When shooting black and white photography using natural light, you should let the situation dictate the look and feel of the photo. So don't set out and try to shoot a high contrast shot unless you find a good opportunity with the right lighting. Try shooting on an overcast day.

Start with a low ISO As we know, however, using a high ISO when shooting digitally will result in noise, especially in the shadows. Because shadows are essential in black and white photography, you want to keep them as deep and clear as possible, so start with ISO 100 and go up only if you must.

A correctly exposed photo, not too dark and not too bright, requires the right combination of your three exposure settings (ISO, aperture and shutter speed). That sounds simple enough, until you realize that dozens of combinations will produce an equivalent exposure level.

What is contrast? Contrast is the range of brightness, from lightest to darkest, in an image. A high-contrast image will have very bright highlights and very dark shadows. Sometimes an image's highlights may be almost pure white, or the shadows may be almost pure black: high contrast.