Black and white photos have never been a forte of mine but occasionally I manage to get something half decent I think. A 35mm camera my father was given in 1958 as a 21st birthday present looked like a nice subject.
Agfa Stilette in Black and White
OBJECTIVE:
My objective here was to capture this old Agfa Stiletto camera using only the available ambient light and try to create something that looked old and from photography’s pre-digital past. Seeing as the camera is indeed very old, complete with pitting from the wear of time, and in it’s original leather case, I shouldn’t have had to work very hard.
COMPOSITION:
The composition was partly decided after decided where I was going to take the photo and what light I was using. The location was simply the kitchen table and the light sources were the nearby windows which I controlled using the vertical blinds on them.
I examined the camera and chose to take this from a low angle and from one side as I thought it would be cool to see the aperture numbers and various text on the lens visible and fading into shadow.
SETUP & SETTINGS:
1/10th – f16 – ISO 160. 56mm focal length. No filters on the lens. Tripod. No flash. Ambient light from nearby windows.
POST PROCESSING:
Sharpening, converted to B&W, curves/levels to increase contrast.
END RESULT:
In the end I got a shot that is heavily weighted to the dark side but with strong highlights. The result is you can immediately see what this is but the weaker, mid range detail is there and draws you into looking closer to find more elements than were immediately obvious.
I like the BW treatment here. It’s amazing how easy it is to just use different light sources available. I took some gerbera daisy shots as a direct result of some advice you gave me a while back about using side window lighting as the main source. This time I used the blinds as well to change the lighting.
Thanks for that Steve…they turned out great…just like this one!
Awesome to hear my advice is taken seriously and works for others