Survey: Your opinion about the new LEICA M MONOCHROM

[thebarnman]

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I use dodging and burning freely if it does not alter but enhance the visual message of this frame.

 

Do you also use contrast and brightness, or simply dodge and burn?

 

 

From everything I've seen and read, the files from the MM do not need any sharpening. That's a huge plus!

[dent]

Do you also use contrast and brightness, or simply dodge and burn?

 

My workflow is:

 

* import into LR

* adjust global exposure, contrast and tonality (I avoid local adjustments at this point because Silver Efex sometimes amplifies these local adjustments to unpleasant results)

* occasionally very careful noise reduction

* export the file to Silver Efex

* choose a custom preset as a start point (mostly “push 1.5”)

* further adjust tonality (here lies the high risk of this cra**y plastic look, particularly in this “soft contrast”-slider)

* sometimes carefully ad grain (to mask the MM´s sometimes distracting high detail) - I find the Silver Efex grain engine more pleasing than LR5´s

* go back to lightroom or photoshop and begin the “real” creative work: slightly cropping (as a rule I always keep the proportions), guiding the viewers eyes with dodging, burning, locally emphasizing different surface/medium qualities by carefully adding clarity and tonality changes

* I use brushes and only very very occasionaly complex selection tools in PS

* sometimes ad finishing adjustments like edge burning/vignette or such

 

* leave the file for some days and see it with fresh eyes then. In most cases this means trashing it. Wait for two weeks and trash some more files :-)

 

If have to spend more than five to ten minutes to archive a satisfying result I usually trash the file. Something is fundamentally wrong then. Usually with the composition, visual message or main subject.

If You have to ad something overly dramatic (Pseudo-HDR, enhancing structure/texture to attract more attention than the main subject....) then the shot is just not good enough. You can never correct a poor overall composition and uninteresting main subject. It´s a waste of time.

 

I never ad or remove visual elements other than spots. It´s against my photographic ethics.

I usually aim for a filmish look like with pushes TRI-X or such.

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[jcarrera]

If you do really love black and white, this is the best camera ever

[johnxman]

I have owned a monochrom for the past few months. I use it every day. In all that time, i have not once been tempted to use my M9, though i surely would if color were required. I'll leave the technical commentary to others, but i will say that for me, this camera is absolutely thrilling. So often I score a shot on the street and I have that great feeling of "knowing" I caught something just as I wanted it. the super-clean high ISO performance definitely gives me extra flexibility for fast street shooting with pre-focusing. The resulting files are easy to work with, and amazingly resilient in the face of underexposure, even radical underexposure. This camera has really brought me back to thinking in black and white in a way that i'd not done in years. I'm so grateful to Leica for having built this machine. It seems almost impossible that they could have had the vision to do this. What a gift.

 

Here are a couple images to give some idea of what i like to do with it ...

 

Honor Guard | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

and...

 

Hole | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

Shell Game | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[tobey bilek]

I am sure it is the very best available for mono.

 

For you to decide, at the picture size you print can you see a difference.

 

And if you start with a color camera, you can selectively darken a sky in post or lighten green grass or darken a red barn. If you put a filter over the monochrome, the color of the filter will change all the tones across the photo and it will require hard post to get the same dodge/burn accuracy.

[wilfredo]

It's the most exciting camera I've ever owned!

And I should add, it's not for everybody, and not one for the masses or even a majority of photographers...

[250swb]

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And I should add, it's not for everybody, and not one for the masses or even a majority of photographers...

 

But everybody can point it in the direction they want, they can focus it, and it can replace B&W film in more than one format. Now the masses don't use B&W film, nor even the majority of photographers, and even with digital the majority of photographers use B&W as an afterthought., as a cute trick. So I guess what you are saying is that the Monochrom is a camera for people who know what they want with a strong vision of where their photography is going, rather than responding to every new camera release like a dog with a new bone (I'm thinking A7r for instance). As such that should be a recommendation, or at least something to aspire to.

 

Steve

[david strachan]

I still use my principles as in my dark room for thousands of hours...all B&W.

Just as different film has different monochrome effects, so do all digital cameras. I like my M8 images, but they still need processing.

Main processing involves

 

• 
  
• global exposure and contrast
  
• local dodge and burn (layers in PS)
  
• aim to have a slightly textured white, and slightly textured black
  
• specular highlights and "darks" can be no texture...pure white and pure black
  
• try to have full tonal range (8-10 zones or stops)
  
• sure to have a point of interest, and usual photography skills
  

Ansell Adams and others know how to get the full tonal range, and that's my aim too. Far too many images are shown with much too much global contrast, without considered local dodging and burning to make the image powerful. Images posted are often muddy looking, with blocked up shadows...far too much global contrast.

I reckon ALL B&W images need work, because the medium does not have distracting colour.

cheers Dave S