A weekend of experimenting with black & white
For a recent weekend shoot, I decided to explore black and white photography using the Canon 80D’s inbuilt monochrome picture style, set with a red filter. It had been years since I’d relied on a camera’s own picture styles, and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to stick only to that mode.
The only variation was using a polariser filter for outdoor shots, which I removed when indoors. My main goal over the three days was to search for interesting light and texture. (You can see a video with more details on the shots and settings below.)
When I first started planning the shoot, deciding on a specific direction was tricky due to the many options available in black and white. My favourite style has always been film; Kodak Tri-X 400 is my fav, but that wasn’t an option this time. I usually turn to the Mastin Labs Ilford presets in Lightroom, but I wanted to try something different. That’s when revisiting the Canon 80D’s monochrome picture style came to mind – it felt like a fun experiment.
In the end, I was really stoked with the results.
Beyond the images themselves, the process helped me notice photo opportunities I’d overlooked for a long time. This shoot really reignited my love for black and white photography and made me keen to find more moments like it. It felt like my photographic eye was opening up again…
Over the weekend, I took 495 photos. Choosing the 20 I wanted to share from that selection was a bit much, but I did enjoy seeing the final picks.
All shots were taken using the Canon 80D picture style settings. The video explains why I chose those images.
