Black and White pictures using the Pentax K-7

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Hi Pentaxian friends.

It is a little difficult to emphasize on taking black & white pic­tures, when modern DSLR cameras do such a good job with colors. Shooting, or rather, turning your photo to black & white or even sepia tone can make an otherwise bland photo, interesting.

Black & White pictures have gained popularity in the past few years. Perhaps it is because of the nostalgia it projects. Because you only have two colors to worry about, (black & white) you can play with the contrast, the clarity, the vibrance, the saturation and the luminance of colors. In Photoshop Lightroom, which I use, although the luminance is in color, it acts like a filter for black & white photography. Adjusting the blue will darken or lighten the sky. Adjusting the yellow and green will make the foliage darker or lighter and so on. Give it a try.

You don't use Photoshop! You can do the same "in-camera" with the K-7. Here's how:

With the K-7, use the four-way controller right button. A menu appears giving several adjustment possibilities when pressing the four-way controller down button. However, if you press the four-way controller right button again, eight preset settings are available. To the far right, you will see the [BW] icon. Navigate to it with the four-way controller and press the OK button. You are now in the B&W mode. As long as you keep the [BW] settings on, the camera will shoot on B&W. Using the live-view mode, you will actually be able to see the scene in black and white and the file is still saved as a RAW file if you choose to.

You can still modify the black and white photos further, in-camera. Display the image you want to modify further on the LCD screen and press the four-way controller down. Navigate to the Digital Filter and press the OK button. You can use any of the digital filters with the black & white image. You can even stack multiple filters. How sweet it is!

Thanks for reading,

Yvon Bourque

P.S. Learn more about the Pentax K-7 here: Pentax K-7 ebook.

Why a White Pentax K2000? Are there any other white gadgets?

Hi Pentaxian friends,

I probably got more email and hits from my post on the new White Pentax K2000 than any other subjects.

You're in photography and know that a picture is worth a thousand words...so here are a few thousand words.

Get great B & W pictures with your Pentax DSLR

Hi Pentax friends,

Get great B & W pictures with your Pentax DSLR

By: Yvon Bourque

Why would anyone want to take B & W pictures in this day and age, when we have digital cameras that can capture colors like never before? I'm sure you have your own reasons, but for me, there are two prominent reasons. I love landscape with cloudy skies in B&W because of the contrasts that can be achieved. Also, sometimes, a greatly composed picture with bad color rendition can be saved by turning it to a B & W photograph.

Of course, you can change color pictures to B & W within your camera, but the results are rarely as good as post processing color images on a powerful computer equipped with the appropriate software. Of course, Adobe Photoshop CS3 is great...but expensive. Photoshop Elements does a better job than in-camera processing, but not as good as it could get. My Software of choice is Photoshop Lightroom. In fact, I now use Lightroom for 95% of all my post processing. For B&W, I find Lightroom to be excellent. It has filters that you can apply to B & W images similar to the filters B & W film shooters used for many years. With that capability you can, for instance, apply contrast to blues separately than to greens, etc, rather than darkening or lightening the entire image.

Here is an example of a color picture taken in Yosemite last July, turned to B & W. This is simply an example and I do not pretend to be an "Ansel Adams". This is merely an example to explain the process I use.

ABOVE: This is the original file in color taken with the K20D and the DA 16-45mm as I recall.

ABOVE: I usually add clarity and vibrance to the image before turning it to grayscale. When the Clarity and Vibrance are to my taste, I change the image to Grayscale.

ABOVE: With the Grayscale mix, I can change the contrast by using the filters above, just like during the B&W film era...sort of. Move the blue filter to the left to get a darker sky giving a more dramatic effect.

ABOVE: After darkening the sky, I changed the appearance of the B & W picture by adding more green and yellow. It's a matter of taste, and although we may not have the same taste, you get the idea.

ABOVE: I then use the Tone Curve to adjust the Highlights, Lights, Darks and Shadows.

ABOVE: Th is the original image. Below is the B & W after processing.

ABOVE: You can also change the look of the monochrome picture in your favorite software by adding a sepia layer.


Now, once you have the B & W picture the way you want, the next major step is to print it. Not too many printers are equipped for great B&W hard copies. To get the most out of the tonal range of B&W prints, you need a printer that has black and different shades of grey ink cartridges. Some of the high end printer models have such capability. I find that sending files to a lab for processing gets me the best results without having to spend big bucks for an high end printer. There are many labs, and here in the USA, I use Mpix and I have always been satisfied with the results. Their prices are reasonable and the delivery is fast. In fact, I had the picture above made in a 20" x 30 and it came out beautifully.

P.S. This article is also posted on the Pentax Forums where Pentax is spoken there. We also recomment Photo-net for Pentax users.

Thank you very much for reading,

Yvon Bourque

The K20D in Yosemite; Changing color pictures to Black and White, a little like Ansel Adams...not!

This is a follow up to my previous post of last week on Yosemite. Digital Photography has certainly made our photographic endeavors a lot easier than when Ansel Adams was alive. I thought so until I decided to turn some of my Yosemite photographs to Black and White.

Yes, Ansel Adams had to carry tons of equipment, large format folding cameras and film sheets. Then he had to spend hours or even days in the darkroom developing the film sheets, printing the images, correcting his results with dodging and burning techniques until he achieved what he called his visualization. There are no doubts that he made landscape photography known to the world. He knew his equipment, knew all the techniques of the era, and even devised the “Zone System”. He was a photographic genius.

However, he did not have to deal with color and especially color accuracy. That makes a huge difference. Even with digital, it is difficult to control colors. Too much saturation and the colors are unrealistic. White balance correction does not always render the accurate vision you had in your “mind’s eye”. The dynamic range with color photographs is very difficult to perfect, etc, etc.

I took some of the color pictures taken in Yosemite last week and turned them to Black and White with Adobe Lightroom. I find that it is easier to make the photograph “pop-out” in Black and White with simple manipulation. In Lightroom, (and certainly with other post-processing software) you can change the color images to grayscale, and of course make all the normal adjustments like exposure, clarity, brightness, contrast, the tone curve, etc. The interesting thing about Lightroom tools is that you can use the grayscale mix, which allows you to modify the Black and White picture by applying color filters just as you would have done with Black and White films. That changes the look of the photographs drastically and, in my opinion and just my opinion, allows you to make your photographs pop-out. There are no difficulties in color balance as all you have to deal with is Black and White.

So is it really easier to produce quality color digital photographs than it was to produce Black and White picture in Adams’ time?

I'm no Ansel Adams, but I do the best I can.

Thank you for reading,

Yvon Bourque