Eight skills of taking good black-and-white photos

Lead: Every time I appreciate the works of many street photographers or documentary photographers, will I always be impressed by the black and white photos of their realistic characters? In our photography life, it is inevitable that we will encounter specific subjects who want to present in black and white tones. What are the different skills of shooting and processing black-and-white images from ordinary color images? See if these tricks help you!

High contrast light and shadow rendering

Black-and-white photographic works that lose color often create a strong contrast effect with high contrast, leaving a deep impression on readers. The bright part is white and the dark part is black, which makes the outline of the main body more distinct and gives people a sense of artistic gypsum.

Rich and changeable gray tones

If it is only black and white, it can't restore the three-dimensional sense of the real world very well, but the gray level changes of different concentrations can make the picture show more details. Although the contrast created by high contrast can give people a visual impact, gray scale is also essential in the description of details.

Pay attention to using the lines and shapes of the light and shadow of the object to compose the picture.

Black-and-white photography pays more attention to the combination of graphics and lines in some aspects. The silhouette of people and the lines of architectural environment can bring extraordinary visual feelings to readers. In addition to observing the wonderful combination of light and shadow, we can also capture some interesting geometric patterns and create a visual sense like a picture.

Pay attention to the suppression of image noise.

It is generally recommended to shoot black and white works with low ISO value, which can make the outline of the subject clearer. However, in the low light environment, it is still necessary to improve the ISO value, ensure the safety shutter and accelerate the focusing. At this time, we should pay attention to the generation of noise. Some people say that there are no black-and-white photos, and they also emphasize the so-called "graininess", but please don't naively think that noise and graininess are the same thing. Of course, many cameras now have the function of suppressing noise, so you can make good use of it.

Try to combine long exposure with black and white photography.

No matter the busy streets, car tracks or star tracks in the sky at night, they often have different light effects from those in the daytime. Because of the weak light at night, it is easier to produce the picture of Gao Fancha, and the lighting effect will be more obvious against the background at night. Japanese photographer Guang Chuan Taishi's "Infinite Melody of Times Scenery" has a special series of stars and orbits.

Try to use a clean and simple background when shooting portraits.

As mentioned above, the charm of black-and-white photography lies in the visual effect of Gao Fancha, and in the performance of black-and-white portrait shooting, in order to highlight the main body of the characters, simple or even monochrome backgrounds are generally chosen for collocation. If the background is too messy to "clean up", you can also use a large aperture lens to blur the scenery behind the characters in the case of shallow depth of field to separate people from the scenery.

Use a polarizer to assist shooting.

When shooting the glass window, the scenery outside the window and the water surface, it is sometimes troubled by reflection. At this time, if a polarizer can be used to solve the problem, the original scene will be clearer and more prominent after color removal.

Perfect effect of combining HDR with black-and-white photography

Now many cameras have HDR mode, which is mainly used when shooting scenes in Gao Fancha. Three photos of continuous shooting and exposure value can be combined in the camera, and finally an image with balanced exposure can be obtained, so that the picture can have more details. When such photos are converted into black and white tones, they may have different styles, and sometimes they may bring you unexpected visual feelings.