A try at b&w

[Kyle]

I recently took some photos at a local park. All c&c welcome.

I thought this road had a sort of lonely look to it. This version is a bit darker. I find it focuses on the road a bit more.




I lightened this one up and found that it creates an entirely different photo.




The pond here is full of ducks, geese and two swans. People feed them constantly (even with signs saying not to) so if you go near they'll swarm you looking for food. I was able to take this one a little later when the pond was more empty. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. In colour it didn't really look like a good photo at all.



Bonus pic:

[Downrigger]

Good bonus - nice tail translucency.
I've made some B&W that work for me and some that haven't and I still haven't totally grasped what generalizations there may be that hold for this problem. But I do think that unless the image is about fine, high structured areas in particular, such areas become muddy components of images with larger more homogeneous components. This would apply for the field across the river in the third and the deciduous branches down the right side of the road in the first two. I hope we'll get some help on this. I think of scenes that will work well in B&W are those that could be painted in B&W engagingly with just a blade and a palette of black, gray, and white.

[IzzieK]

Kyle...#1 is good until #2 pop along. I like #2 better. The pond is a little bit confusing for me as I am just still trying my hand on B/W myself...The beautiful one is the bonus. 'Love the backlight on the tail too, like Mark.

[Manfred M]

Hi Kyle - the first thing that strikes me about all of your B&W images is that they are underexposed by a stop or two. If you know how to read histograms on the back of your camera or in post-production, you can see this quite clearly. That is probably the fist thing I would look at correcting.

[dubaiphil]

I'd look at increasing contrast and adjusting curves for the black and white points. B&W doesn't have to have pure black and white in the image, but the tonal range could be increased in these.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[Kyle]

Thanks John!

Isabel, I agree about the pond image. I thought it had a neat look to it but I'm on the fence about whether I like it or not. The bonus image is the best one for sure.

Mark, I see what you mean about the field and the branches. They end up in a bit of a jumbled mess, especially with little contrast. I can see how b&w would work much better with clear, defined structures.

Phil and Manfred, I've just started to read the histogram on my camera. I'm not sure I fully understand it yet but I get the concept and I've read the tutorials on it. I figured out how to see the histogram on my camera but it's a bit hard to see on the small screen. I need to get into the habit of actually paying attention to it.
I took both of your advice and reedited the photo. I don't know why I didn't see how underexposed it was the first time around. I increased the exposure and also increased the contrast. I moved the white and black points and applied a small amount of sharpening (still need to go through the tutorials for that again).

[Wavelength]

#1 and #2 are really nice