Black and White Vs Color

I promise this won't turn into just a cat blog. I swear. 

Sick family means I'm stuck at home. Being a apartment with not too many great photo opportunities I take what I can get.

I thought about doing a long exposure of water, but after the Christmas tree learning experience I knew if I had the shutter open for a while it would get too over exposed. So I turned to google, and the best way to get a longer exposure is with filters, which I don't have. I looked at amazon and some come at $13 for a pack, I just don't have the budget for them yet. Sad, right?

So I looked around the room for inspiration and cat. 

I looked at pinterest for a few ideas, I saw one with a close up on just the nose, but he wasn't cooperating with it. So I went with what I had.

Settings:

ISO: 400

SS: 1/125

F/ 5.6

External flash...I can't remember if I bounced it off the ceiling or right at him....I had several shots I did.

And I did change it slightly up with some editing. Not too much though.

And also converted to black and white with a preset.

I prefer the black and white myself.