The Art Of Black And White Photography ($44.95) looks at techniques for creating superb images in a digital workflow:
Over the last few years, most books on photography emphasized explaining the new breed of cameras and how to master the digital imaging workflow. In The Art of Black and White Photography Torsten Andreas Hoffmann takes a different approach, as he focuses on image composition and image capture, with an emphasis on the creative aspects of black and white photography, rather than on the digital workflow.
Now to be honest I reckon that most people just take their picture as normal and then use their editing software to convert to B&W ………. or am I alone in doing it that way? I guess that occasionally I would think ‘that might look cool in B&W’ but I have never really gone out to shoot in B&W. It is one of those weird things to be honest, I love B&W pictures, but very rarely think to take them, and don’t naturally think ‘in B&W’ so to speak.
In many ways the most interesting thing in the book is on the first page!!
“In analog photography, the camera does not have the essential importance often attributed to it. Rather it is the quality of the lens that is paramount, because the optical system and the type of film used are mostly responsible for a technically satisfactory image quality.
These things are completely different in digital photography, where it is the quality of the camera sensor that determines image quality as much as the optical system”
And there was me thinking it was all about the lens still!!!!!!!
The book itself has a impressive 35 Chapters, packed into 260 pages so it doesn’t really go into that much depth with anything, but it does give a good overall summary, with some useful Photoshop tips. As with all books on photography it covers workflow and technique so depending on how advanced a photographer you are, and how established your workflow is you will find varying levels of usefulness in these sections. Personally as a general rule when I look at the price of a photography book I tend to factor in that at least 1/3rd, often 1/2, will be duplicated in other books I have read!
For those of you that have adopted my approach above then the Chapter (31) on Black and White from Color is really useful, especially when read alongside Chapter 35 New Black and White Conversion with Photoshop CS3, but the real strength of the book is getting you to think in terms of B&W, especially Chapter 9, The Graphic Element in B&W Photography.
All in all a very satisfying read. It includes some good pictures as examples, and explains things clearly, and in my case certainly got me thinking outside of my conventual colour zone!
ISBN-13: 978-1-933952-27-7
All the tips I got about b&w digital photography, were to take in RAW color photograph then process it using software into a b&w image. The reason behind it is that the color picture captures everything, and it’s easier to convert it to a b&w image, then vice versa….. but I could be wrong.
Now lenses are still very important. I’m dismissing the p&s cameras, because of the sensors they use…. too tiny, and too many megapixels. The current DSLR cameras are all pretty much the same. The lenses are not. I will dare say, that lenses are still more important than the camera.
I recall receiving the same advice, but then again I probably got it from you!!!!!!!
My money is on the lens in all cases to be honest, but what do I know 🙂