Test shot converted from a Fuji X-trans file
Digital took black-and-white away.
To me it's the biggest change about the Digital Transition (which I define as 1994–2011). "Black and white are the colors of photography," said Robert Frank. That "are" would now have to be changed to "were."
I've made the point many times that for some of us—those of us who approach working with a camera by learning to see the way the camera and lens sees—being able to convert a color file to B&W is not the same thing as having a camera that only shoots B&W. If the camera natively shoots color, I see in color. Can't help it. People who look at it like it's only a technical question can't see the point in a B&W-only camera; they'd just convert the file. They don't get it: we see with our brains, and if the way you conceive of making pictures is to adapt your brain to the way the camera and lens are recording the image, then you'll only "see" in B&W if that's what your camera is seeing. So for a long time I agitated for dedicated B&W camera, saying I'd buy one when someone made it.
Then someone did...Leica. Leica was a slightly more expensive brand of camera in the marketplace when I got into photography, costing a modest 10 to 30% more than similar Nikon equipment. Now, Leicas are Veblen goods marketed mainly to the carriage trade and cost many multiples of what similar equipment costs.
The 23mm ƒ/2 lens for the Leica T, for example, is made (or was originally made; maybe Leica has brought it in-house now) by a no-name Pacific Rim OEM supplier, but Leica charges $1,950 for it. If the very same lens—no magic added or subtracted by mystical means—were marketed by Sigma or Tamron, it would cost 1/10th that much.
If a digital B&W-only camera were marketed by Canon or Fuji, it would cost $795. Leica charges $7,950 for the M Monochrom, thus making a liar out of me. I wouldn't buy one, turns out.
I've also been searching for years for a way to make digital B&W look good. It usually doesn't. There are two main reasons for that, first that the technology wasn't good enough, and second, that most people don't have good judgment about tone.
But it's been getting better and better. The first good B&W print I made was shot with the Nikon D700; the first digital B&W print of my work that looked better than a film-on-fiber-base print was the print Ctein made of my photograph "Hands." (Yes, it didn't look quite like film. No, the shadow separation wasn't as good.)
Anyway, I just wanted to report that I am officially resigning from the fray, hanging up my gadfly badge, not gonna complain any more. I've decided that Fuji X-trans files convert well enough, and that I'm going to go ahead and accept the new order: that digital cameras record color, and color photography is the new normal. The shift has happened: black and white are no longer the colors of photography.
Of course, I'm going to continue to make B&W pictures myself, for the simple reason that I like B&W better. It's more expressive to me and I respond (viscerally, elementally, at an emotional level) to tones more than I do to colors. (Always have. Seems to be the way I'm wired. Although of course I can appreciate color photography, my own and others'.)
And Fuji conversions aren't perfect. They don't quite look like film-on-fiber-base. They're...different. A little better in some ways, a little worse in others. But I have officially decided that they're good enough for me.
Mike
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