Can you take monochrome (black & white) pictures with T4i

[sipbeo50]

Can the T4i take Monochrome pictures

[cicopo]

I don't think any of the Canon DSLR's can do that but I may be wrong. None I've owned did it or if they did I missed it in the manual & I'm one of those who devote a lot of time learning from the manual. Since I have no interest in monochrome my knowledge on converting colour images is limited to what I've read (limited) & it's done in post but to do it REALLY well you'll need specific software devoted to that style of photography.  

[7D5D]

You can take monochrome images by selecting the monochrome Pictures Style option. I believe Rebels have a Picture Style button like xD and xxD models.

[cicopo]

Live & learn. Never looked into picture styles but I can confirm that my 1D4 has Monochrome as an option so it may be available on any body supporting Picture Styles.

[7D5D]

Ya that's one of those settings that probably very few people ever use (including myself). I guess if you had to do some quick and dirty B&W jpgs, it could be handy.

[cicopo]

If memory serves me right you can apply any of the Picture Styles later in DPP if you shoot RAW. To me that's a better way to do it since you'll have a master file & then whatever you want to create from it. Years ago Canon created some additional Picture Styles which you downloaded into DPP & I tried them all but didn't find any particular use for them in what I shoot. That doesn't mean they aren't useful & I'm sure many can use them in very creative ways.

[ScottyP]

A case of something that is possible yet not ideal practice.  You would be shooting in JPG (and thus throwing out a lot of data) to do it with "picture styles", right? 

If you shoot in RAW you capture all the data, and then you just desaturate all (or most) of the color channels to make it mono.  You keep a lot more control over things like luminence of individual objects, and exposure, highlights, shadow, contrast, white and black points, etc.

[Skirball]

You also lose a lot of control over your monochrome. There's a lot more to monochrome then just moving a saturation slider all the way to the left - which is pretty close to what doing it in-camera would do.  There's a lot of different ways to do it from third party plug-ins, or Lightroom presets, or you can do it manually in Photoshop.  I'm a big fan of the two layer "hue" method (link below) in Photoshop.  By adjusting the base hue you change the photo in much the same way as using a color filter for black and white.  The difference is that you can slide through and choose any color you want  - as opposed to being stuck with what you shot.  It can significantly change the look of your photo.

http://www.blackandwhitedigital.com/Convert/coloraltering/hue.html

In my opinion there's no benefit to shooting B&W in camera and significant loss to do so.  The only reason I see is if you want to use SOOC.