preparing for the first shot of the morning...

[mattyjacobs]

... of espresso that is.

I don't know much about B&W photography. I'm guessing you want a darker exposure for more interest/contrast, less monotone gray... do I achieve that with a faster shutter speed than I would with colour? Or a bit of flash? (depending on the ambient light of course)

back in school, we used to expose the paper for a bit longer to make it a bit darker. I loved the dark room. or maybe it was just the thought of being in a dark room with the girls in my photography class...

[Justin]

A red filter brings up the contrast

[mattyjacobs]

ok ... the canon eos 350d has filter effects, that I guess copy what a filter over the lens would do ... I'll see how this goes.

thanks!

[Yi-P]

Use a channel mixing technique on the B&W Conversion, bring the red, green, blue together to sum up 100% to your liking. Then adjust curves, B&W should come up much roasty for your taste

[Justin]

Grab a piece of red transparency - check out this gallery, all shot through a crappy piece of red lighting gel.

http://www.pbase.com/justin_aus/adventures_in_red

[mattyjacobs]

i'm a weird person who likes to do next to no pp, apart from resizing if possible. I had a go with the red filter effect (different shot, same peice of equipment ... I'm not drinking coffee at this time of night!), and it's still a little too gray for me. I really want the black handle of the portafilter to stand out as black, and have the chrome parts sort of look like liquid metal ...

here's the first attempt:


edit: ok, I'm dumb. I just realised that having the machine sitting on a stainless steel bench, under the kitchen light is reflecting light everywhere... it's late, time to sleep.

[Reschsmooth]

Maybe get rid of those cheap LM portafilters and get yourself a pressurised one for the Expobar Would look much better B&W

[Geoff]

Maybe get rid of those cheap LM portafilters and get yourself a pressurised one for the Expobar Would look much better B&W

 LOL get the coffee lingo will ya?!!

[Reschsmooth]

Maybe get rid of those cheap LM portafilters and get yourself a pressurised one for the Expobar Would look much better B&W

 LOL get the coffee lingo will ya?!!

Makes perfect sense to me

[mattyjacobs]

me too!

hey Pat, wanna swap the LM portafilter for an illy cup?

[Reschsmooth]

hey Pat, wanna swap the LM portafilter for an illy cup?

Not sure about that one - I am still trying to get some more and not commit my first born to shipping costs from Europe!

P

[mattyjacobs]

just to be clear, I was kidding ... I'm very happy with the LM!

You know what really annoys me? There's a crappy cafe at Macquarie Centre that uses Illy coffee ... they make probably the worst cup of whatever you order. But at the front of the shop, in a cake display thing, is a whole bunch of illy collectible cups. I so feel like smashing the thing open and liberating those poor abused cups!

[Reschsmooth]

just to be clear, I was kidding ... I'm very happy with the LM!

You know what really annoys me? There's a crappy cafe at Macquarie Centre that uses Illy coffee ... they make probably the worst cup of whatever you order. But at the front of the shop, in a cake display thing, is a whole bunch of illy collectible cups. I so feel like smashing the thing open and liberating those poor abused cups!

Tell you what, if you find a place with illy nudes, I'll take half if you do a smash and grab

[NJ]

hey matt, i see photoshopping images as the digital darkroom technique, a little bit of curves adjustment is the same (in my eyes) as leaving the paper under the light for longer. leaving it under for longer is going to give you more contrast even though that isn't how the photo was taken, so curves is the same in that respect. its definately the easiest way to get the results you want.
but thats my view.
by the way i have the same sirname as you

[mattyjacobs]

hey nathan, I hadn't thought of it that way!

I guess I don't want to get lazy, taking average shots and turning them into nice pictures in PS ...