Black and White Photography Field Guide

DIGITAL MONOCHROME

While digital photography is for the most part practiced in color, camera sensors are strictly monochrome. But of course, so is film. Both react to the quantity of light and not to sections of the visible spectrum. Also, both need a process of color separation in order to record and reproduce the colors of the world.

In the case of sensors, the near-universal method is a grid of colored filters—red, green, and blue—attached to the front of the sensor. The alternative is the Foveon sensor, in which three layers—blue at the top, then green, then red—are stacked, on the same principle used by tri-pack color film.

Black-and-white ...