>>4491118
Take a shitty photo with le nostalgia vibes
Bonus points if the subject is slightly out of focus
Convert to b&w, et voila

Protect your highlights.
Because you're limited to tones of grey, black and white, you need to find subjects where this is beneficial and not a hindrance.
Soft gradients. Shadows. Chiaroscuro and tenebrism. The contrast between light and dark. Black and white photography works well with architecture because it's serves to define structures and features. With models you have to think about it as if you are working with charcoal and paper. Where do you want highlights to be? What are you focusing on? And what do you want to be hidden.

Got to have some white and black, dont make it all grey

>>4491122
>Protect your highlights.
most boomer advice that results in boring photos

>>4491166
Okay, unc

>>4491118
The secret is that colours are incredibly important because they dictate how much contrast each object gets. Doubly so if using colour filters (you should be) and even MORE so if you're using special film stocks that can be more or less sensitive to certain colours. It's a decietfuly simple concept since at first glance you go "it must be simple there's only black grey and white hue hue", but balancing the contrast in your overall composition, your foreground and background, and your subject are all important and easily fucked up.

And then there's black and white snapshits that are simple and throw all that theory out the window because muh nostalgic and muh filmic vibes. They still tend to look "nice" because it's much easier to view a black and white photograph as removed from reality since, well, reality is in colour.

There's also the plain fact that removing colour from a photo forces you to focus on the other elements that do or don't make the photograph good. This is why selective-colour chuds are dunked on so hard here: you're forcing an easy way to highlight your subject via software instead of actually putting thought into it.


This becomes a bit of a moot point if you scan though because then you can just chuck up some post-processing.

I want to get the Ricoh GRIV monochrome when it releases. Until then I shoot my Zf in deep monochrome.

>>4491118

insane contrast, you like have nik collection or run opensource with moderate sigmoidal contrast plus contrast-stretch 10%x10% options

>>4491129
this. high contrast is key and a lot more light than required. overexposed is good for black and white photography because you can just turn down brightness.

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just make it look good

>>4491696
yeah like take photos way better than this dogshit snapshit and you’ll be set OP

>>4491696
Nice photograph.

>>4491707
Reminds me of a toadline pitbull.

>>4491699
(you)

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I tried the "simulated red filter + boosted saturation" method again. The skies start banding like hell if you push them too hard though. 1/2

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>>4492571
2/2

>>4491118
Black and white is for when the colors of what you're photographing are ugly.

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>just dodge and burn, bro
brutal

>>4492582
The colors of things directly influence how good a b&w photo come out though
Baby turd green just gets converted into a lighter shade of grey (you are using your yellow filter right anon?)

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>>4491166
Thing is, human eyes can adjust lacking dark areas with imagination but can't do it on highlights well...

>>4491118
colors still matter and how you set up contrast is usually what makes it look good imho

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CPL filter and Nikon's high contrast B+W mode

>>4491166
>Protect your highlights
>most boomer advice that results in boring photos

You can always blow out your highlights later in post. Can't control that if you do it in camera.

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Im not really into BW photography, but sometimes I try a little and always end up with something boring. Which are my mistakes?

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Older lenses with less control for flaring, fringing, and other color aberrations may have some pleasantly unexpected effects when it comes to how they handle high-contrast lighting (ie. garish colors become smooth light rolloff instead). Picrel.

>>4494928
It's not worth sacrificing relevant data to "protect highlights", use the zone system. If it has to be in zone X, so be it.

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>>4496146
Kind of true.
Most people just obsess about BnW genre rather than it's functionality which does real job actually.

One has to focus on expressing his intentions. It's simple as that.

Thankfully, Ansel Adams made a system that we can approximate our prevision with so we can be more precise.