There are many camera tricks for black and white photography but most are gimmicks or are not practical for beginners or even advances photographers, for that matter!
This technique is simplest way to get into seeing in black and white. It will really help you to easily incorporate tonality, shadows and light, composition and story-telling into your black and white photos.
Pretty much every DSLR, digital camera, point and shoot digital camera and new mirrorless cameras have this camera tricks for black and white photography.
So go grab your camera and let’s get started shall we!
Your digital camera menu…
- Open your digital camera menu.
On the Nikon Z6 and Z7: Open the Menu, go to the Shooting Menu (the green camera icon) and tab down till you see Set Picture Control. In this sub-menu, look for MC Monochrome and set this as your picture control setting.
On Nikon D cameras (D850, D300 etc.): Open the Menu, go to the Shooting Menu (the green camera icon) and tab down till you see Set Picture Control. In this sub-menu, look for MC Monochrome and set this as your picture control setting.
On my Sony a (alpha) and mirrorless cameras: Open the Menu, select the Camera Icon. On the a6000 series tab over to page 4 and look for Creative Style. Set this to Blank and White.
Now you will see black and white pictures on your LCD screen on the back of your camera AND in the electronic viewfinder! What you see is what you get!
2. Important! If you want to keep a colour version of your images using this method, be sure to save them as RAW (NEF, ARW etc. whatever the RAW files are called for your camera.)
Many digital cameras now have options for saving 2 file types such as RAW and JPG. Make sure you use this way to save your images then you’ll have a black and white JPG image of what your LCD/Viewfinder showed you, as well as a RAW photo file that you can edit as Black and white AND/OR normal colour.