Shooting 5D in Black & White

[Chris Saul]

Hello I'm shooting a music video next weekend and the director wants a bold contrasty B&W video shot with the Canon 5D. Any recommendations on how to set up the camera? Should I set the camera to B&W or desaturate in post. And if you have any colors and lighting recommendations that would be great. My experience it seems you have to be bold with your lighting choices.

[David McDonald]

I personally never do color in-camera. You can always make it black and white in post...but if you set it a certain way in-camera, there's no turning back.

 

I would set everything pretty flat in-camera (contrast, saturation etc.) and just do what I want with it in post.

 

This guy has a pretty good video about setting up a 7D to shoot your video flat. I couldn't find anything on 5D but you could probably look at what he does and just do it on your 5D.

 

http://www.vimeo.com/7622493

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Just don't light "flat" ;)

 

Light it as if you're shooting b&w, higher contrast, hotter keys, etc.

 

This is just by word of mouth, but I hear there are benefits to shooting b&w in camera with the 5D/7D. Something about it being able to capture more detail than it would in color mode because the sensor & processor are working at their highest efficiency at that point. Again, very hearsay, but worth testing out.

[Edgar Dubrovskiy]

Agreed to the "flat".

Shot this in flat mode, but in colour (monitored on set in B/W) - gave the biggest amount of info for post - to control different colour channels and contrast.

*The website images are JPEG screen-grabs.