Darkroom printing of Black and White images used to be the main way most photographers created their work. It was a rite of passage and everyone who did it will probably have a host of stories to tell. I know I do, like the time we would create a wall of flames around an unsuspecting printing colleague….. Enough of that now. I’ll tell you the full story later in this post. This post is all about the basics of Black and White darkroom printing and then in the next few posts we will go into detailed tutorials of various techniques – some beginner and some advanced. Like so many photographers who grew up black and white printing, first in a home or college darkroom and then in professional ones, Ally and I have a deep love of the darkroom.

This “how to” post is for those of you who grew up with digital and never experienced the incredible joy of seeing your print appear before your eyes in the developing chemistry. This is also a reminder for those of you who used to print and long for the old days, of how satisfying it was when you emerged from the darkroom, after an evening of printing, with a stack of wonderful B&W prints.

If you are still toying with the idea of black and white photography and haven’t bought a camera yet have a look at the article Best film camera for travel photography on ImageExplorers site.

How does traditional B&W Darkroom printing work?

Black and white printing works by exposing light through a negative to light sensitive paper and then using chemicals to reveal the image.
The enlarger shines a light through the negative and focuses it on the baseboard of the enlarger. The lighter areas on the negative allow more light to get to the paper and produce a darker area. Darker areas on the neg allow less light so the paper remains white.
The photographic darkroom printing process uses paper that has a chemical coating – (this is called emulsion and is usually made up of silver salts) coated on one side that is sensitive to light, but not red light. When exposed to light a latent image is formed and this is then developed in chemical developer. This development process is then stopped using another chemical called a stop bath. Finally the chemical process is fixed using a chemical called fixer and the chemicals washed away with water. The paper can now be viewed in normal light.

Finding a B&W Darkroom to use

We were very fortunate as there is a community darkroom in the middle of our city. For a very reasonable monthly fee you can use the darkroom as much as you need. Ally bought me several months of access for my birthday. Awesome present! I was shown the darkroom facilities, called SPACE in Colchester, UK by the very amiable general manager called Jack Briggs-Miller. 

Many towns and cities have similar setups but if your town does not you might try the local camera clubs. Of course, you could always build your own. A light proof room with running water is all you need. I can’t count the number of times I have blacked out windows in bathrooms to use as a makeshift darkroom. Enlargers are relatively cheap and the whole lot including trays can often be purchased off eBay for a song.

Getting started

For advice on loading the film into your camera have a look at our how to load film post.

Processing your Negatives

We will do an entire post on negative processing with techniques for beginners through to advanced. This will include topics ranging from what chemicals to choose, how to load a negative into a dev tank, times and temperatures, through to advanced topics like chemistry variations for fine grain and Mackie line effects to sharpen your negatives.

For advice on choosing a film for black and white photography we have a post that will help.

To start off though I would suggest sending your film to one of the numerous postal developing labs that will dev your negs. Most offer a push / pull (over or under develop) service as well as contact sheets. some will even do “clip tests” (cut off a piece of film and develop it to see if the remainder of the roll needs pushing or pulling).

Do a Google search but check out the TrustPilot reviews of lesser known labs to see what others think.

You will need to buy some photographic light sensitive paper.

There are 2 main types – FB or RC.

• RC stands for Resin Coated. This resin coated paper is ideal for anyone starting out printing as you can judge the exposure while it is still wet and it doesn’t take too long to wash. The other benefit is it dries flat 

•  FB which stands Fibre based is the usual choice for art or archival prints. The emulsion is coated onto archival paper and will hopefully last a lifetime if washed properly. Most FB papers have an excellent black density. The downside is it takes a lot of washing and it “dries down”. This means the blacks get darker when it’s dry making it difficult to get your exposures correct.

Your next choice is between Graded or Multi-Grade

Graded and Variable or multi contrast papers are as the name suggests, all about contrast.

• Graded papers come in 5 grades. If in doubt start with the middle grades.
• Variable or multi contrast papers are much easier to use however you need to have filters to change the grade. These can be bought reasonably cheaply from photographic suppliers. You can also use a colour enlarger with multi-grade and use the colour controls to change the contrast. I like this option as its easy for me to “dial in” contrast when I’m burning in. I did this with the image above so the sky and background was burned in with more contrast while keeping details in the white stone that had less contrast.

We used a company called AG Photographic in the UK. We bought both our film and paper there. They are very helpful and supply all things for traditional photographic darkroom printing. We don’t get any kickback from this link. We just think they are an amazing company that needs to be supported.

In the Darkroom

Once in the darkroom there are a few things to be aware of. Make sure the room is light tight and then switch on the red safe light. Photographic Black and White paper is not sensitive to red light so it won’t fog (expose) the paper.

1. Place the negative into the enlarger carrier tray. Make sure the neg and carrier are dust and fingerprint free.

2. Focus the enlarger on the baseboard. Open the enlarger lens to max so you can see what you’re doing. This will also help the focusing as it will show a narrow depth of field. There are various focus aids you can buy to help with this.

3. Stop down the lens 3 stops. Switch off the enlarger lamp and place a small strip of photographic paper on the baseboard. Set the enlarger timer. I usually start with 10 seconds. Expose the paper for 10 seconds and then cover a quarter with a bit of card – do another 10 seconds. Keep going so you’re doubling the light every time ie: 10 ,20, 40, 80 seconds etc.

4. There will be three trays of chemicals. Developer, Stop Bath and Fixer (known as Hypo to really, really old photographers). Pop the test strip in the developer and very gently swish it around for about 1.5 mins. Your image will appear before your eyes. Then put it into the stop bath. This stops the developer. Finally into the fixer for a minute and then give it a quick rinse in the water. If your box of photographic paper is safely sealed up, you can now switch on the white light.

5. Look at your test strip and decide on which one is correct. You might need to do another to get it perfect. Also look at the contrast on the strip. you might need to increase or decrease it using different grade papers or adjusting your multi grade filters.

Once you have the correct exposure and print you can then darken in (Burn) areas by adding a little bit more exposure to certain areas. For this, a piece of cardboard with a hole works well, or I cup my hands under the enlarger and just let the light through in areas I wish to burn. You can lighten (Dodge) by stopping light with cardboard during the main exposure. Most photographers use a black circle of cardboard attached to the end of a wire.

You can find out more about Dodging and Burning by looking at this post of ours.

When you have done your final RC print give it a good few minutes was in clean running water. Don’t over wash as it can cause water to seep in-between the rc layers and cause swelling. (FB papers need a lot more washing.) Hang your prints up to dry or pop them in an electric dryer.

That’s it. You have now created your first awesome Black and White darkroom print and are probably, like us, totally addicted.

So lastly the fire in the darkroom story. well…..

When I was a crime scene photographer for the Met Police (Scotland Yard) in London UK, I spent a lot of time photographing finger marks on objects from scenes. This was an art in itself, Sometimes the finger prints were in blood, sometimes dust or if a fingermark was on plastic eg, a car dashboard, then the fingerprint team would put it in a tank and coat the plastic with superglue vapours. We would then photograph the result. We used all sorts of lighting from high power lasers that required heavy duty filtered goggles through to the humble touch. Whatever would do the job. We made the photographs of these marks using 35mm Nikon film cameras with macro lenses and black and white Ilford FP4 or Kodak T-Max 100 film. Sometime we used a Sinar 5×7 large format mono-rail technical camera as well (in the days before digital came along.) We would then dev the negs and darkroom print the final black and white image of the fingermark.

Now this sounds very exciting and it was….for the first few weeks however, anything done in repetition gets boring and when you have boredom you need to find ways to get through it. In our department this was done by playing tricks on each other.

The darkroom housed 9 enlargers ranging from a beautiful Leica 35mm to a huge Durst large format beast. These were situated around the edge of the room with the trays (large 20’x24′) full of fresh chemicals in the middle. As this was a very busy professional darkroom it was designed with a bit of a maze of black painted corridors to keep the light out and no doors or curtain so photographers could rush in and out for a speedy workflow.

So … the perpetrator of the prank would nonchalantly wander into the darkroom whilst squirting a long trail of lighter fluid on the floor. (We used it to clean negatives.) Most people, when printing, go into their own little world and the chemistry smell was so strong it masked the lighter fluid so it was easy to spread it around without being spotted or smelled. After making sure that the liquid was in a ring around the feet of our ‘victim’ and out the door the fluid would be lit…. and a mini wall of flame would shoot down the darkroom corridor and around the unsuspecting photographer concentrating on their work. After much panicked shouting and then swearing the ‘victim’ would storm out the darkroom to be confronted by a sea of laughing colleagues.

Health and safety? What was that?
Ahh. Just another day on the job.

The post How to do Darkroom Printing part 1 appeared first on ImageExplorers.

When you walk into a camera store or look at an online photographic shop there are so many filters for black and white photography that you could buy. The problem is, which one?! What actually makes a good black and white photograph and how can I achieve that? Do you buy into a filter “system” or buy individual filters? The people in the store might or might not know which ones are right for your type of photography.

When I first started photography in the days of film (click this link to see the best black and white film for travel photography), I was so overwhelmed by the vast array of filters that I spent a lot of money on buying up as many as possible. My thinking behind this was that it would improve my photography. I am now older and marginally less stupid but I have learned from years of trial and error.

Here are some of our really essential filters for black and white and colour photography as well as our shameful ones!

There are 5 essential filters for black and white photography that every photographer should own. I’d like to show you them now and explain what each one does and why you need it. If you’ve got some time on your hands and want to know tips and geeky explanations on how to convert colour to black and white, then click that << link!

Using Polariser to darken the sky

The UV or Haze or Skylight Filter

The first filter I am going to recommend is one I always buy for any new lens I get. This filter has 2 main reasons to live on your lens.

Firstly: Protection – I can’t count the number of times I have “dinked” the front glass on my lenses.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a quick knock against my belt when carrying the camera. (We use awesome sling type straps that go across your body. Ally swears hers is the best thing ever and is attached to it like an umbilical cord. She uses a Ladies Black Rapid. I have a Sun Sniper.) I once scratched my Nikon lens coating when putting the lens cap back on the lens. Having  just finished photographing, the rain was about to bucket down, and I was in a hurry. This does not excuse my not having a protector UV filter on the lens.

A filter is also easier to clean than a lens element. I have even dipped mine in water to wash off salt or dust after photographing waves or deserts.

Pro Tip: When photographing in areas that really dirty up your lens (like sea spray) carry a spare filter and change filters when the first gets dirty. It’s faster than trying to clean a lens in an inhospitable environment.

Whenever I buy a new lens the very next thing I buy is a UV filter. $50 to $100 for a high quality filter that doesn’t seem to do much might seem extortionate but if it saves the very soft (and very expensive) lens coating from just one scratch it will be worth it.

Secondly: Sharper and more defined details in the background – A UV filter cuts out the UV light and cuts through the haze making distance objects seem clearer.  With film it is more important to use a UV filter because film is extremely sensitive to UV light. However, digital sensors are generally less sensitive to UV.

This filter works the same with both colour and black and white photography.

Lastly, the UV haze filter is not to be confused with the UV transmitting filter. This only allows ultraviolet light to pass through the lens and blocks out all the other visible light spectrum.

See more useful photography articles here

The graduated filter (Grad)

The graduated filter is the next one in the list, for this filters for black and white photography post. A graduated filter is a neutral density filter that gradually fades to clear. The reason for this is that most skies are darker than the land so the graduated filter darkens the sky but not the land. See more explanations on this with our exposure compensation post, and ‘why your camera lies to you’!

Round screw or system grad filter?

These filters come in either a round screw in version or as a “system” version where you attach a filter holder to the front of the lens and then slot in the square filter of choice. The advantage of this type of filter is that you can slide the filter up or down depending on the amount of darkening you require. The other advantage is you buy different size adaptor rings for the system types that means you don’t have to fork out for multiple filters, only new adaptor rings. Both types of filter allow you to spin them around.

Graduated filters for black & white film photography

The Grad filters come in various strengths of darkening. Buy some cheap ones to experiment with first before spending a lot on one.

In my young college days these Cokin filter systems were all the rage, and from my extensive Cokin system, the grad was used more than anything.

While this filter works just as well in colour photography as it does in black and white there are a few other grads that work in colour too. I used to use a tobacco (orange/brown) to get warmer low sun photographs or a blue/purple to get more interesting cloudy skies.

The Neutral density filter (ND)

One of our favourite creative filters for black and white photography is the Neutral Density filter. It reduces the amount of light coming through the lens thus giving you longer exposures that you are unable to get in bright light even with an ISO of 50.

Why would you want longer exposures?

It will capture movement rather than freezing it. This could be either water, people, vehicles, clouds or anything that moves. On water this produces an ethereal misty effect and with people it can produce water-like blurs. It is very effective if some people are moving and some totally still. We have used this filter a number of times for dramatic effect on water. See our post on how we got on (or not) when we first used our ND filter recently.

Just make sure you have a very sturdy tripod as it’s so easy to get a blurry image with even the smallest bit of camera shake during a 30 second exposure. See our tutorial on how to photograph with an ND filter.

This filter works just as well in colour as in black and white photography.

Single colour filters for Black and white film

Black and white film uses a full range of the visible colour spectrum to create a full range of tones on your black and white negative. What a single colour filter does is to stop some of those colours from reaching the film and thereby making that area darker. For example, the filter we need to use to darken the sky would be one that stops blue reaching the film. Yellow, orange and red colours are opposite blue and so do this very effectively. A blue filter would darken reds and make the blues appear lighter. See our post on how to darken skies for more details on single colour filters.

Filter system of single colours for black and white photography

Buy a full range of cheap filters and try them out to see what you get before committing more money to them.

The Polarizing filter

There are 2 main uses for polarizing filters, reducing reflections and darkening skies.

Here is how it works. Light reflected from a non-metallic surface becomes polarized. A polarizing filter allows light to pass in only one direction. This allows us to reduce reflections on non-metallic objects.

Light from the sky is also polarized, so a polarizing filter will polarize the light and reduce how much light enters the camera. As a result this will make the sky dark in a photo.

Photograph taken without and with polarizing filter

A polarizer will darken down blue sky but not affect clouds. (The effect is most prevalent on the area of sky that is at 90 degrees from the sun – Look at the sun – carefully – and then the darkest sky will be at 90 degrees.) It will also reduce reflections which can make trees etc seem rather vivid in colour. To use the polarizer just turn the filter until the sky goes dark or the reflections disappear.

A few things to be aware of with polarizing filters

This polarizing filter technique will work with both film and digital, colour and black and white. In colour it also increases the saturation of many objects by reducing reflections.

There are 2 types of polarizer. A linear and a circular. A circular CPL polarizer is best for modern cameras as linear polarizers can affect exposure meters and autofocus adversely.

Filters can create so many effects and as we have discovered in our photographic adventures, not all are good. With these 5 essential filters to start your collection off though, you just can’t go wrong. What do you think of our choice of essential filters for black and white photography? Are there any you think we should add to the list? Do you have an embarrassing collection worse than ours? Let us know in the comments below.

Above all else, just go out and create photographs that make you happy.

See our Top 10 Essential Photoshop shortcuts.

Tim’s Adobe and Affinity courses

Click here to get huge money off savings on Tim’s Udemy courses for Photoshop on the iPad and Affinity Photo v2.

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More than once, Ally and I have arrived in a new town to photograph, all prepared and excited however things don’t go always go according to plan. The weather is dire, the scene itself is spectacularly awful due to building work, there are too many tourists etc. I’m sure you have all felt this at various stages. Don’t give up! What we do in these situations is to do texture photography. Even surrounded by hundreds of tourists in a building zone during awful weather we can always find some texture detail to light up our photographic souls.

On the surface of it, many people think of textures as just background images. Filler photos to put text on top of but a beautiful texture is a joy to behold in its own right. Think of them a “mini” landscapes that very few people stop to look at and it will bring you hours of photographic pleasure.

Wales snow in sand texture

Dubrovnik roof texture

Church wood and stone texture in cyanotype style

The other use we have for texture photography is to create something that we montage or blend with other images in Photoshop. See the how-to further down this post.

Using layer for texture photography on HMS Victory hull

What equipment do you need?

We just use whatever we have with us and as we said in our bios, we travel very light. I have listed a few things below that could be helpful if you have them with you.

Ally photographing wheel textures on a UK quarry

Macro lenses for close-up

You don’t really need any special equipment to photograph textures unless you want to go really close-up in which case you might need a macro lens. These are lenses that are optically corrected for close-up photography and most of them allow closer focusing than normal lenses do.

Tripods

We find a tripod really useful if we need more depth of field with longer shutter speeds so we can keep the camera steady for that all important sharpness that we try to get. Another use for the tripod is to help compose the perfect image. Having the camera on the tripod allows us to keep the camera composed on one area while looking around to see if there are any other areas that look better without losing our original composition. This seems ridiculous, but with close-up texture photography you’ll be surprised how easy it is to lose that perfect picture, as there is so much detail to take in.

Filters

Filters can be really useful. A polarizing filter can get rid of reflections and boost your colour saturation. A single coloured filter on black and white film can lighten or darken the same or opposite colours. See our post on how to make the sky dark in a photo for more details about these techniques. Even though there probably won’t be any sky in your texture photograph, the same principles apply to other colours. So, a green filter will lighten greens in black and white film photography etc. Of course, you can always do this in Photoshop or Affinity Photo when editing your images created on a digital camera.

Texture photography on old Bristol War Department  tanker train

What to photograph

Just look around you with a critical eye. Texture photography takes in anything that has a texture, so from rough walls to smooth building marble, tree trunks to old rusty metal, there are just so many photographs to create. Ally and I love finding old buildings with weather distressed wood where the paint is peeling and the sun has bleached the colour.

Texture on South African Railway train

Old rusted farm equipment left out in fields or old trains that we come upon while walking, always yields some beautiful textures.

Don’t forget wave and sand textures

Black and white or colour photography?

This depends on what you have with you. If we are photographing with black and white film loaded, when we come upon textures we will be looking for textures that lend themselves to black and white and try to ignore the colour in the scene. (A good tip is to look at the scene through a coloured filter as this removes the multiple colours you see and allows you to concentrate on the all-important texture shapes.)

When using colour film, we look for contrasting or sympathetic hues.

Digitally you can do whatever you like. My (Tim) Sony mirrorless A7R camera has an option to view the scene in black and white through the viewfinder but it still records a full colour Raw file in case I change my mind later. I really like this feature, not just for textures, as it enables me to concentrate on the shape and texture in an image and not get distracted by the colour.

Process

As I mentioned earlier, a texture photograph can be a beautiful image on its own but should you want to incorporate it into a different image it can really bring the image to life. I mixed the photograph of the Lord Nelson ship, the HMS Victory, moored in Portsmouth in the UK with a texture photograph of side detail of the ship. This was done in Photoshop by putting the texture layer on top of the ship layer, reducing the opacity, masking out the areas I didn’t want and then experimenting with various layer modes until I found the one I liked. I used Soft Light however my usual go-to layer modes are Multiply (which hides the lighter parts of a layer) or Overlay (which gives a really increased contrast mix).

Texture photograph on ship for use in final image

Using layers with Soft Light mode for texture photography

I started this post by making out that texture photography is something you do if you can’t do ‘real’ photography due to unforeseen circumstances, but in reality, photographing textures can be an extremely satisfying process and yield some incredible images. Whether for use in a mixed layer image or as a beautiful image in its own right, you will find you can fill your photographic soul with texture goodness. Give it a go and, like us, you will be hooked on textures.

The post Texture Photography appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Before we consider the best film cameras for beginners we need to ask a question. Why would you wish to shoot with a film camera when digital is so relatively cheap and immediate, and the quality is second to none?  Well there are so many reasons. Maybe you are of the generation that grew up with digital and want to experiment with analogue. Possibly you’re a wannabee Hipster and are tired with the immediacy of digital. Maybe you’re as old as dirt and remember fondly the days of taking your colour film to the local chemist for developing and printing (D&P as it was known as).

Whatever your reason, you need to get the right film camera for you.

Our 3 Nikons – what could be your best film camera for beginners?

Buy a manual camera

The first thing to look at when deciding on a film camera is the camera’s ability to do manual. Although one might think that the best film cameras for beginners would have an auto function to help you, you will not learn nearly as much about the finer points of exposure if the camera does it all for you. Not only that, but the light meters on older film cameras were not nearly as sophisticated as today’s digital cameras. They could get fooled by tricky situations very easily.  What do I mean by a manual camera? The camera must allow you to choose your own aperture and shutter speed.

What brand to buy

There are so many second-hand cameras on the market with varying prices, but the best thing to do is to stick to well-known brands and models that people and blogs recommend. The following list that I titled “best film cameras for beginners” is not definitive. These are just the main ones I recommend at varying price points.

What to look for in second hand cameras

Firstly I would recommend you buy from a local camera store. Not only will you get a small guarantee on the camera but the staff should be able to demonstrate its features. If you get an assistant who is a little over 35, you may even see a bit of a nostalgic glint in their eye. They may also be humming, “Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end …”! Bit more expensive than eBay but it takes the worry out the purchase.

Obviously eBay is the cheapest way to get a good deal. When the camera arrives, check all the controls work smoothly and look at the battery compartment for any past battery leakage. Remove the lens from the camera and make sure the aperture works smoothly and snappily. Look through the lens and check for any fungus growing on the elements. Finally check the front and rear elements for scratches or wear on the lens coating. Many people will tell you beforehand that there is a slight scratch on the lens “but it doesn’t affect the quality”. This may be so for most photography but if you are photographing into the sun (contre-jour) you will, at the worst get flares in the image and at the very least have reduced contrast. Stay away from these lenses if at all possible.

What lens to start with

A best film camera for beginner guide wouldn’t be complete without some lens guidance, so here it is. Most camera bodies will come with a ‘standard’ lens. This is a 50mm non-zoom lens (non-zoom lenses are called prime lenses) that is very close to the view of the human eye. They are usually very good quality with a wide aperture and an excellent lens to get started with before you start investing in wide angle, telephoto and zoom lenses. Start with the 50mm.

Some recommended cameras

Nikon FM

Nikon FM By NEDM64

The Nikon FM came out in 1977 and was manufactured for 5 years before being superseded by the FM2. This camera is totally manual (not a single automated setting to be seen) and is also mechanical. This means the tiny battery in the camera only operates the very basic light meter. If your battery fails then everything else will keep on running. This was invaluable to a pro and the FM and FM2 were workhorses that kept on running. My own personal FM (I got it at college in 1982) has seen thousands of rolls of film through it and been subjected to all sorts of camera un-friendly environments and it has kept on going.

During a photographic job where I was photographing an aluminium smelting plant, there was an extremely large generator with powerful magnets. I couldn’t use my Nikon F3 hp, which was my main working camera, in the same room because of its shutter being affected by the magnetic field. The FM continued to work without missing a beat. I do have to admit having the shutter replaced a few years later but that was because the attached motor drive had worn it out.

There are plenty of lenses available and it takes any Nikkor lens, except the latest versions that don’t have a physical aperture ring. Ally still has her original FM2 camera which saw hundreds of rolls of film go through it on the cruise ships she worked on, as well as her very first few weddings before moving onto medium format and being very well travelled after that. I still have my original FM and a Nikon F3hp too.

The other Nikon that is very similar is the FE and FE2. These have an auto setting on them for aperture priority (you choose the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed automatically). Unlike the FM range these cameras have electromagnetically controlled shutters that need batteries to operate.

Image of FE by Edgar Bonet

Canon AE-1

When I was at college, this was the alternate camera to the Nikon FE . The AE-1 has an electromagnetically operated shutter and Shutter priority (you choose the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed automatically). There was a second model called the AE-1 Program that had a full automatic mode (both aperture and shutter were controlled automatically). Obviously these cameras require batteries to operate.

These beautiful little cameras use the Canon FD range of lenses. Despite still going strong, they can be picked up for very little money.

The pro camera of this time was the Canon F1. A heavy duty camera that looked beautiful but weighed a ton. If you can find a good F1, they go for a lot of money, as most have had a hard professional life.

Image by WikiAndrea

Pentax k1000

The Pentax is very similar to the Nikon FM in that it is totally mechanical and manual and only needs a battery for the light meter. This camera was manufactured from 1976 to 1997 so there are rather a lot of second hand ones around in very good condition. Pentax lenses, while being of a very high quality, don’t attract the premium prices of Nikon or Canon. Therefore, the camera will cost you less in the long run when more accessories and lenses are required.

Look out for a good condition model as there are plenty to choose from.

Pentax K1000

Olympus OM1

The Olympus OM1 has a beautiful and tiny body and was originally compared to the Leica for size and quality. The OM series runs from the OM1 (totally manual) through to the OM4 (all singing and dancing program modes) as well as a basic OM10.

The OM1 MD model is the same as the OM1 but has been modified to take a motor drive.

The Zuiko lenses are excellent quality and like the Pentax system don’t attract the premium prices.

A lot of people with smaller hands prefer the ergonomics of the Olympus system.

Pic OM1 MD  By Steve Martin

Processing your film

You’ve got your camera, found your way through the tricky film loading, taken some awesome images and figured out how to rewind the film so you can open the back. Now you are ready to get your images developed. The best and most satisfying way to go about this is to process Black and White film yourself. I will be doing a how-to blog post tutorial on this very soon. I can smell the chemicals already!

Of course when you first start out you might want to concentrate on getting your photography technique and exposure correct and let somebody else sort out the processing for you. Of course you might have created the photographs using colour film. Either way, you would need to send it to a lab.

Most photographic labs will offer a service of scanning your film after processing. That way you can then just work on your images digitally.

In conclusion

The above, best film cameras for beginners list, are only my suggestions. Therefore, I would advise you to try a few cameras out if possible at local camera stores. Different cameras feel differently in your hands because everybody’s hands are different. Go with the one that feels right to you.

Buy a system you can grow with. Check out the availability and cost of lenses and other extras like motor drives and flash fittings etc. Are they easy and inexpensive to come by?

Decide on your budget but remember your biggest outlay will be your long-term film and processing cost.

In the end it just boils down to enjoying your photography. This and using a tool that you can feel is working with and not against you.

The post Best film cameras for beginners guide appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Why would you wish to convert colour to black and white? After all, we all see in colour. There are so many reasons. Maybe the original image has too many clashing colours? It could be that the weird mix of colour balance (eg, a mix of outdoor light with some indoor lighting) in the image is just too time consuming to correct. Or perhaps you want to replicate old film. There are so many other reasons. But, I usually want to convert colour to black and white because it is just so very beautiful and striking.

This staircase that Ally photographed at our AirBnB in Bournemouth looks so much more graphical in black and white.

Here is the original colour version before converting to black and white

Surely you just choose a menu command and it’s done?

Well yes, you can do that but you would be missing out on the joy of controlling the converting of colour to black and white and seeing your image come alive. Most of the quick fix conversions just remove the colour from your image. This, more often than not, leaves a flat dull photograph that requires a lot of dodging and burning or contrast correction to give it more ‘pop’.

The technical explanation that you don’t really need unless you’re a geek or sitting in a coffee shop waiting for a friend!

All colours, whether in the real world or in an image have 3 main values.

1. The actual colour value (Hue)
2. The amount of saturation that colour has (Saturation)
3. And finally, how light or dark that colour is (Luminance / Lightness).

Colour Picker

This can be easily seen in a lot of colour pickers. It is usually referred to as HSL in software adjustments.

Hue, Saturation and Luminance (or Lightness)

So, to convert from colour to black and white, what we want to do is to remove the colour. But we also need to be able to adjust the lightness values of the separate colours individually. This is so we can maybe brighten up that beautiful red sunset cloud whilst at the same time darkening down the blue sky.

But this black and white voodoo never happened in traditional photography I hear you say

Ah, but it did. Here is some more geeky stuff to explain it. Traditional film (silver halide) is sensitive to light. So photographers used varying colour filters to lighten or darken parts of the image they were exposing. One of the most common filters was an orange filter. This absorbed blue light so when the image was exposed, less light from the blue areas got to the film, resulting in a darker blue. This was usually used on landscapes to make the sky go dark and dramatic whilst keeping the clouds white.

One of the greatest traditional landscape photographers, Ansel Adams, used yellow, orange and red filters on his camera to achieve the spectacular images of Yosemite and some of his skies are almost black in the print.

A different technique with film is to use a polarizing filter to darken down the sky.

We are doing the same thing, but with digital we can lighten or darken any colour in the image during conversion.

How the magic is done

In Photoshop or Affinity Photo go to your layers panel and at the bottom find the adjustment layers button. Add a black and white adjustment layer – in here you can lighten and darken the various colours to achieve a spectacular black and white image.

Using black and white to lighten and darken when you convert colour to black and white

Some tips to achieving black and white Zen

Quick tip 1: Try to pre-visualise your black and white image at the creating stage. Many mirrorless cameras let you change your display settings so the display presents in black and white. I use this technique a lot on my Sony A7R. This way, I concentrate more on the shapes and composition as well as the lightness values of the image. This helps stop me getting distracted by the colours. The great thing here is that the camera still records the full colour image, so I can have my cake and eat it!

Quick tip 2: If your camera doesn’t support this function you can take a coloured filter with you. View the scene through the filter to help get rid of distracting colours and enable you to concentrate on the lightness values and shape. Remember to take the filter off the camera before you take the photograph though. Also remember the filter might affect the way you see the values: such as a red filter will make the reds lighter and the blues darker. See our post on essential filters for black and white photography.

Quick tip 3: Geeky stuff alert! If you convert colour to black and white in the Raw file converter, be aware that the default file that opens in Adobe Photoshop will be a single 8-bit channel greyscale file. 8-bit channel images are made up of 256 levels of lightness per channel, from black to white. Therefore, a greyscale image only has 256 shades of grey. An 8-bit RGB image has 3 channels, each with 256 shades. This could mean you get banding in the beautiful graduated sky areas. (I will cover this in detail in a separate post soon.) More importantly, unless you convert the image back to RGB colour, you won’t be able to add colour in Photoshop, even in the form of text. You can do this by going to the Image menu > Modes > RGB colour.

In Summary …

Finally just remember… A boring photograph is still a boring photograph even if it’s converted to black and white. But a good photograph can sometimes become even more stunning once you convert it to black and white.

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