Notes and Resources
Where to Go for More Information
Creative Black & White leans heavily on Adobe software, specifically Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. Learning to become fluent Photoshop is a major endeavor. I tell students in my workshops that the best approach to learning this software will depend on their learning style. For some folks, a course at a local community college might be best.
If you are the kind of person who learns from books, you might want to check out my books The Photoshop Darkroom (Focal Press) and The Photoshop Darkroom 2 (Focal Press).
Some other books of mine that might be helpful in relation to digital black and white are The Photographer’s Black & White Handbook (Monacelli Press) and Monochromatic HDR (Focal Press), which is specifically about combining bracketed image exposures to create black and white.
Another approach to learning Photoshop that works well for some folks is to use the subscription Photoshop tutorials at Lynda.com from LinkedIn (the first month is free). Also at Lynda.com, you may find useful my courses on Photoshop: Creative Lab Color and Photoshop: Backgrounds and Textures.
About Harold Davis
My website is digitalfieldguide.com. This website has FAQs, learning resources, photos (of course!), and a great deal of information about photography and travel (and about yours truly!).
Specifically, you might be interested in my blog, www.digitalfieldguide.com/blog, and my workshops page, www.digitalfieldguide.com/workshops-events.
If you are interested in following me on photographic social media, on Flickr I am www.flickr.com/photos/harold_davis, and on Instagram I am @haroldldavis, www.instagram.com/haroldldavis.
I appreciate hearing from readers who are interested in my books and my work. Write me at [email protected].
Software in Creative Black & White
Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), Bridge, Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop are products of Adobe Systems Incorporated, www.adobe.com, and available in a monthly subscription as a “photographer’s bundle” or as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud product.
Color Efex Pro, HDR Efex Pro, and Silver Efex Pro are available from DxO, www.dxo.com, as part of the Nik Collection by DxO.
Perfect B&W is a product of On1, Inc., www.on1.com, and runs either as part of the On1 Photo RAW suite, or as a plugin within Lightroom Classic or Photoshop.
Topaz Adjust, Topaz B&W Effects, Topaz Simplify, and Topaz A.I. Gigapixel are available from Topaz Labs at www.topazlabs.com. Topaz Adjust and Topaz B&W Effects run as plug-ins from within Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. A.I. Gigapixel is a standalone program. Topaz Simplify runs either as a plug-in within Lightroom Classic and Photoshop or as part of the Topaz Studio Suite (Topaz Studio also has many other cool filters you will enjoy).
EXIF Data, Sensor Size and Focal Length
I have included technical caption data with each photo in this book because I believe that one of the best ways to learn photography is to study images and figure out how they were made. For the most part, this information comes from the EXIF data automatically compiled by the camera and transferred to the computer when my RAW files are processed. In some cases the EXIF data was supplemented by my own observations and notes.
EXIF data is quite accurate for the aperture (f-stop) and ISO used on each exposure, with the caveat that the aperture recorded is the “effective” aperture. For example, the effective aperture using a macro lens focused close can be a smaller opening than the lens nominally will stop-down to.
Shutter speeds are recorded accurately for single exposures. They are a little more problematic in the case of HDR blends, where the EXIF data is either left blank, or records the data of the first exposure in the blend. With the monochromatic HDR photos shown in this book, I either noted the shutter speeds at the time I made the images, or went back to the RAW files and checked out the shutter speeds used by inspecting the individual files.
With the focal length of the lens used, the focal length recorded in the EXIF data is accurate, but what it means depends upon the sensor size of the camera. Not all sensors are the same size. The smaller the sensor, the closer a given focal length lens brings you to your subject. For example, if a sensor has half the area of another sensor, then a specific focal length lens will bring you twice as close on a camera with the smaller sensor.
Since different cameras have different sized sensors it is not always possible to have a uniform vocabulary of lens focal lengths. So people compare focal lengths to their 35mm film equivalent by adjusting for the sensor size.
To make the comparison with 35mm film focal lengths, you need to know the ratio of your sensor to a frame of 35mm film, which is called the focal-length equivalency. For reference, a 50mm lens on a full-frame camera is considered “normal.” This is roughly comparable to the central angle of view of a human eye, which is between 40–60 degrees.
Lenses that are shorter than 50mm on a full-frame camera are considered wide-angle, and lenses that are longer bring things closer and are telephotos.
To compute the comparable focal lengths on your own camera if your sensor has a different size than mine, you need to know the focal-length equivalency factor of your sensor. You can check your camera manual for this information.
I noted the camera I used as part of the technical capture data. The Nikon D850, D810, and D800 cameras, which were used for the bulk of the images in this book, are all full frame cameras. The Nikon D300, D200, and D70 cameras, which were used in some of the photos, all have a 1.5 focal-length equivalency.
In other words, a 28mm focal length on a Nikon D300 would be equivalent to a 42mm focal length on a full frame camera such as the Nikon D850. The Sony RX100 EXIF data quotes focal length as 35mm focal length equivalency, so this means that the conversion has already been done for you.
The iPhone 6s has a small sensor (it is about 1/3 of an inch) with an equivalency factor of 7.21. The focal length of the iPhone 6s lens, leaving aside any digital zoom used, is 4mm. So this means that the focal length equivalence in 35mm terms is about 30mm, or slightly wide-angle.