Does the Nikon D5100 have a mode or the ability to create a mode to support an effect similar to black and white film photography?

Question

The camera has a mode called "Night Vision", which appears to product gray-scale images, however I'm not experienced enough with black and white film photography to know if this behaves in a similar manner - I've only shot about a dozen images on black and white film, and I wasn't too great, but I have seen some really nice black and white images and would like to experiment with that style.

Is this "Night Vision" mode what I'm looking for? Or is there a way I can configure my camera to emulate black and white film photography?

Answer

You want to look a the Picture Control menu and set it to Monochrome.

Night Vision is an extended-ISO trick that results in monochrome images, but it's meant for shooting in extremely low light; throwing away the colour information allows the camera to produce less-noisy images at very high ISO settings. Using Night Vision in better-lit circumstances is making your images noisy for no good reason (and may call for smaller apertures and higher shutter speeds than your camera and lens can deliver).

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