January Photo Challenge – Go Black and White #3
Saturday, January 16, 2010 
28 Comments
Nicole at NicoleB Photography has presented January Photo challenge – Go black and white. Thanks Nicole for doing the challenge. The rules are simple:
“My challenge to my fellow Photogeeks out there is to gather information about b&w photography and share what you found with the Rest of us. Including your new photos.”
Well I finally pulled out the manual for my camera for this one. And yes it can take Black and White photos. WOOT!!! It’s a Canon Powershot G10. So that’s what I’ve learned this time. And what I’ve also learned is going from Black and White to Color is 1: either it’s impossible or 2: I don’t know enough about RBG to do it correctly. I tried it with Canon ZoomBrowser EX, Picasa, Paint and GIMP with all the same results. I pick one of them and the whole picture turns that color. Oh well. Another thing I learned is that I need more practice with Macros. The center of the picture is always blurry to me. So the following two pictures are the Hibiscus in our yard. I hope you enjoy.
Hibiscus in Yard
Macro of Hibiscus
Hey, it’s only my opinion.
A Hui Hou
I think the black and white in the first one makes your shot look very old Hawaii.
And Thom, I won’t tell you how many macros I take and delete to get the center just right.
I’ll hope someday for an actual macro lens.
I think so too. It’s just like the B&W at the Arizona Memorial. I thought the same thing. Is there a trick to taking good macro shots other than getting a new lens? I thought that button on my camera did it…dang…LOL
There are some tips on my blog for macro photography, Thom.
Use the ‘search’ button on my main blog and you should find it.
Maybe it helps
I took thousands of macros before I got better at them – without a macro lens
I love that first shot though.
Gives it a real old time feel.
Will add the link tomorrow. Am falling asleep on my keyboard here.
Thank you my friend for the tip. They are certainly hard to do. Glad you enjoyed
Nice close up on the second picture!
Mahalo my friend
Glad you enjoyed 
Those look great! A budding photographer we have here.
Thank you. I’m not so sure how far I’ve budded yet LOL. But I give it the old college try LOL
Well, you’re way ahead of me! I haven’t done any black and white, but I have had some good luck with a few macro shots! Still working on that one, too, though! Hope you’ve had a good week so far, Thom! Enjoy!
Sylvia
Neither had I my friend until Nicole did this. So I just thought I would try a little experiment on it
Hope your weekend is going well also 
I love both shots, especially the curly edges of the petals.
Glad you enjoyed these. Mahalo my friend
In Picasa you just pic the third tab and when the menu comes up you choose black & white. What’s to mess up?
Oh well. And if your center is coming out blurry, try backing up an half an inch and see if it helps.
You need to go back and re-read the post. Is the cold weather up there affecting your eyesight? LOL Geeze.
When you take a macro how close should you be? I thought the purpose was to get as close as you can? Just an estimate of how close would help me
I can’t get as close as I like and still get a clear macro shot — like Quilly suggested, I have to back up a bit to get the shot I want… or else I have to go buy a better camera! (Sadly, that is not in the budget for a very long time.)
And Quilly is right: Picasa does it for me! (But usually I am using grayscale in MS Publisher for the newsletter.)
Thanks for the comment. Only I was trying to go from black and white to color…that I can’t figure out at all. The other way I can do. Not well but Picasa gets it done. I’m glad to get the info on Macros.
Very nice, very nice ! you are progressing ! I don’t like black and white pictures, although they are said to be artistic. I love colors ! I always use Picasa to “correct” my photos.
I tend to like black and white for some reason. Makes the pictures look older though. I’m using Picasa more and more nowdays
Well! THIS photo challenge has done it’s job now! It made YOU learn something about that camera of yours!
I should turn one of my pics black and white today and finally have something up for this challene! I had said I would play… but so far… I haven’t. Hm. You did nicely this week!
Thank you my darlin’ I’ll be anxious to see yours
Have a great Sunday 
nice effects although i would love to see the first one in colour.
every lens (including that in a compact camera)has a minimal focusing distance and won’t focus closer than that – your manual should know about it
i have a telephoto lens which at 300mm doesn’t focus closer than 1.5m whereas my macro lens focuses as close as 30cm (which, i think, is also the distance most compact cameras would focus at)
Oh I didn’t know that. Thank you for the info. If I knew how to add color I would do so. That’s what I wanted to do and then just forgot to go back out and snap a color photo LOL
LOL awwww I don’t think I like flowers in B&W
LOL…it was the only thing I could think of to take a picture of when I saw my camera could do it LOL
Love the macro on the second one.
Mahalo my friend
Love how details of the hibiscus just pop out in black and white.
That they sure do.