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Photography, which do you prefer, black & white or color?

Photography, which do you prefer, black & white or color?

  • Color

    Votes: 7 100.0%

  • Black & White

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    7
radcen

radcen

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Photography, which do you prefer, black & white or color?

Overall, in general, not any one particular photograph.

I generally prefer color, though a good black & white can be really cool. Color, as long as it's not too saturated, has a richness and realness that appeals to me. Though black & white can bring out textures and patterns better.
 
radcen said:
Photography, which do you prefer, black & white or color?

Overall, in general, not any one particular photograph.

I generally prefer color, though a good black & white can be really cool. Color, as long as it's not too saturated, has a richness and realness that appeals to me. Though black & white can bring out textures and patterns better.
Click to expand...

I prefer color, because colors are like crack to me.

But I can appreciate a beautiful B&W shot.

The thing is, though, the skillsets for shooting beautiful color imagery vs. shooting beautiful B&W are different. Too many people seem to think you can just shoot in color and then desat, and that'll be effective B&W, but often, it's not. Good B&W takes a lot of practice and an experienced eye, and you approach it differently from the get-go.
 
I cant' see this as a one or the other decision. The black and white photography of Ansell Adams is beautiful. The rich colors of National Geographic photographs bring distant reality to the eyes and minds that can't or won't travel. The increased contrast ratios that black and white allows are dramatic, but so also are many adjacent colors triggering a differentiation unrelated to contrast ratios. but contrast nevertheless. Both medias have their place and usefulness. As always, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
/
/
 
I really like shooting early morning green foliage.
the colors just seem more vibrant.
In the digital world, it is easy to change something to black and white, if the contrast is such
that it will improve the composition.
 
Color.

I also don't think vinyl sounds better than digital.
 
longview said:
I really like shooting early morning green foliage.
the colors just seem more vibrant.
In the digital world, it is easy to change something to black and white, if the contrast is such
that it will improve the composition.
Click to expand...
Early morning, which often has a mist/dew factor, can be more vibrant, I agree. Same with after a rain, in some cases.
 
Harshaw said:
I prefer color, because colors are like crack to me.

But I can appreciate a beautiful B&W shot.

The thing is, though, the skillsets for shooting beautiful color imagery vs. shooting beautiful B&W are different. Too many people seem to think you can just shoot in color and then desat, and that'll be effective B&W, but often, it's not. Good B&W takes a lot of practice and an experienced eye, and you approach it differently from the get-go.
Click to expand...
Completely agree the skillsets are different. With B&W you have to be able to "see" the scene in your mind in b&w, if that makes sense.
 
I prefer deep ultra violet.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Spartacus FPV said:
Color.

I also don't think vinyl sounds better than digital.
Click to expand...
Years ago, when I worked at a University, we went through the exercise of digital sampling vs analog vinyl.
At the time digital was 44K samples per second, I think.
Anyway, mathematically, the vinyl is in theory better, but it is likely that only your dog could tell the difference.
With higher sampling rates, the difference has only gotten narrower.
 
radcen said:
Completely agree the skillsets are different. With B&W you have to be able to "see" the scene in your mind in b&w, if that makes sense.
Click to expand...

I have not tried it, but a little Nikon S9700, I got my wife, I think has a Black and white shooting mode.
I think it displays the shot in Black and white.
My son still has my old Pentax K-1000, and shoots some nice B&W shots.
 
longview said:
I have not tried it, but a little Nikon S9700, I got my wife, I think has a Black and white shooting mode.
I think it displays the shot in Black and white.
My son still has my old Pentax K-1000, and shoots some nice B&W shots.
Click to expand...

I have a Canon 6D, and used to have a 40D, and both have a B&W mode, as well. What I found interesting was that I could shoot it in B&W then switch it back to color later in Lightroom. I stopped shooting in B&W mode at that point.
 
radcen said:
Completely agree the skillsets are different. With B&W you have to be able to "see" the scene in your mind in b&w, if that makes sense.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you do, and you have to understand how colors will appear in B&W. For example, dark reds often make more satisfactory "blacks" than black does. Yellows often make for better whites and light grays. When you set up a shot, you can make a scene which looks hideous in color, but absolutely gorgeous in B&W. It also gives you advantages when working with the image digitally -- if you take the shot in color with the intent of going B&W later, you can isolate and manipulate colors in ways you'd never be able to do if the object were a color image.

More basic than that, it really forces you to appreciate how to create and use shadow. All you've got is light and dark; in a lot of ways, it's like chiseling marble to make a statue.
 
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radcen said:
Photography, which do you prefer, black & white or color?

Overall, in general, not any one particular photograph.

I generally prefer color, though a good black & white can be really cool. Color, as long as it's not too saturated, has a richness and realness that appeals to me. Though black & white can bring out textures and patterns better.
Click to expand...

I prefer color for pictures of nature, and portraits of people, however, a black and white photo with proper light to shadow mix can be a more emotionally provocative portrait of the raw beauty in nature.

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longview said:
Years ago, when I worked at a University, we went through the exercise of digital sampling vs analog vinyl.
At the time digital was 44K samples per second, I think.
Click to expand...

44.1K is still standard. Sometimes 48K. There's not a lot of difference between the two.
 
Harshaw said:
44.1K is still standard. Sometimes 48K. There's not a lot of difference between the two.
Click to expand...
I thought they were doing the masters at higher sampling rates like 88k.
 
longview said:
I thought they were doing the masters at higher sampling rates like 88k.
Click to expand...

Masters, you might see at 96K or even 128K. But for delivery, where the end customer is going to hear it, 44.1K, usually.
 
radcen said:
Photography, which do you prefer, black & white or color?

Overall, in general, not any one particular photograph.

I generally prefer color, though a good black & white can be really cool. Color, as long as it's not too saturated, has a richness and realness that appeals to me. Though black & white can bring out textures and patterns better.
Click to expand...

I generally prefer color, but the advent of digital, filters, and photoshop are kind of taking the edge off good photography
 
I prefer color because color photography is more natural.
 
backpacker said:
I generally prefer color, but the advent of digital, filters, and photoshop are kind of taking the edge off good photography
Click to expand...

People who used glass plates probably said the same thing about the advent of film.
 
radcen said:
Photography, which do you prefer, black & white or color?

Overall, in general, not any one particular photograph.

I generally prefer color, though a good black & white can be really cool. Color, as long as it's not too saturated, has a richness and realness that appeals to me. Though black & white can bring out textures and patterns better.
Click to expand...

Black and white, if it's exposed correctly.
 
radcen said:
Photography, which do you prefer, black & white or color?

Overall, in general, not any one particular photograph.

I generally prefer color, though a good black & white can be really cool. Color, as long as it's not too saturated, has a richness and realness that appeals to me. Though black & white can bring out textures and patterns better.
Click to expand...

Both are filled with possibility.

I think the prints from Adams are fantastic. Color would diminish those prints.

Color in many photos is the main idea.

There is really not way to say one is better than the other.

It's like comparing Georges Seurat to Caravaggio. Both are excellent and completely different within the genre.
 
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