Black and White or Color?

Black and White or Color is a questions that photographers have to ask themselves about their photos. When film was used it was a no brainer you had to use what was in your camera, so the decision was made earlier when you loaded film in your camera. With digital you can make a choice in post processing. Many photographer shoot in color and convert to black and white with the computer though the digital cameras can shoot black and white. I am one who tends to convert to black and white with the computer because that way I can make the decision based off what I think looks best for the photo. Most of the photographs I take do not make great black and white photographs but there are some that the color was a so so photo but the black and white was far superior.

Why would one choose black and white? There are many reasons. One reason is that black and white enhance elements of the photograph that color does not. Another reason that the photographer may be trying to create a mood. Still another is trying to give the feeling of a by gone era. Still some photographers just love to work with black and white. There is right or wrong reason for deciding to work with black and white instead of color it is up to the choice of the photographer.

The photographs I am going to share are actually the same photograph only one is the black and white version and the other is color. I think that the black and white version is the better version of the two. I took this photo of the spider web along Boyson Trail early one foggy morning last week using my 100mm Macro lens. The settings for the camera were iso 100, f/11, 1/12sec. Yes, I have actually been carrying my tripod a mile down the trail so I could use it. This thing that caught my eye about this spider web was the shape, size and symmetry and then there was the lovely dew all over the web and near by branches.

Here is the color version of the spider web. It is a nice photograph but it I felt that the green was taking attention from the wonderful dew covered spider web and the drops on the branches.

Here is the black and white version. This one I feel is much better because the spider web is the center of the attention with the plants taking more of a back seat to the spider web.

There is nothing wrong with the color but in this case I feel that the black and white version is the better version because you see the spider web first and the black and white emphasize the lines of the web that are coated with the dew. While you do see the web in the color version I don't feel that the lines of the dew covered web are as strong while the plants are trying to capture your attention.

As to how I converted the photo from color to black and white I used Adobe Elements and clicked on the convert to black and white and then played with the different black and white settings until I was happy with it. I did do some editing to the contrast and brightness in both the color and black and white versions. I know that you can do this in Adobe Lightroom, I have done black and white conversions in Lightroom, and in Photoshop and probably in all photo editing software. I choose to use Elements because I am used to using it.

If you get a chance take time and have fun playing with black and white versions of some of your photos.

Creating an HDR

I have in a previous post talked a bit about HDR photography, High Dynamic Range photography.  In this post I wanted to show the steps used to create the final photo.

These photos were taken recent at Nordic Fest in Decorah, IA.

HDR photos are composite photos. They are created from several photos that are the same except for the f stop. Ideally you try to have nothing change except for the aperture of the lens but if you are outside there might be small movement and the software can help merge things so you do not see "ghosts" created by this movement. There are times however you might want these "ghosts" for artistic reasons.

To compile the photos takes special software. The one I use is photomatrix and I have been happy with it. There are other programs and they are also very good.

I use 3 bracketed shots for my HDRs because this is what my camera has in its software for bracketing photos. There is software available that can do up to 10 bracketed photos and you can also do it manually as well.

The first photo taken for the HDR, this is according to the software in my camera is the one at the correct aperture.

The second photo is underexposed. I set my camera for 2 stops under the first shot.

The third shot is overexposed by 2 stops from the first shot.

After I have taken the photos I download them to my computer and then import them into photomatrix. I do not edit these at all before importing them. I wait until after I have created the composite photo. Once I import them into the program I then choose a style that I want to continue editing the image with. I have found that I tend to use the painterly setting the most and then adjust the image further as needed moving the adjustment slides till I like what I see. After I am done with the merging of the images I may then do further editing in photoshop elements if I feel the image needs cropping or any other edits.

Here is the HDR I created from the 3 photos above.

As you can clearly see the HDR has all the details from the 3 images creating an image that the camera is not able to take with one image and in this case there is more drama in the final photo because of having the full range of highlights and shadows and all the details that were captured in each image that others bracketed shots were not able to capture.

Panoramas

Recently we went to  Western Wyoming for my nephew's graduation. We took this opportunity to also do a bit of sightseeing as well. On the way out we went through the Snowy Mountain area of the Medicine Bow Mountains and on the way home we went through Grand Tetons National Park, Yellowstone National Park and other parks.

The land is just beautiful and vast. It is just too much for a regular photograph, it needs panoramas to do it justice. To try to capture the vast beauty I took a series of photographs that I was able to stitch together with my software to form panoramas. I use several programs depending on what I am doing. I tend to use Adobe Photoshop Elements and the second most is Adobe Lightroom. I have found that these programs while similar do things differently so I use the one that will do what I want the easiest.

The downside to these stitched together panoramas can be very large file size. Sometimes the camera will see colors a bit differently in each image so you sometimes it is very noticeable where the different images were stitched together. This means that you either have to do a lot of work to correct this in the merged image of before you merge.

Here are some of the panorama that I took in Wyoming. All of these were taken with my 18-135mm lens because I have a polarizing filter for it.

This one is was take in the Snowy Mountain area of Medicine Bow it is comprised of 9 images. The settings were 400iso, f/8, 1/800sec

The next one was taken in Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming it is comprised of 5 images. It was hazy that day so the mountains are not sharp and crisp. The settings were 400iso, f/4.5, 1/4000sec

Panorama can be more than grand vistas such as mountains but also things like lakes, ponds even waterfalls. They can be horizontal or vertical. Both of these were taken at Yellowstone. The first one is one of the prismatic hot springs in the park this picture is comprised of 4 images. This is not the Grand Prismatic Spring but a small one that was near by.  The settings were 400iso, f/11, 1/200sec. Yes, the colors were this vibrant.

The next picture is a vertical picture of Kepler Cascade and is comprised of 4 images. The settings were 400iso, f/11, 1/800sec. I did take more photos to try to merge for this waterfall but they didn't line up nicely so I decided not to use them in the panorama.

Merged Panoramas are a lot of fun and a great way to get the pictures that are too large for a single shot with your camera. Sometimes though the camera will see each photo with a slightly different color. I had this happen. I was using a 70-200mm lens that I was renting and did not have a polarizing filter for it, while this can also happen with a polarizing filter. The setting were 400iso, f/11, 1/400sec. This was taken just outside Laramie, WY. It is comprised of 10 images and it needs a lot of work on blending the colors before I would be able to use for anything.