Can you use a digital camera like a good ole fashioned manual camera to take great black and whites?

Question

I have found that it is pretty difficult to take great quality photos with a digital camera. I think a good 35mm camera takes incredible pictures, and a digital just takes 'good' photos. Whattaya think? Am I just doing something wrong? (PS.. I'm not a professional photographer, and don't even know how to use a 35mm.... I'm just referring to pictures I have seen, not taken, with a 'good ole fashioned manual camera' ! )

Answer 1

All very good answers, but something struck me in the details if your question - you said you're not a pro and you're asking this question in the context of casual photography...



If you're talking about the 4x6 colour photos you send to the labs, those images are printed by machines that correct color casts, and because digitals take generally softer pictures, the film images need no sharpening.



If you just take a digital, some models, especially the pro digital SLRs, leave the image as original as possible, leaving all the editing to the person, which is what the pro wants. Nonetheless, to make great looking ditital prints requires an awareness of how to edit the photo afterwards and print properly - without the two, you cannot get rival images.



On the flipside, the editing power that is given to the hands of the photographer with digital greatly surpasses what as possible with film - once you give the image to the lab, its out of your hands. You can crop, clone, colour adjust your digital image any way you want, allowing the person who invests time in learning how to edit digital images the ability to work wonders on their image.



You also mention black and white. Traditional film b&w photography is generally the pervue of pro photographers. If you want to do a digital-film comparison, I have first hand experience in both.



I've developed and printed my own 35mm images for a little over a year, and have done digital for three, I'm sure there;s photogs with even more time under their belt.



What I concluded was that, when it comes to the final quality of the print, digital cannot surpass the feel and look of a fiber based or even an RC film print. Some paper textures used for film printing, I've searched high and low for a digital equivalent and heve never been satisifed.



Some prints, some type of photography, come out so well on film, I would be surprised if I would get a similar result in digital. Film has a wider latitude (can discern a greater amount of difference between extreme black and extreme white) than digital.



But I have only rudimentary experience in image manipulation in the wet darkroom. Dodging, burning, etc... all that comes so much more easier for me in the digital darkroom. I can achieve results that I could never do in film.



So in the end, each has its pluses and minuses. I find any view that definitively concludes one form is superior over the other is narrow and not taking into account each format's individual strenths.

Answer 2

First of all shoot in colour, you have far more control in Elements to convert to B&W. Shoot in Raw and in the Raw Converter open as a 16bit image, this will help with the 'grainy' look. To convert to B&W try this, open your image and open 2 Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers, on the top layer just turn the Saturation slider all the way to the left (desaturate to B&W) on the next Layer down change the blend mode to Color, then by altering the Hue slider you can mimic the effects of a Red filter, Blue filter and green filter, and anything in between. Choose the setting that gives you the tones you want. Then Flatten the image, that's the B&W conversion done. Now for the fun part, using the Lasso Tool do a rough selection of the say the sky, feather lots (the amount you feather depends on the picture resolution try 50 to 150), then with the marching ants still showing the selection open a new Levels Adjustment Layer, the selection will have been masked out so you are working on just the sky. Then by moving the little triangles below the Histogram you can make the sky darker, lighter, soft and wispy or truly 'Gothic' it's up to you. Do the same with any other part of the image, you can control the brightness/ contrast of any part of the image this way, you are in full control. For this technique to work you need to be in 16bit mode from a Raw file, an 8bit Jpeg will just be torn to pieces and you don't want the Jpeg artifacts that are created by the compression (the 'graininess you refer to). Another tip is that B&W pictures should have no Black and no White in them, by which I mean no part of a B&W image should be 'pushed' to total Black or a total White, if they are you are loosing detail, and detail is the name of the game with B&W, they should be composed of shades of grey (they also print better), unless it's a deliberately High Key or Low key image. Look at any Gallery pictures to see what I mean. Chris

Answer 3

A lot of digital cameras nowadays take great b/w photos. Also, you have the option of taking the photo into an image editing program like Photoshop CS2 and adjusting the photo to your liking.

Another great thing about digitals is that you never waste film, and you don't have to wait to see the outcome of your shots. You can take as many pictures as your card can hold, and then delete the ones you don't like. It's definitely better than having to shoot a full roll of film, and then see that most of them are terrible (I'm speaking from experience!)

Answer 4

Most certainly. Many digital cameras have a black and white and/or Sepia mode, but the best way to do this is convert them in post processing. The links below are for some black and white photos (plus some black and white IR) that I have taken with digital cameras. Whether they are great or not...I don't know...you can be the judge as to whether you like them.

Answer 5

I think I am with you on this. Digital cameras are capable of taking consistently GOOD photos, which for most amateurs is a far cry from where their phography ever got with film cameras. For more serious practitioners, I think the range of control along with some of the more esoteric aspects of film photography make film the preferred option for truly EXCEPTIONAL photos. In the long run, I think that there will be those who take 100% of their artistic works on digital (and manipulate them with Photoshop) and there will be those who take all of the works on film and limit their manipulation to a bit of dodging and burning in a chemical darkroom. There's a place for all of it. Thank goodness for variety!

Answer 6

Absolutely. Digital is unlimited. What is limiting is our imagination only. Coz even you dont get maximum result in your photo , you still can edit it with software...

Answer 7

film's not much of an option anymore..unless you are talking about large format like Ansel used..these older cameras still blow the digital away (because their "negative" is so much larger)..otherwise, software can do about anything..

Answer 8

certain cameras, yes...