Project: Black and white

Exercise: Black and white
Earlier this week I was out walking and photographing on one of my favourite routes, looking at ideas for potential black and white images. My route took me past MOD training grounds and I was not disappointed when I came across an abandoned armoured personnel carrier used for rough terrain vehicle recovery exercises.
I photographed it from every angle, inside and out. Here is the colour image of the interior:



I was interested in the graphic quality of the shapes and the contrast of the tones within the image. I anticipated that the black and white version would look more interesting without the distractions of colour.


Here is the Silver FX2 Pro screen where the image was converted. I tried several of the pre-set categories and thought that this Full dynamic (harsh) worked the best for the subject. Basically the contrast has been increased to 34% and the highlight and shadow protection sliders have been moved along their scales by approx. one third. There are no colour filters applied. Prior to processing I had reset the levels in Capture NX2 to make an acceptable colour image.
Here is the saved image with the original exposure details:
4440: 1/100s f5 18mm ISO 800



I think this image is perfectly suited to black and white and works well with all of the subtle tones exposed.