Does anyone shoot in B&W?

[maxotics]

2 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

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.

I agree.  My father, who got me my first camera, said that B&W is pure visual expression of an idea that is the same for all people; whereas color creates an emotional distortion that affects each person differently.  I don't remember his exact words.  I agree with @TwoScoops that the lack of color is too disruptive for most viewers; however, color has become a lazy-way to generate an emotional feel.  I thought "The Artist" or whatever that semi-recent B&W film didn't use B&W properly.  Anyway, I'm with webrunner5.  I'd be hard-pressed to think of a suspenseful film in color that matches Hitchcock and others in the 30s and 40s.  

Last night my daughter put on "Hot Fuzz" again.  It's in color of course, but Edgar Wright never uses color, in my opinion, to tell the story. No LOG bullshit for him   All his visual conceits and story bits would work in B&W.  The only film I can think of recently where I really thought color added something that couldn't be done another way was "Her".  And while I'm rambling.  Watched the 1st episode from Season 3 of "Black Mirror".  By God, the distance between those stories and what one sees in the movie theater these days!  And finally, what those cinema cameras and projectors can do these days!  Wow!

[TwoScoops]

3 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

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.

Nah.

[Mattias Burling]

If a movie "needs" color to be good it probably means the story sucks.

[mercer]

So I did a quick test of B&W with the 5D3 and my Edelkrone slider... I've never used a slider before... so I need a little practice...

I love B&W with the 5D3 but Vimeo really mangled the compression... or FCPX did when I uploaded directly from there. I have seen a lot of people use Parallel Uploader (or whatever it's called) has anyone ever used that and does it make any difference with quality?

[mercer]

On 12/31/2017 at 6:59 PM, maxotics said:

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.      

Thanks Max, I appreciate the reply... honestly some of it went over my head but what I did understand makes sense.

But I was out this weekend shooting a scene for my film and after using the 5D3 again, I will probably end up selling the RX10ii... even with the B&W Log, smaller file sizes and 120p... it just doesn’t measure up to FF Raw.

[maxotics]

2 hours ago, mercer said:

it just doesn’t measure up to FF Raw

What does?

[kaylee]

@mercer oh btw i meant to mention, as you know i had an rx10ii (briefly lol), but i like your idea with it, and tbh that was my thought too: shoot something in black and white with it. id shoot in slog, and if you want easiness in post a contrast lut and a little fine tuning should be fine. i graded some of that footage to b&w and got good results ??

edit: whoops i just read your last post ? 

[mercer]

24 minutes ago, kaylee said:

@mercer oh btw i meant to mention, as you know i had an rx10ii (briefly lol), but i like your idea with it, and tbh that was my thought too: shoot something in black and white with it. id shoot in slog, and if you want easiness in post a contrast lut and a little fine tuning should be fine. i graded some of that footage to b&w and got good results ??

edit: whoops i just read your last post ? 

I haven’t a hundred percent decided to sell it yet, so every tip helps. And yeah I remember your awesome dog out the window shot taken with the RX10ii. 

[kaylee]

oh u mean this guy? lol

[webrunner5]

20 hours ago, kaylee said:

oh u mean this guy? lol

Oh Boy I had one of them. A house dog at that! There were goobers on the ceiling, and pretty much everywhere else when he shook his head. Yikes!!

Brings back some good memories though, he was a sweet dog. He was a Chic magnet in the College town for my son I lived in when he walked him lol. Women loved to hug him! The Dog that is.

A friend of mine had one and it's name was Billy BoB. Fits them to a tee LoL.

Nice looking B&W you have there.

[Thomas Hill]

Here's a good one from 2016. I haven't done any reading on the making of it to find out exactly why they chose b&w but I think it suits the story very well: 

 

[webrunner5]

13 hours ago, Thomas Hill said:

Here's a good one from 2016. I haven't done any reading on the making of it to find out exactly why they chose b&w but I think it suits the story very well: 

 

I find the coloring, I guess exposure a bit ehh. Little to underexposed, too grainy looking. Like really bad Fake film. But the story looks great! But I am glad to see someone still likes B&W though.

[Spgreen65]

I have been wanting to work on an in camera black and white setup ever since seeing The Eyes of my Mother.  I just loved the movie and the Look. One of my favorite movies of the last couple of years. 

I am also a fan of A girl walks home alone at night.

From Eyes of my Mother:

Here are some screen caps from A Girl Walk Home Alone at Night. (Shot on anamorphic)

I picked up some colored filters commonly used with black and white film and I also have some Tiffen diffusion: Black Pro Mist, Black Satin and Satin.  I hadn't thought about using then together.  I know the GH5 has "filters" you can turn on can look at those as well.

[christrad]

My favorite BW movie is "Tetro" by Francis Ford Coppola. Anyone who want to try shooting digital BW should see this imho.

[webrunner5]

3 hours ago, Spgreen65 said:

I have been wanting to work on an in camera black and white setup ever since seeing The Eyes of my Mother.  I just loved the movie and the Look. One of my favorite movies of the last couple of years. 

I am also a fan of A girl walks home alone at night.

From Eyes of my Mother:

Here are some screen caps from A Girl Walk Home Alone at Night. (Shot on anamorphic)

I picked up some colored filters commonly used with black and white film and I also have some Tiffen diffusion: Black Pro Mist, Black Satin and Satin.  I hadn't thought about using then together.  I know the GH5 has "filters" you can turn on can look at those as well.

A red filter on B&W is a Pretty damn dramatic difference.

[mercer]

3 hours ago, Spgreen65 said:

I have been wanting to work on an in camera black and white setup ever since seeing The Eyes of my Mother.  I just loved the movie and the Look. One of my favorite movies of the last couple of years. 

I am also a fan of A girl walks home alone at night.

From Eyes of my Mother:

Here are some screen caps from A Girl Walk Home Alone at Night. (Shot on anamorphic)

I picked up some colored filters commonly used with black and white film and I also have some Tiffen diffusion: Black Pro Mist, Black Satin and Satin.  I hadn't thought about using then together.  I know the GH5 has "filters" you can turn on can look at those as well.

Yeah, those look great. I was going to experiment with some filters on the RX10ii, but I think I just like my 5D3 too much to even bother with the RX10ii. So maybe I’ll give them a go with the 5D3. Thanks for comment, I forgot about these films. 

[webrunner5]

I have seen that film in a theater, Tetro" by Francis Ford Coppola. It was really good, but I was not so fond of his different uses of I would assume softer, sharper lens, filters I don't know.

In people shots they were soft, on everything else it was really sharp. There was sudden changes of shots, and it just was, well crazy at times. I found it distracting as hell. Seemed like a rookie mistake. Not sure what he was thinking.

I know you are suppose to use softer lenses on women in particular, but to have sudden transitions, well not so good.

[PannySVHS]

Oh, Glenn, unless you already know this film, I got a monster of a BW film for you to check out. It´s a true beast of cinematic art, a BW monster. Let´s start this as a guess what thing. HInt: futuristic middle ages, overlong, a helluva ride.

One thing important as well: I think you are the perfect indie and maybe more cinematographer. You should find a director and writer with appreciation for Arri Like Canon RAW and the master of its art and color- Original CanonRAW Gee Mercer!:)

7 minutes ago, mercer said:

Yeah, those look great. I was going to experiment with some filters on the RX10ii, but I think I just like my 5D3 too much to even bother with the RX10ii. So maybe I’ll give them a go with the 5D3. Thanks for comment, I forgot about these films. 

 

[mercer]

On 1/3/2018 at 11:50 PM, Thomas Hill said:

Here's a good one from 2016. I haven't done any reading on the making of it to find out exactly why they chose b&w but I think it suits the story very well: 

 

Thanks for posting this, I’m a fan of the Duplas Brothers and I didn’t know this movie existed.

[Goose]

Some great examples on this thread; learning a lot.  I love B&W and have been playing with the L Monochrome mode on my GX80: