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M8 Black & white

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I decided to try shooting b&w jpegs with the M8. It's a little disconcerting to switch over to black and white, it seems like a real commitment! Anyway, I took a beverage, the dog, and the 21 skopar for a brief walk down by the barn this evening and tried a few shots.

My first impression after playing with the files for a few minutes is basically, I much prefer shooting RAW and making the conversion. Working with jpegs is pretty limiting. I took for granted all the options for correction and enhancement that RAW provides. You can push the jpegs a little, but not much.

The other conclusion I've come to is that I really like the 21mm focal length. But now I kind of wish the skopar was a summicron.

Here are a few examples of the jpegs from the camera (as the beverage had at least half of my attention, they aren't exactly fine art).

Please feel free to comment and/or post some of your examples. Black and white rocks.
 

Terry

New member
Tim,
I'm not sure if you do this or not but you can shoot B&W Raw + jpeg and then the screen will show you B&W and you still get the RAW file.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Terry, thank you for reminding me! I swear I'm going to read the manual one of these days.

Tim
 

Daniel

New member
I decided to try shooting b&w jpegs with the M8. It's a little disconcerting to switch over to black and white, it seems like a real commitment!

My first impression after playing with the files for a few minutes is basically, I much prefer shooting RAW and making the conversion. Working with jpegs is pretty limiting. I took for granted all the options for correction and enhancement that RAW provides. You can push the jpegs a little, but not much.
I think your example in-camera b&w jpeg images look great.

I've been playing around with shooting b&w jpegs, and I agree it's a commitment. Unlike raw image files, jpeg has very little room for over or underexposure; and unlike raw image files, if you're not paying attention, you can write over your master jpeg file. Also, unlike raw image files, I find jpeg files quite unforgiving. Nevertheless, I find using the M8's in-camera b&w jpeg processing quite a fun challenge for me.

I think my favorite aspect of the challenge is to expose a b&w jpeg image "perfectly"; that is, such that only very little to barely any post processing is needed, or I don't need to do any post processing.

In any case, I like shooting b&w jpeg in ISO 1250 and 2500 because of how the M8 processes. The "grain" reminds me of film, and it appeals to my personal preference. (I like saying: Grain is good, it's like fiber for the eyes :))

Anyway, here are two examples:

This one was taken at ISO 2500, f2.8 at 1/125 (Summicron 28mm f2.8 ASPH)

In-camera setting: Low Sharpening, Medium-High Contrast
Post Processing: Tweaked Brightness and Contrast, Dodged the postcards.
I did a test print of this and it came out very nicely. I think this one and the second image is good enough for display.

View attachment 5436


This other one was taken at ISO 2500, f2.8 at 1/250 (Summicron 28mm f2.8 ASPH)

In-camera setting: Low Sharpening, Medium-High Contrast
Post Processing: Tweak brightness and contrast and overall luminance with curves.

View attachment 5437
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Those are great Daniel. I think the higher ISO does add something extra to the feel. It works especially well in the first shot.

I think I do need to play a little more with it so I can start to see where it works best and where it's maybe not as good. I'm guessing that when you want some contrast and "fiber" in your shots, pushing to 2500 and jpg will make it happen in a way that might be hard to match with a conversion.

Have you tried the RAW + jpg approach Terry mentioned?
 

Terry

New member
Once you set the camera to DNG + JPEG you can then go in and set the B&W. If you are on DNG only you can't set it. This is where people have set up profiles with a regular and a B&W profile. If you do this the only caveat is set profile 1 with your normal shooting and then work from there. If you use profile zero that is like resetting the camera and you will end up in a place (settings) you don't want to be - like defaulting to jpeg only :rolleyes:

Daniel those do look great!
 

ecliffordsmith

New member
Tim,

A nice thread idea and I like the tones in your shots. I rarely use the JPEG mode myself but I do like the B&W mode at high ISO.

Daniel,

The first shot is very nice indeed.
 
N

nei1

Guest
Tim,I keep expecting edward weston to stick his head out of the window!
 

helenhill

Senior Member
Their Beautiful Tim.....
So delicate & Refined in tonality

Daniel yours have more of a Grittier Edge.....Beautiful Too

Best-H:)
 

akiralx

New member
Tim's shots are fine but look like a lot of mine - i.e. colour shots that just happen to be viewed in b&w. While Daniel's look like 'genuine' b&w photos, owing to the processing used - I'm going to try this.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I have to agree about the exposure being critical with the B&W jpgs. Especially true in the highlight areas, which are already a sensitive area on the M8 even in RAW.

Here's another exposure of that same barn corner that shows highlight clipping in the bright spot on the barn. The histogram shows a tiny bit of clipping in the highlight area that I would normally be able to fix with the recovery slider. But it is completely lost in the jpeg. Which might not bother those who favor crispy hot, contrasty b&w, but it's not so much fun for me since I prefer a smoother/longer tonal range.
 

jonoslack

Active member
HI Tim
I really like your shots, but I think it does illustrate somewhere the M8 could easily be improved with some firmware tweaks:

first, by allowing you to view the screen in black and white when shooting RAW only - shooting RAW and black and white slows things down so badly.
second, by reducing the compression of the jpg files - Olympus do a 1:2.7 compression option which produces splendid jpgs.

I actually like the 'seat of the pants' aspect of shooting jpg, but I've given up on the M8 for those reasons.

Still, RAW still produces interesting results:

GOAAAAL!:

M8 with 50 f1.5 sonnar
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Thanks Jono. And yes, I would need to practice a whole lot more to feel safe that by shooting just jpegs I wouldn't blow a special shot.

Your example is terrific. It seems to have plenty enough fiber to satisfy even the most diehard grit fan.
 

Daniel

New member
Those are great Daniel. I think the higher ISO does add something extra to the feel. It works especially well in the first shot.

I think I do need to play a little more with it so I can start to see where it works best and where it's maybe not as good. I'm guessing that when you want some contrast and "fiber" in your shots, pushing to 2500 and jpg will make it happen in a way that might be hard to match with a conversion.

Have you tried the RAW + jpg approach Terry mentioned?
Their Beautiful Tim.....
So delicate & Refined in tonality

Daniel yours have more of a Grittier Edge.....Beautiful Too

Best-H:)
Thanks Tim, Helen (I like grits. Especially cheese and grits :)), and Terry.

I did try the raw+jpg setup Terry mentioned, but periodically because I've come across an oddity with how Aperture imports the raw+jpg files - it'd import both file types but only display the color dng file. But I work around this by copying the files into a folder on the desktop, and then moving the jpg files into a separate folder. Then I import the dng and the jpg files separately into Aperture.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Stuart, well done. I'm impressed with how well you held the sunlight at the top.

Tony, very nice. I'll bet the original is sweet.
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Thanks Tim. To be honest, I think that flare is from the IR filter. The lens was a 28mm summicron, and it doesn't normally flare like that. In this one case I actually think it looks good, but normally it ruins the photo. I have found that the IR filters are AWFUL for flare. Even worse for ghosting. They are pretty much unusable at night in the city. Every streetlight, headlight or lamp winds up as a blue green blob elsewhere in the frame. This is really the only major problem I have with the whole IR filter "solution".
 

ecliffordsmith

New member
Hi All,

Please forgive me for bumping an older thread but I was playing in C1 with some shots that were taken in less than ideal conditions last night and slid the contrast over to the max and used the highlight recovery tool a bit and quite liked the moody results, dirty lens and all! These are both with the M8 and 35 Summicron ASPH.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
Very moody landscape of the city. The second shot reminded me of a waterfall somehow. Both very nice. Well done!
 
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