Monochrome photography

The majority of monochrome photographs produced today are black-and-white, either from a gelatin silver process, or as digital photography.

Although methods for photographing in color emerged slowly starting in the 1850s, monochrome imagery dominated photography until the mid–twentieth century.

[3]: 157  Some films are orthochromatic, recording visible light wavelengths shorter than 590 nanometers,[3]: 158  in the blue to green range of the spectrum and are less sensitive to the longer wavelength range (i.e. orange-red) of the visible spectrum.

[3]: 5  Monochrome images are not direct renditions of their subjects, but are abstractions from reality, representing colors in shades of grey.

Finding and capturing a scene having only variants of a certain hue, while difficult and uncommon in practice, will result in an image that technically qualifies as a monochrome photo.

Phase One IQ3 100MP Achromatic is a digital medium format camera with an ISO rating exceeding up to 51,200.

[12] The Pentax K3 Mark III was released as a monochromatic version in 2023 to high demand.

Modern monochrome cameras dispose of the color bayer matrix that sits in front of the sensor.