Does anyone shoot in B&W?

[mercer]

18 minutes ago, noone said:

I just realised I can not use Rich Tone monochrome for video (only stills) with the A7s so my B&W video choices in camera are only high contrast mono via picture effects or B&W creative style and adjust settings to suit (I much prefer not chasing my tail and just using high contrast mono picture effect).

The same would likely apply with the RX10 ii.

If you have a few trillion (ok I exaggerate) years to spare, you can get the Live view grading app and I believe that has plenty of B&W options too though Ihave not had it for a couple of years but I remember it had decades (not so much an exaggeration) worth of settings to choose from for colours.

You should be able to use sLog2 or any PP and use monochrome as the color instead of cinema, pro, etc... that’s what I did with the initial samples I posted.

1 hour ago, Fritz Pierre said:

Black & White on the GH2 is fantastic...and I think you still have one?...you have to test between the high and lower contrast versions which you like if memory serves correctly, but shooting with the Drewnet Long GOP 9 hack I personally love the result! Andrew also posted some lovely footage from the GH2 he shot in B&W...may be in his guide on the camera.

Actually, my time with the GH2 was short lived, I couldn’t stand not having focus peaking, so I ended up selling it for a small profit. I did enjoy the quality of video, though. It still blows my mind the image that 6 year old camera is capable of.

1 hour ago, Cinegain said:

Aw yeah, I remember that.

https://www.eoshd.com/2011/11/latest-gh2-hack-unlocks-stunning-iso-12800-with-film-like-grain/

 

Yeah, I love that video... some of his finest work. His off kilter sky shot is gorgeous.

[mercer]

@Cinegain did you think my original 3 screengrabs were more grey tones than B&W? The Cine2 sample definitely is, but the light had such a haze to it, that it was either light and hazy or black silhouette. 

Btw, I like your new profile design.

[Cinegain]

Actually meant the 'no swimming' one where you noted that you might've pushed it too far. I'd be inclined to say you didn't push it far enough. Of course I added the note that this is just a personal/taste thing, so by no means is that my opinion right (or wrong). But you can also see the other examples shown in this topic are more striking because of the 'B&W pop' (actual highlights (almost) clip, actual natural shadows are exaggerated to pitch black almost).

VS

Well, that general direction neways, should've probably added some specific curve adjustment to raise that sky to have more white tones popping in there.

Yeah, the old one started to bother me for some reason, so I messed about in PS for a minute, not really a keeper either tho.

[Mattias Burling]

For stills I would say the majority is B&W for me. When shooting film its 50/50, including Polaroid and Instax.
For video its strangely 99.9% color. I really should start exploring it. If not video, s8 motion picture is cheaper than color and just as easy to develop and scan at home.

For video I can imagine Raw being the ticket. If money wasn't an obstacle I would own the Digital Bolex D16 Monochrome.
I used to have a Leica M9 Monochrome and man does such a CCD deliver.
Today my weapon of choice is my M8 with the IR-cut off for deeper shades. My GRii delivers some of the finest B&Ws as well (no AA).

 

[jase]

Super cool topic, Mercer - thanks for bringing it up! Whenever I went down the Sony path (already twice) I had exactly the same thoughts as you do: just forget about all of this color crap und go B&W.

In fact I shot a b&w video several years ago on my beloved GM1, which is one of my own favorites up until today, although it is only 720p. Whenever I watch it, it is able to pull me back into those times as no other shot I have taken...

 

[mercer]

4 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

For stills I would say the majority is B&W for me. When shooting film its 50/50, including Polaroid and Instax.
For video its strangely 99.9% color. I really should start exploring it. If not video, s8 motion picture is cheaper than color and just as easy to develop and scan at home.

For video I can imagine Raw being the ticket. If money wasn't an obstacle I would own the Digital Bolex D16 Monochrome.
I used to have a Leica M9 Monochrome and man does such a CCD deliver.
Today my weapon of choice is my M8 with the IR-cut off for deeper shades. My GRii delivers some of the finest B&Ws as well (no AA).

 

Yeah, I agree... I’m going out today to do some comparison shots between 5D3 Raw and RX10ii sLog2 B&W. I’m pretty sure I already know the results but I’m still curious to see how the two will compare.

Btw, love your B&W shots on instagram. I always try to guess which camera you used.

53 minutes ago, jase said:

Super cool topic, Mercer - thanks for bringing it up! Whenever I went down the Sony path (already twice) I had exactly the same thoughts as you do: just forget about all of this color crap und go B&W.

In fact I shot a b&w video several years ago on my beloved GM1, which is one of my own favorites up until today, although it is only 720p. Whenever I watch it, it is able to pull me back into those times as no other shot I have taken...

 

I remember that video, and man it still holds up so nicely. If you get some time, I’d love to see a clip from the GH5 and the MonochromeL profile.

The RX10 is such a fun little camera when I don’t have to try and figure out the color special sauce.

[PannySVHS]

Glenn, awesome post. Love your RX10 BW shots! You make every camera shine with your choice of framing. Michael Mills has some nice 8bit BW stuff on his vimeo channel. I think, when he used some sort of diffusion like Black Mist, it looked the best. Also the ones shot with the GH2 show more mojo than his GX85 videos This one has an additional Red filter on top, really beautiful video:

 

[PannySVHS]

@mercer, now this one looks massive. I had audio turned off and was uberly impressed and exited about the image and its gestalt. Then I turned audio on and was still exited about the image itself, just not about the audio, so I turned it off again:) But there is an awesome photographic quality to these images. Though I am usually not falling for the shallow dof. But this one would make me want to buy a GH1, it´s in 720p mode too and looking better than most stuff I´ve seen from other shooter/camera combos. This video would even make put it on my channel as my own. Theft as a sign of appreciation should be all right, wouldn´t it?   

 

[jbCinC_12]

Nice shots you did mercer, especially kaylee - I really like the Ansel Adams feel to it.

Here are my shots with b/w in it w/ BMPCC - Sigma 19mm and Cosmicar 25mm lenses.  I've always wanted to do monochrome stuff.  They're so nostalgic.

 

[kaylee]

@jbCinC_12 oh thank you! hey i love the video you posted, the bokeh on that cosmicar is a trip!!! v dreamy and cool

[mercer]

7 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

@mercer, now this one looks massive. I had audio turned off and was uberly impressed and exited about the image and its gestalt. Then I turned audio on and was still exited about the image itself, just not about the audio, so I turned it off again:) But there is an awesome photographic quality to these images. Though I am usually not falling for the shallow dof. But this one would make me want to buy a GH1, it´s in 720p mode too and looking better than most stuff I´ve seen from other shooter/camera combos. This video would even make put it on my channel as my own. Theft as a sign of appreciation should be all right, wouldn´t it?   

 

Damn Marty, this looks amazing... great find. I can’t believe this is 720p from the GH1. Do you know if it was shot from a hacked GH1? I am surprised more people don’t shoot in black and white... I really think the 4 luma values takes footage from low end cameras to a higher level and instantly makes them look more cinematic. I’d love to see some B&W from the G6, if you get a chance.

[PannySVHS]

Hey Glenn, will give my G6 a BW run in January! It´s a shame the HD from the GX85 seems so underwhelming to me. Dpreview chart shows it would be rather soft without aliasing but from my findings it has distracting aliasing and just weird looking characteristics to it. My G7 still not put through the paces:) GH5 HD is super highly resolving but showing more aliasing than G6 with sharpness at -5! The video above just has an astonishing look to it. G7, G85 and GX85 footage on vimeo looks mostly underwhelming to me, especially when shot with electronically connected native lenses. I posted a thread a few weeks ago, asking to post legit shortfilms from the newer bunch of Lumix cameras, with hardly any success.

[webrunner5]

Really interesting that all these B&W films were at 720p and they look great. I think it adds to it more than takes away. Now if these were all in Color I think they all would suffer at 720p.

It is nice to know you can use a lesser camera in B&W and still project the feeling you want to achieve. Cheap thrills in a sense. Well done. Food for thought.

[mercer]

On 12/29/2017 at 1:25 PM, PannySVHS said:

Hey Glenn, will give my G6 a BW run in January! It´s a shame the HD from the GX85 seems so underwhelming to me. Dpreview chart shows it would be rather soft without aliasing but from my findings it has distracting aliasing and just weird looking characteristics to it. My G7 still not put through the paces:) GH5 HD is super highly resolving but showing more aliasing than G6 with sharpness at -5! The video above just has an astonishing look to it. G7, G85 and GX85 footage on vimeo looks mostly underwhelming to me, especially when shot with electronically connected native lenses. I posted a thread a few weeks ago, asking to post legit shortfilms from the newer bunch of Lumix cameras, with hardly any success.

Yeah, it’s rather strange how some camera makers have different quality video with comparable cameras in their product line.

I shot the B&W videos in 4K and then downscaled it to 1080p before bringing it into FCPX. I did notice some aliasing and a little moire, but I chose the 4K for the higher bitrate to match the higher bitrate of the 120p... but I think I will try all 1080p on my next test.

It’s amazing how much more DR there is with sLog2 compared to Cine2 but since the RX10ii is a 1” sensor, I wonder if I were to use an aps-c DSLR, if the larger sensor would make up for the DR gain in sLog2... in B&W?

[mercer]

Are Log to Rec709 utility LUTS necessary with B&W sLog2 or ML Raw footage? I know some people don’t even use them for color, but I’m not a good enough colorist for that. But I thought that as long as I correct the B&W properly, that I may not need to use a utility LUT?

[maxotics]

1 hour ago, mercer said:

Are Log to Rec709 utility LUTS necessary with B&W sLog2 or ML Raw footage

Definitely not for RAW which has no assumption of color.  He's my cynical view of LUTs.  A person looks at some movie, likes the look of the color.  Can't figure out how to create it for their footage using Resolve or some other color grading software.  So they buy a LUT, which is a "look up table" of color substitutions made by a colorist who can duplicate the look of that film.  So what you're buying with a LUT is only another person's opinion of what looks good which matches your opinion.   There's no such thing as a LUT that creates better colors, though there's certainly a market for those who believe there are.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Color styles, like everything else in the arts, goes through FADs.  Right now, we're in an unsaturated-color FAD with so many people shooting LOG which is a destroyer of rich and vibrant color.  However, at some point, the bit-depth of cameras will increase, removing the need for 8-bit LOG gammas, and a FAD in highly saturated images will happen because everyone will want to show off their high-bit footage.   There's a prediction for 2020!

I need to quit this stuff again for 2018

 

[mercer]

@maxotics well I guess that’s my question... when shooting in B&W, in either LOG... or processing Raw as B&W in Resolve as BlackMagic Film, does one need to use a Utility LUT to bring the levels into a Rec709 space or does Rec709 only deal with color and not B&W as long as the image is corrected and the luma falls within the 0-100 IRE range? Does that make sense?

Honestly, I am in the process of testing B&W sLog2 on the RX10ii vs ML Raw on the 5D3. My interest is in creating a workflow, for a very specific project, from shooting through post that is quick, concise and has a point and shoot nature to the process. Other than the XC10, the RX10ii is the most P&S camera I have ever shot with and believe it is an amazing run and gun consumer cinema camera, where as the 5D3, is a P&S cinema camera like no other camera I have ever used. 

[maxotics]

44 minutes ago, mercer said:

@maxotics well I guess that’s my question... when shooting in B&W, in either LOG... or processing Raw as B&W in Resolve as BlackMagic Film, does one need to use a Utility LUT to bring the levels into a Rec709 space or does Rec709 only deal with color and not B&W as long as the image is corrected and the luma falls within the 0-100 IRE range? Does that make sense?

Honestly, I am in the process of testing B&W sLog2 on the RX10ii vs ML Raw on the 5D3. My interest is in creating a workflow, for a very specific project, from shooting through post that is quick, concise and has a point and shoot nature to the process. Other than the XC10, the RX10ii is the most P&S camera I have ever shot with and believe it is an amazing run and gun consumer cinema camera, where as the 5D3, is a P&S cinema camera like no other camera I have ever used. 

I was just commenting on a Curtis Judd video about this issue.  So many YouTubers mangle these concepts and I hate feeling the outcast.  Anyway, AFAIK the concept of 0-100 IRE dates back to when video was produced by tube cameras (which I shot stuff with back in 1985).  With those cameras, a video signal was an analog signal that was read by an oscilloscope, the waveform being one way of displaying the signal.  The 0 -100 ERI basically measured when you were under exposing or over-exposing the image.  It assumed an analog input, so I don't believe you could save, later, anything above or below those values.  Anyway, I believe it is a limited metaphor for today's digital equipment.  Even though they are displays available in Davinci Resolve, etc., they confuse people who doesn't understand the difference between a recording gamma (which doesn't exist in RAW) and a display gamma.  If I'm wrong, I hope others will chime in.

I think where you might be confused (and I was too) is believing that luma is encoded in your data.  It isn't, though it is implied.  When you record a value with your camera, whether a gray tone, like 128,128, 128 or a color 78,53,250, the brightness is ultimately set by your display.  So the difference in brightness between say 128,128,128 and 250,250,250 might be 2 stops or 3 stops, depending on your display gamma.  Your video data doesn't know the gamma it will end up in, though again, for most cameras there are expectations baked in.  Think about it, if luma was baked into your data than on some displays it would look really washed out, on others very bright.  Every display, from your phone to your PC monitor, transposes a range of brightness levels, calibrated to its expected output, onto the data.  If the data was to say, display 128,128,128 as a fixed level of brightness then how would each different piece of equipment do that, if some couldn't?

The whole "rec709" problem, IMHO, is a fake problem thought up by people who wanted to sell cameras, or their color profiles or LUTs.  I have never experienced a practical problem between shooting sRGB, AdobeRGB or others.  All the color spaces outstrip our ability to differentiate colors and they have a complex relation to luma.

Anyway, the fact is, assuming your expose your material favoring what you want exposed, then all software will work to create a relative output that assumes the display is using a rec709 type color space, or similar.      

[TwoScoops]

Not a fan of B&W video with a few exceptions. Always felt it takes you "out" of movies too much unless they are genuinely that ancient. Love it for stills tho.

[webrunner5]

2 hours ago, TwoScoops said:

Not a fan of B&W video with a few exceptions. Always felt it takes you "out" of movies too much unless they are genuinely that ancient. Love it for stills tho.

You need help, you really do LoL. I think you can convey a Lot more emotion, suspense in a B&W movie than you ever can in Color.