Olympus E-PL3 Black and White Art mode

Photos shot with Olympus E-PL3 - Lumix G 14mm f/2.5 - B&W Grainy Film Art mode. 

Pearly's usual haunt.

Elfy's yawn

I feel black and white works quite well for cats. Their coats have a multitude of shades in B&W, which results in a very contrasty texture. Bad thing is that without colour, no one outside of the family will be able to tell the two tabbies apart.

Jurong Point's Mong Kok Street

The Art modes on the Olympus E-PL3 limit you to Auto-mode functionality, however you do not have to switch to Art mode on the mode dial in order to use these effects.

I personally hate turning the mode dial to art mode because:

1. You have to wait for a secondary menu to pop up and prompt you to choose the effect you desire.
2. I mostly stick to program or shutter mode.
3. My mode dial feels loose and I would rather not spin it unnecessarily.

Why even add video mode dial?

I also have a beef with the video mode dial, it takes too long to flick to that if you decide to take a video on the fly. I rather keep the big red record button dedicated to video mode rather than use it for something else like toggling backlight, and having to flick to the video mode dial. Of course, if I didn't have to take videos of the cats so often, I might be tempted to use the record button for something else and forego taking videos all together.

Program mode + effects

Anyway, simply stay in the mode you prefer and select the effect desired under colour profiles. I have found that face detection does not work consistently for cat faces, bummer; keeping it off for good.

Warm Dark Corner

Marble flooring also looks interesting in black and white. It seems easier to get a photo that looks "uncluttered" as opposed to colour photos, and the photos better capture that lazy feeling from the cats as well.

Catwalk

Pearly about to steal my food

Chilling

Photogenic Elfy

Elfy seems to enjoy having his photos taken, he doesn't move to approach me immediately unlike Olive. In fact, during slower shutter speeds, he stays perfectly still most of the time. Was very surprised that I could get good images from 1"-2" shutter speeds with him. Of course, he is rewarded with a back scratch afterwards.