[shuttertalk]

Leica have announced a new digital rangefinder - the M Monochrom, which is basically a M9 but shoots exclusively in black and white.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/05/10/...angefinder

The 18 MP image sensor of the M Monochrom is perfectly matched to the unique properties of the Leica M-System and the superior performance of Leica M-Lenses. As the sensor does not ‘see’ colors, every pixel records true luminance values – as a result, it delivers ‘true’ black-and-white images that are significantly sharper than comparable exposures from a camera with a color-sensitive sensor.

This is fascinating yet I'm in two minds about this - if black and white photography is your thing, then you've got a purpose built tool specifically optimised for producing the best B/W quality. But then the traditional thinking is - why limit yourself to just black and white? Why not shoot colour and then have the option to convert later through post processing?

What are your thoughts?

[Toad]

It also costs $1000+ more than the normal color M9.

I don't shoot enough B&W to really be in the target market even though I am a Leica shooter. I am sure that it is awesome as a B&W tool (the test photos look really good), but its just too specialized for my tastes.

BTW: I see that Leica also announced an upgrade to my beloved 50mm Summicron-M F2. This one costs $5000 more though at $7125. Wow. My 50 is already the best lens I have ever owned - so its hard for me to imagine how much better this one must be for 3x more money. The blabber online says it has the best MTF curves ever recorded.

Fun fact - I paid $1000 for mine second hand - so the differential actually becomes more than 7x for me.

[matthew]

I love the idea of a monochrome camera. Even if they can't provide better tonality and range, which they probably will, the resolution potential from such a camera could be amazing. As in, make-the-D800-look-blurry amazing.

But new Leica cameras and lenses are so expensive, well beyond the scale of the possibilities they provide… anyone who buys this must be incredibly dedicated or wealthy, if not both. If a monochrome camera came out in the D7000/60D range – $800-1000, ~16mpx, 1.5x crop – it would be my next purchase.

[Toad]

... As in, make-the-D800-look-blurry amazing.

Yes - that's probably *enough* sensor for almost anybody. After a certain point, its about the lens anyway.

[shuttertalk]

Anyone set their camera to monochrome mode for a day/week/period and just shoot purely in black and white? I'd imagine that is how using this camera would be...

If so what were your experiences like?

[Toad]

The new Leica is a lot more than just setting your camera to monochrome. The monochrome body doesn't have the Bayer filters controlling the amount of each color of light that reaches the sensor - so a lot more unmodified light hits each pixel and thus greatly increases sharpness and resolution. If you are only shooting B&W, this is a big deal for quality IQ. This is very similar to the resolution increase you get by not having an AA filter (which the monochrome Leica also does not have).

Still too specialist for me, but if you are the type that always shoots B&W, this is probably how you want to go. I would have a very hard time going back to a camera with an AA filter now, and a B&W photographer might rapidly come to feel the same after using the Leica monochrome for a while.

[matthew]

There's an old article on Luminous Landscape that talks about the Kodak 760m, the third monochrome camera that they had built. It largely deals with the camera experience, but talks about the difference between a monochrome camera and a bayer-colour device as well. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/review...760m.shtml

(added later Here's another article discussing the 'why monochrome' question on The Online Photographer: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com...ensor.html

Anyone set their camera to monochrome mode for a day/week/period and just shoot purely in black and white? […] If so what were your experiences like?

I'll occasionally do that with my film cameras…

Black and white isn't a natural fit for most of the photography that I enjoy, yet a couple of my favourite/best photos were taken with it. I have very little interest in converting a colour image to black and white, though.

I typically choose my equipment based on the subject as well as my mood, and B&W film is no exception. It's what I prefer for general photography in winter, for example, or for Manhattan. I almost never mix B&W and colour capture at the same time, which would make – does make – having a camera dedicated to B&W is as natural and sensible as keeping to a couple of prime lenses with similar focal lengths.

[shuttertalk]

Thanks for the reminder about film - in the old days there was no problems about bayer filters and the like - your "sensor" was effectively what film you put in. So if you plopped in b/w film, you were shooting b/w for the next 24-36 frames, baby! But the thing was you could always swap back to velvia or whatever took your fancy.

Not so much with the monochrom... Specialised indeed!

[shuttertalk]

Hands on preview from dpreview here, but not much in terms of content yet.

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/leica-m-monochrom

[shuttertalk]

First impressions from Popular Photography:
http://www.popphoto.com/2012/05/first-im...nge-finder

On High ISO:

From an ISO performance standpoint (again, we'll delve much deeper into this during our full lab test), the images look fantastic. The maximum ISO has been turned up to 10,000, and as you can see in this sample, it handles that high setting like a champ. It has a surprising amount of fine detail that some other cameras would've lost in a muddy mess. Most importantly, it looks a lot more like actual film grain than it does noise. I found myself almost wanting to shoot at higher ISOs to see what the grain would bring to certain scenes. It's a novelty that would eventually wear off, but for my first shots, it added an interesting aesthetic tool to play with.

Additionally, they claim the removal of the bayer filter has given them an additional stop of light, plus more detail as well.

"It's not four times as much detail," says Dr. Schopf, "but it's easily on par with sensors as high as 30-megapixels." We'll know more about that when the camera gets our full lab test.

One drawback of not shooting in colour (it can't be all good now, can it?) - regarding blown higlights:

With a color camera, if you go a little too bright, you can usually pull some of that detail back from one of the color channels in Lightroom or Photohsop. With the Monochrom, though, anything that falls off the right boundary of the histogram is gone for good.

Anyway, it's worth a read.

[shuttertalk]

But new Leica cameras and lenses are so expensive, well beyond the scale of the possibilities they provide… anyone who buys this must be incredibly dedicated or wealthy, if not both.

There's actually a great article on theories behind Leica's pricing. They look at it from an economics point of view, comparing the cost curve to revenue curve and the strategy on where to price the product.

http://leicarumors.com/2012/05/19/the-my...shin.aspx/

[Don Schaeffer]

Is this a niche market or what?