[Buddha Jones]

For those that like to shoot B&W, how cool would it be to be able to see B&W through the view finder?

[and]

Cant you just put a BW filter in front of the lens?

[Buddha Jones]

Fine, kill my dreams, dream killer. Wait a minute, does something like that even exist? Something that can totally devoid color via a piece of glass?

[FireMate]

I think he was joking.

Wait, please tell me he was joking...

oh dear

[ZaphodB]

There is a filter that "simulates" black and white, for the purposes of visualising in black and white (rather than actually turning colour images into b&w)... however I don't think it actually renders the image in the viewfinder totally black and white. Sorry, I can't remember the number of the filter, but I'm sure someone knows what I'm talking about.

Sure if you're going to have live view, why not have the option to have it black & white (or have Pentax's stop-down-preview-shot-thing incorporate black & white)? Even if it could be done with a glass filter, it would be convenient to not have to carry that filter (just as I would no longer carry most filters except polariser and ND).

It would be a way of teaching people to visualise in black and white... which would help ensure that black and white photography survives as more than just what happens when someone takes a colour shot and thinks "Hey that might work with a b&W conversion".

[mattdm]

You could get a really sharp needle and poke out all the cone cells in your retina. Be sure to not hit any of the rod cells.

[Buddha Jones]

Matt, you first.

[magnum1]

I was going to suggest a shot of battery acid, but I guess cone poking will do.

[HGMonaro]

yes there are things called B&W viewing filters. They don't actually turn the world B&W but reduces the brightness so that colours don't stand out and you can see the tones better. Shoot enough B&W and you can do that in 'ya head while looking at a scene.

Unless the viewfinder is a LCD (and we all know how bad they look... you don't want one) then you're not going to get a B&W viewfinder, however, it would make sense that the picture playback (or live view if offered) would be in B&W.

[Hannican]

You could get a really sharp needle and poke out all the cone cells in your retina. Be sure to not hit any of the rod cells.

Matt that was the funniest thing I have read/heard in WEEKS

Thank you for that one!

-Tim

[lithos]

Of course, you've then gotta get a filter attuned to your preferential method of BW conversion or your BW film for truly accurate results...

Unless you just desaturate/discard colour (boooooring...) in Photoshop, of course.

[PDL]

You could always shoot at night in extremely low light - that is when the color (cones) receptors in your eye give up. In Astronomy you use "averted vision" since the part of the eye we (humans) normally use for fine detail is mostly made up of cones. If you look to the side, or off axis and let the rods take over - then you can see much more detail. (Behive cluster is a great target to practice on).

As for "visualizing" B&W - it just takes practice - or poverty. Back in the days when I had hair, I could only afford B&W (100 ft rolls but B&W none the less) I did get to a place where I could pick the object I wanted to be the middle tone and meter off of it through the view finder or walk up to it an use the old hand held meter. It is not coming back as well as I remember it, but I do use the spot meter a lot and meter off of what I think is just to the right of the middle tone in B&W. (Shoot digital as if it were slide film - expose for the highlights and shoot to the righ - histogram wise).

The Elitist - formerly known as PDL

[Kaimarx]

Heh funny comments, i for one would like to see a dedicated B+W mode. Not only for convenience but if you can only see in B+W than its much easier to nail middle gray in any scene for correct exposure. Im pretty sure one of the Canon models has this feature. Not just desaturating colour photos but real B+W tonal ranges similar to film. I know it sounds lazy because you can always do it in PP, but it would be a nice feature to have.

Edit: Also by having a dedicated B+W mode you could mess with the white balance and colour hues and have cross processed images straight out of the camera, now that would be cool.