that increase contrast along the edges of pixels which gives an image the appearance of being sharper. There are also masking techniques in Photoshop which can be implemented in order to only sharpen areas of a digital image and what I was referring to below to avoid the artifacts I am getting along some of the edges.

Bjorn, I do actually have the whole hand in the original shot, but unfortunately when I took the shot I framed the man so close to the edges that it feels a bit too tight. So by cropping off a bit of the hand I tried to make the composition look more deliberate instead of using the original cropping which is too tight around the edge of the hand. I feel the right side is a bit too tight as well, but I am going to add a bit more space on the right instead of crop there (this is an old image which seems like a neverending work in progress) and will post the final image without the halos once I have added in the space on the right.

[kinginexile]

Thanks mark. I was not clear indeed, I meant that there seems often a brightening of the pixels as they get sharpened thru digital means. I also find that some sharpened digital pix comme out almost analytical (super precise if you want, as if etched by a laser), and lose some of the warmth that an analog, yet sharp, shot has. Especially on skin grain. It's very much part of the analog vs digital debate that started with LPs and CDs, in a way. Just for info, I do listen only to CDs.... ;-)

[Marc Schultz]

I gotcha now and your right. To avoid the problem you mention though of things looking too sharp and precise when it comes to digitally shot portraits, I normally only sharpen the eyes and the lips and leave the rest of the face/torso as is. This way the skin remains softer and more natural looking. And if you shoot portraits at F/4 then you wont have as much sharp detail to begin with, other than at the exact focus point. Again, there are ways over and around everything in digital post processing. It is just a matter of knowing where to put your mouse and when to click :)

[David Salmanowitz]

Marc is so right about sharpening--it is a part of the digital workflow. I have a friend I have argued about a lot with this, as he only sharpens a tiny area--but often does not sharpen at all. His response was often times it looks awful so he rather not do it, and my response was it was the improper way he had applied it.  Here are two links that go into more detail, courtesy of luminous-landscape.com and phototechmag.com.

http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/sharpness.shtml           http://www.phototechmag.com/articles/email/1106.pdf

Here is a brief excerpt from the Photo Techniques magazine article.
The terms sharpening and unsharp masking are unfortunate historical holdovers because the process of digital sharpening has nothing to do with sharpness, but rather with acutance, or edge differentiation. Acutance isn’t about resolving detail or resolution; it’s about the transition between edges, or in other words, an edge changing from one brightness level to another. Acutance is what sharpening is all about in digital parlance. Scanning, as well as digital capture, softens acutance, and so photographers apply the unsharp masking process to increase edge sharpness to the level it should be.
Unsharp masking does the job, but it is a bit of a blunt tool. Over the past couple of years, some specialized programs have been developed that have dramatically improved the art of sharpening.

[Marc Schultz]

All good points David and that article on Luminous Landscape which explained why all pixels, whether created by a digital camera or a scanner, need to be sharpened.

I have finished working on the picture I posted previously where I have now added in a bit more space on the right hand side. In this version I have now actually spent a bit more time (but not much and it is still not perfect  ) and done the sharpening selectively to only the areas that needed it. You can see that the halos around the edge that occurred from the sharpening on the last one I had posted have generally gone away.

[David Salmanowitz]

Marc--Nice shot, and I do like it better now that the guy has a little more room on the right.