[Steve Beswick]

Can the evf be set to monochrome combined with red filter and selenium toning? I do that in post with Nik Silver Efex.

You could just use a red filter. Just sayin’.

[c.a.m]

but you always can choose this way using life view and the monochrome preset.

This is true. Photographer Valberg didn't mention whether she had tried that with her DSLRs.

The two photos below are good examples...

Thanks for posting your excellent examples! Your experience shows. I'm certainly not at the level of 'thinking' or 'seeing' in B&W!

If I see a subject that I know will be better in b&w, then I correct to that in post since all the raws are full color.

Indeed. The speaker also emphasized that post processing would be required on the RAW files to bring them to B&W.

get one of the old school yellow filters that slips over the viewfinder tabs, simulating B&W. Well, B&Y, but close enough.

I suppose that would be an alternative approach if one could find such a device to fit on the modern DSLRs.

Keep in mind, the OP was talking to a brand ambassador. It is their job to promote the heck out of everything under the brand.

Yes, she was certainly promoting the Nikon brand, but not in an overt or annoying manner. Her focus was on her pictures and their stories.

Concurrently, a Nikon representative had a small table set up in the foyer and was showing several cameras and about a dozen lenses. Low key.

I can't imagine this being of much benefit, particularly if you mostly shoot color images.

Photog Valberg appears to shoot roughly 80% in colour. She didn't go into details as to how the monochromatic display helps her specifically, but she did repeat that she thinks she's getting better B&W compositions.

Evf dynamic range is a far cry from print or even typical monitors I thought? I wonder if the in evf view would be misleading.

I think this is a good point. The speaker didn't discuss this aspect. I think she was thinking of how the display helps her compositions, although she did mention separately that she also appreciates the exposure information she gets with her mirrorless kit.


See comment above -- she's a Nikon Ambassador, so I'm not surprised at her enthusiasm for the Z line.

- Craig

PS. She's Canadian, but tended to pronounce it "Zee". Once she said "...using the Zed 7...[pause] Zee 7..." Hehe.

[Steve Beswick]

I suppose that would be an alternative approach if one could find such a device to fit on the modern DSLRs.

they used to be fairly easy to come by, now not so much. Anyway, the ones that fit the old M series manual focus models fit Pentax DSLRs. Only the K series and screwmount models are different. You could always modify a different eyecup with a slice of yellow glass. You could also use a yellow filter in front of the lens, but that would of course ruin the photo for color use.

[2B1]

The old school guys would say, when you shoot in black and white , you begin to think in black and white(film days).
This would help develop a photographers skill.
Sometime , we are over reliant on technology.

Regards

[lumenchaser]

I happened upon this setting by accident when I first got my A7II and was exploring all the menu items. I tried it for.a day or two, but found it too limiting. Somehow, I need to sit with a colour image a while before deciding whether going monochrome will truly draw something extra out of it. Therefore, an EVF or rear screen set to black and white just don't cut it for me. YMMV, of course...

[stevebrot]

Thanks for posting your excellent examples! Your experience shows. I'm certainly not at the level of 'thinking' or 'seeing' in B&W!

There are special preview filters (not intended for viewfinder or taking lens use) that allow a sense of how a scene would record to B&W film and which were in common use before the advent of color motion pictures. The key is that any particular type of emulsion would require a different filter. For example, "ortho" films have very poor sensitivity to red and will capture lips and blemishes shockingly and irredeemably dark. Even so-called panchromatic films are a compromise. From that perspective, one might ask how the "monochrome" setting for live view or EVF balances gray tones within the spectral illuminance within the frame. Does it bias towards blue with reduced red sensitivity (so-called orthopanchromatic, e.g. Fuji Acros 100) or a fairly standard cool-end response but with enhanced red and near infrared (so-called superpanchromatic, e.g. Rollei Retro 80s) or is it a vanilla imagining that may or may not represent what may be accomplished in post (e.g. "dang, it looked much more dramatic in the EVF") using available tools.

That aside, the capture data for DNG/PEF is pretty flat in terms of spectral response and can be tweaked to render to any number of pleasing and appropriate treatments.


Steve

[stevebrot]

You could just use a red filter. Just sayin’.

I actually tried shooting my Pentax dSLR, once upon a time, as a pure monochrome machine using traditional B&W correction filters, with very mixed results, even with fixed white balance. Most RAW converters will subvert your efforts.


Steve

[Rondec]

This is true. Photographer Valberg didn't mention whether she had tried that with her DSLRs.



Thanks for posting your excellent examples! Your experience shows. I'm certainly not at the level of 'thinking' or 'seeing' in B&W!



Indeed. The speaker also emphasized that post processing would be required on the RAW files to bring them to B&W.


I suppose that would be an alternative approach if one could find such a device to fit on the modern DSLRs.


Yes, she was certainly promoting the Nikon brand, but not in an overt or annoying manner. Her focus was on her pictures and their stories.

Concurrently, a Nikon representative had a small table set up in the foyer and was showing several cameras and about a dozen lenses. Low key.


Photog Valberg appears to shoot roughly 80% in colour. She didn't go into details as to how the monochromatic display helps her specifically, but she did repeat that she thinks she's getting better B&W compositions.


I think this is a good point. The speaker didn't discuss this aspect. I think she was thinking of how the display helps her compositions, although she did mention separately that she also appreciates the exposure information she gets with her mirrorless kit.


See comment above -- she's a Nikon Ambassador, so I'm not surprised at her enthusiasm for the Z line.

- Craig

PS. She's Canadian, but tended to pronounce it "Zee". Once she said "...using the Zed 7...[pause] Zee 7..." Hehe.

I think it is interesting to see what efforts Nikon is going to to try to shift their users to pick up a Z camera. Clearly a lot have stuck with the SLR line up -- just not seeing enough benefit from the mirrorless options to decide that they want to invest in a new mount. The idea that you can shoot black and white better is a stretch. If 80 percent of your images are color, are you going to toggle back and forth between color and Black and White all of the time?

Anyway, color me "unimpressed."

[photoptimist]

Isn't this feature already built into the human eyeballs of all photographers?

To pre-visualize a scene in black-and-white, my photography teacher told us to squint at the scene. Squinting reduces the light reaching the retina which reduces the signal coming from the color-discriminating (but less light-sensitive) cone cells and leaves the signal from the much more light-sensitive (but monochrome) rods cells. The result is nice strong impression of luminance contrast and pattern of the scene.

The trick works with all cameras, even ones with no viewfinder.

That said, a monochrome live view of the scene could be an interesting feature if the e-dials of the camera could be temporarily used to dial up/down the relative strengths of RGB in the conversion to B/W.

[cmohr]

I wouldn't say this a "Mirrorless" tool per-say, except, the fact that you are seeing the image in your viewfinder, It's always been possible with liveview as others have said. Or simply checking your picture after taking it, to see exposure and contrasts at the time.

Having said that.

I've been taking pictures with Black and white jepgs for years, I always shoot RAW+, but I like to have a preset Black and White conversion jpeg setting. I have agree, seeing the picture in black and white at the time you are taking it is much better than snapping away, and just hoping to get a conversion later in PP or deciding that a picture you have taken, just doesn't do it in colour and then try B&W conversion as an afterthought. I find seeing my picture in Black and White, as I'm taking it, at that time, I am fine tuning the exposure and composition, in real time, for me, it is far better, plus you see shapes and contrasts you simply can miss if you only shoot raw, and only ever preview the colour preview they give.

Here's such a sample, I was taking photos with a number of people on a bridge, we were all talking about producing a Black and white photo, We were all looking at the same bridge, all walking around on the same bridge, but I was the only person looking a a black and white preview of my photos, and whilst doing that, I saw an opportunity, to create a picture that nobody else saw.

This is the jepg, directly from the camera, I did play around on the RAW file doing a conversion, but , in the end, this was already great.



All, my cameras have a RAW + Black & White jpeg User mode saved on them, even my Q, for when I decide, I will be taking a Black and White photo. It's just another tool, why not use it?

[StiffLegged]

You could just use a red filter. Just sayin’.

Just pullin’ your leg... ;-)) I used to carry a Kodak PV Pan gel filter to preview a scene, but you get used to how B&W is going to look.

[Rondec]

Honestly, I shoot scenes in color and then when I am post processing them think that maybe they would be more conducive to black and white editing. But I still generally prefer color images, it is just that sometimes things look better in monochrome.

[Benz3ne]

I can definitely see the benefit for people who are starting out a little more. I would imagine that if you're 'au fait' with B&W, you'll see scenes as they would be seen in B&W. For the novice like me, I can have a guess what an image would be like in B&W but it's far more guesswork. Seeing stuff in monochrome as it happens would give me far more scope for determining what 'looks good' in my, again, uneducated opinion.

That being said, I love the learning curve of trying B&W, as below;

[Steve Beswick]

I actually tried shooting my Pentax dSLR, once upon a time, as a pure monochrome machine using traditional B&W correction filters, with very mixed results, even with fixed white balance. Most RAW converters will subvert your efforts.


Steve

first of all, shoot DNG and you won't need to convert anything.

That having been said, the camera itself might even try to "fix" the color, even on a raw file. Try converting the file to B&W in post before giving up. Worst case scenario, if shooting with a red filter, push the blue and green down in post, and then convert to B&W. If shooting with a green filter push the blue and red down, et cetera.

[stevebrot]

first of all, shoot DNG and you won't need to convert anything.

I was shooting DNG. I don't know how that relieves me of processing capture data to an image format (e.g. TIFF, JPEG, etc.), but it is enough to say that I had my best success with this approach processing to linear TIFF using dcraw.


Steve