If anybody remembers the Leica M9 it was greeted with such enthusiasm in part for the way the CCD sensor rolled the mid-tones into whites in much the same way as film, and this carried over into B&W conversion. But being digital the rule was still expose for the highlights. Unfortunately the CCD sensor was soon dropped and the next generation, the M240 and the monochrome M246, were never as good 'out of the box' at converting to B&W because of the way the sensor handled the whites. Indeed it goes further than the sensor itself for any camera, photographers have been brain washed into fearing white, the whole 'don't blow the highlights' mantra has shifted acceptable highlights to Zone 9.
Of course a Zone 10 isn't needed in every picture, but I'm sure the fear of white is why so many B&W conversions fail. And it goes further still, the Leica M10M, best B&W camera in the world blah, blah, blah, has a range greater than the human eye, so if you photograph something that you know is white, it still doesn't come out white in the photo, the camera can see another tone. Hence the images frequently come out looking dull and flat, but people are still scared to countermand the camera and introduce the white or near white that they saw in real life. So nail your white/highlight tone and work back from there.
And obviously it works in a similar way for blacks. Black in film photography was never feared, there was acres of it because of films poor sensitivity to shadows, but digital rules say not to ever lose shadow detail, so be prepared if necessary to throw that mantra out the window if you want to emulate film.
This is why Silver Efex and it's Zone tool is so useful, it not only tells you where your whites and blacks are, but how much you have. You have to adjust your approach between emulating a 35mm film or a large format film, but I think to emulate film you basically need to throw out some of the digital repertoire and go rogue.
Of course a Zone 10 isn't needed in every picture, but I'm sure the fear of white is why so many B&W conversions fail. And it goes further still, the Leica M10M, best B&W camera in the world blah, blah, blah, has a range greater than the human eye, so if you photograph something that you know is white, it still doesn't come out white in the photo, the camera can see another tone. Hence the images frequently come out looking dull and flat, but people are still scared to countermand the camera and introduce the white or near white that they saw in real life. So nail your white/highlight tone and work back from there.
And obviously it works in a similar way for blacks. Black in film photography was never feared, there was acres of it because of films poor sensitivity to shadows, but digital rules say not to ever lose shadow detail, so be prepared if necessary to throw that mantra out the window if you want to emulate film.
This is why Silver Efex and it's Zone tool is so useful, it not only tells you where your whites and blacks are, but how much you have. You have to adjust your approach between emulating a 35mm film or a large format film, but I think to emulate film you basically need to throw out some of the digital repertoire and go rogue.