8 tips for taking good black and white photography

Are you impressed with the black-and-white photos, canvas prints realistic characters every time you look at the works of many street or documentary photographers? In your photographic life, you will inevitably encounter a particular theme that wants to be presented in black and white. What is the difference between shooting and processing black and white images and general color images? Let's see if these tips help you!

Nowadays, large canvas prints no matter big or small cameras, most of them have built-in black and white photo styles or creative filters. Even if the camera cannot be set directly, the post-edit software can be used for direct conversion. Due to the loss of color, the picture can only be presented in black, white and gray. More attention is paid to exposure and editing, so that details can be presented better. Of course, the photographer's observation and capture ability is also more required.

High contrast light and shadow rendering

Black and white photography works that lose color often create a strong contrast effect with high contrast, leaving a deep impression on readers. The white of the bright part and the black of the dark part make the contour of the subject more vivid and give people an artistic feeling of gypsum.

Rich and varied gradations

If say only pure black and white, cannot restore the stereo feeling of real world very well, and among them different chroma change of concentration, can let the picture present more detail. Although the contrast created by high contrast can give people visual impact, gray scale is also indispensable in the description of details.

Use the lines and shapes of light and shadow

In terms of composition, black and white photography pays more attention to the combination of graphics and lines in certain physiognomy. The combination of figure silhouettes and lines of architectural environment and forms can bring extraordinary visual feelings to readers. In addition to paying attention to the wonderful combination of light and shadow, you can also capture some interesting geometric patterns to create a pictorial visual sense.

Pay attention to the image noise suppression

Generally, it is suggested to shoot black and white works by setting a low ISO value, which can make the subject contour of the subject clearer. However, in a low light environment, it is still necessary to increase the ISO value to ensure a safe shutter and speed up focusing. At this time, it is necessary to pay attention to the generation of noise. Some people say that black and white photographs do not have what is called a "particle" sense, but please do not naively think that noise and particle sense are the same thing. Of course, many cameras now have the ability to suppress noise, we can also make good use of.

Try to combine long exposures with black and white photography

Whether night busy street rail, rail car or the stars in the sky, often with different light effects during the day, because of the night light is weaker, more prone to high contrast images, and in the dim light of night, the light effect will be more obvious, the Japanese photographer guang chuan tai's "infinite TIMESCAPE melody" series of orbital works are very special.

Try to use a clean and simple background when shooting portraits

As mentioned above, part of the charm of black and white photography lies in the high-contrast visual effect, while in the performance of black and white portrait photography, in order to highlight the main character, the simple or even monochrome background is usually chosen to match. If the background is too messy and cannot be "sorted out", it can also be shot with a large aperture lens to blur the scene behind the characters in a shallow depth of field, so as to separate them from the scene.

Use a polarizer to aid in the shooting

When photographing glass Windows, scenery outside Windows and water surface, sometimes they will be troubled by reflection. If the problem can be solved by using a polarizing lens at this time, it can make the original scene more clear and highlight it even more after losing color.

Perfect combination of HDR and black and white photography

Now many cameras have a HDR mode, mainly used in high contrast scenes, printing digital photos on aluminum can even take pictures of the three photos with different exposure value, weaver into a synthesis to eventually get exposure balanced image, the embodiment of the frame can have more details, such photos when converted to black and white tonal, may have different styles of rendering, sometimes may bring you unexpected visual perception.