There’s something about black and white photography that makes pretty much any still image more interesting. These 18 black and white shots from Giz readers are all fascinating!
It seems there’s also something about black and white that made people want to enter this week’s shooting challenge. The results were extremely impressive! Thanks everyone who took part, hope to see you all enter again next challenge!
Art Ushenin
taken with: Lumix DMC-TS1 converted to BW in Photoshop added contrast
taken: from the water, snorkeling at the Second Valley
Bernard Gray
Equipment:
Nikon D40
35mm f/1.8G
Marumi Circular PolariserTechnique:
Point, shoot
PP – tweak raw settings with RawStudio, desaturate, straighten horizon and crop.Settings:
Aperture Priority @ ~f/5.6
ISO 200Story:
I bicycle through vineyards/farms to work (I work at a winery). Saw this backless chair on the side of the road one afternoon, so I stopped and snapped a few shots off. This one stood out as a nice b&w shot
Chris Terry
Camera 50D ISO3200 shutter speed 1/30 (handheld) Lens Canon EF 24-70mmf2.8L shot at f2.8 No flash.
My family at a food and wine festival called festivale, kid was getting a bit tired!
Darren Pearson
Equipment:
Canon 7D + Canon EF 100-400L IS + 1.4x TeleconverterSettings:
Aperture: F8 Shutter:1/160Technique:
Tripod mounted, Mirror LockupStory:
I am setting up to take a very special moon photo next week, so i have been shooting a few test shots, this is one from last night from my balcony. If you make your contest next week “The Moon” or “Night”, i should be able to send you an excellent shot if everything goes well. I have been using a program called “The Photographers Ephemeris” to work out where the moon will rise each night to get some great lunar photos.Location:
Byron Bay, Australia
David Bird
Camera: Canon EOS 1000D
Lense: Canon EF-S 18mm-55mm IS with Hoya UV filter and
ISO: 200
F-Stop: f/5
Exposure time: 20 secondsI picked up this camera a couple of weeks ago and it is the first DSLR I have owned. since I got it I have been out once or twice a week taking night shots round Canberra with mixed success, but since I find it fun and relaxing I dont realy mind if I get home with a card full of blury photos. This shot is of the Shine Dome near the ANU at about 9:00pm tuesday night (8th).
Elly Hart
Canon PowerShot SX210 IS
1/15s f/3.1 ISO320 5mmI found this heart-shaped leaf while sitting drunk with friends in a Surry Hills park. I immediately thought of this week’s Shooting Challenge and thought it was perfect considering Monday is Valentine’s Day 🙂 I thought about taking it with me and keeping it forever, but we ended up leaving it on a bench for someone else to find and enjoy.
James Gray
Taken early morning looking east down Market St, Sydney. I love the reflections afforded by the sun on the windows and the contrast of old Sydney, Queen Victoria Building, Gowings, Myer, with the new Sydney of Centrepoint tower (just visible) and the Monorail snaking it’s way into the sunrise.
Taken with a Nikon D3000, 18-55mm at 18mm, f7.1 at 1/1000. I took a number of photos of this scene increasing the exposure each time to capture more detail but in the selected chose the darkest image and applied Lightroom’s B&W Antique Light preset.
Kevin Smith
I am currently doing project 365 and this was a photo I took the other night of St Peter’s Cathedral in Adelaide. Needed a different angle, as nearly every other shot of the Cathedral is taken from the front, so I decide that as side on show of one of the other entrances was much better and the black and white really suited the night shot
Taken with Sony A700
Lens Sigma 30mm F1.4
Settings
ISO 100
F4
20 sec
Marcus Cher
This photo was taken with a Canon 7D on top of the US aircraft carrier Growler last week while we were on a family holiday in New York. It is a HDR combination of three bracketed images (-3,0,+3) shot at: 1/13th, 100th and a 6th.
It was shot with at low ISO 100 and high aperture f22 so it would capture the subtle nuisances with out any noise.What I like about it is it breaks all the conventional rules of photography. With out access to a tripod I held the camera steady and fired three shots into direct sun light. What came out was an image, which is rich with subtle detail. You can see soft shadows in the asphalt, the reflections in the cockpit and the rivets glistening in the sunset.
Michael Wu
Camera: Yashica Electro 35
Film: Kodak TriX 400
Aperture: F8The photo was taken under the Flemington drain in Melbourne at about 5pm. The photo is intentionally upside down to mess with your orientation for a wee bit. It’s almost like if you were some sort of mutant leper living under the drain this might be your view out the front bedroom window!
Raymond Cher
This photo was taken with a Canon 7D on Brooklyn Bridge in a family holiday in New York with my sons camera. This is the first time I had seen the bridge in real life, however I had seen half a dozen variations of this photograph in postcards. What makes this image special is that it is a combination of 6 photos joined together seamlessly in a panorama. They were all shot at f22 ISO 400 for 1/125th.
This gives you the full image of the suspension cables that look almost sinister as a spiders web. Also in postproduction I managed to enhance some of the details of the old Brooklyn commission housing and warehouses seen in the bottom of the photo. It also works very well when blown up to 33 x 46 inches which is how we printed it in the end.
Sam Tran
Listening to Mike Posner during the Sydney Good Vibration Festival in the HEAVY rain. The Black & White filter was as added in post production.
Date Taken: 12/02/2011
Camera Model: Canon DIGITAL IXUS 90 IS
F/stop: f/2.8
Exposure time: 1/60 sec
ISO-Speed: ISO-125
Sarah Williams
Taken with Apple Iphone 3GS
Focal Length 3.9mm
ISO: 64B&W Filter through Picasa
Big Ted, my Childhood teddy was my only willing subject, and I wanted to play with the lines and shadows from that particular spot to see how they would look in black and white, and only black and white can make my bright orange vinyl chairs look respectable.
Shane Harvey
I’ve attached a picture of one of my dragons dragged out of her tank for a late night photo shoot on the table. She was pretty wary of me pointing my new camera (Canon 5D mark II) at her. It’s taken in pretty low light at f5.0, a 1/4 second shutter speed and an ISO speed of 3200. The lens is a EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM at a focal length of 55mm.
I thought she would be a good subject for a B&W shot given the detail and colour in her scales. To put everything in scale she is around 25cm long. Also, she’s around five years old and mostly grumpy.
Sharath Mahesh
Took this on 12th Feb on a rainy day at Sydney. The aim was to capture to the Sydney Tower as clouds engulfed it to create a beautiful glow. While I was getting this, the action in the street was interesting (cars passing and people waiting at the traffic lights). After a few shots a person stood at the lights. Perfect to get include him in the frame. But being a long exposure, the person appears blurry but enough to create an impression of whats happening. The trees were included to add nature to the image (and well it was in the way of the photo). The photos has had some adjustment to contrast and has been cropped.
Details:
Camera Model Name : Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Exposure Program : Manual
ISO : 200
Date/Time Original : 2011:02:12 20:19:21
Shutter Speed Value : 30 Seconds
Aperture Value : 19.0
Focal Length : 29.0 mm
Lens : EF17-40mm f/4L USM
Other details : Shutter release and mirror lockup
Troy MacDonald
This photo was taken with a Samsung WB550 Point & Shoot camera, standard lens. 80 ISO, f7.5 and .5s exposure, flash on.
As soon as I read the challenge was black and white, I thought of my pinball machine. I had realised it was great for taking detailed shots when I did a bit of restoration on it a few years back. It took a long time to get this shot, I wanted the ball to be visible, but when the shutter speed was too high you simply couldn’t see it so I had to pull it way back, but I love how it seems transparent in the picture. The flash captured the ball, but the longer exposure captured everything else. I love how it came out, and the B&W effect just adds to the antiquity of the machine itself.
William Paiva
I take this photo during a photo session in a place called “Sunset Square” [Praça do pôr-do-sol]here in São Paulo [Brazil] ; It’s a place where some people like to go in a couple and others go just to take photos…
The time that I toke this picture: I just mounted my Canon T1i in the tripod I just have bought and starts waiting to sun goes down; While I’m not staring at the sun, I start to noticed the people around me and find some points of interest: two guys were talking about they date same girl and they actually seems to be in a duel; the guy behind the tree are in a heavy discussion with someone [and I think he’s losing it]and the “thinking” guy in the right seems collecting courage to break up with his girl [who actually he did minutes later] . And I’m happy to framed all ths conflicts in a photo who show us one more conflict: the concrete and the green who’s present in all greats cities of world.
The picture was made with a Canon Rebel T1i with a 55-250mm lens in 109mm with 1/250 shutter speed, f/8.0 and ISO 200 in “aperture priority mode”
David Sundstrom
A couple of other patrons at Wine Odyssey (The Rocks, Sydney). We had wandered in while trying to avoid the rain and ended up staying for a glass or two.
Nikon D300, hand held, 1/125 sec at f3.2, ISO 800, Nikon 35mm 1.8 DX.
Processed in Lightroom 3.