Digital BW, The Print

Ken writes:

> Digital.

I think that converting from color, whether it be from digital color or film
color, is always inferior to shooting directly in black and white (whether
it be digital black and white or film black and white).  The color image is
always missing a great deal of luminance information, and trying to recreate
the luminance from that is problematic.

> The boy next door, looking over my shoulder
> said: "Why do all the people have green faces?"
> Yes, I am colour blind ...

Color blind or not, that can happen (just a bad monitor calibration will do
it).  I try to find something that is neutral in color in an image, then I
use that to set the gray balance for the whole image.  It usually works
extremely well; the only difficulty is finding a neutral reference, as not
all scenes contain one.

> I live in the country and cannot drive so I
> will search the web for more details on the
> Nikon SLR F65. I will have to use it with a fixed
> lens to get the brightest viewfinder - a 1.4 50
> mm - and shoot in Tri-X. For years my cameras
> were all fixed lenses, so I will be used to
> it.

It sounds like a good combination.  Henri Cartier-Bresson worked magic with
a similar set-up.  A good lens, a comfortable camera body, and some trusty
Tri-X are all you need.