Survey: Your opinion about the new LEICA M MONOCHROM

[cheewai_m6]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

i'd love to have one, but i'd have to own an m9 or m10 and this for colour. i won't be able to afford that. but as a concept or someone who shoots 100% in b&w, what a fantastic camera!!! leica is staying ahead of the market.

[Bruce60]

Why didn't Leica just say "Buy a M7 and a roll of film"?

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[xjr]

already ordered !

[mugget]

A very, very interesting camera. I would love one, but it's way too expensive for me at the moment. But from what I've seen already I am blown away by the dynamic range and the way it renders noise - fantastic camera!

 

But the other question is - will buyers of this also need to couple it with the APO-Summicron to get the best out of that amazing sensor? It's always been true that you must pay for quality, so nothing has changed there...

[matt335]

I have not read other people's views here until after I write my opinion. I think Leica have been very innovative to deliver this new camera which while logical is going to move photography into a new direction. I understand a new technology will cost more initially. I figured if they simply removed the colour filters from the sensor (ok, I am sure it's more than this) that they would be reducing the cost not increasing the cost of the overal camera.

 

People will naturally want new technology. Price permitting however. I don't believe it will ever come close to a film M. Sure the images will look sharp and clinical and for some commercially minded photographers that is great. I think film M's still hold my imagination insofar as processing the film and making wet prints is still very much a part of the whole process not just snapping the image. Although now it's possible through digital enlargers to print a digital file onto silver gelatin prints.

 

But, if one could take that approach and still use a Monochrome M, I wonder how that would be.

 

I would welcome very much some time with a Monochrome camera. I am extremely curious to see how it performs with Leica lens. Judging by the release of the new 500mm APO ASPH I am further curious at Leica's timing releasing them together.

 

For a true devotee of black and white film I admit there are times I wish I could speed up the process of results from images. This is especially true if one needs to images for a client, a special event, or a promotion that is time driven. I look forward to seeing one in real time.

 

Thanks Leica for being innovative. I get's me pushing my intrinsic motivation to be creative.

[Rick]

Over breakfast this morning, I mentioned the MM to my dog and he thought it sounded like a great idea.

[wattsy]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

The great thing about the Monochrom is that it isn't available until July or August. Plenty of time for the GAS to have worn off and thereby avoid making an expensive mistake.

[Your Old Dog]

B&W is my meat but I've found a lot of desert in some color images. I would hate to loose that option. If it were less pricey I'd likely put one in my bag just to play with.

[Alnitak]

Leica makes mention in their press material that the M9 Monochrom's B&W digital sensor does a great job at measuring luminance, because that's it's main function. And while B&W film also records luminance, anyone who knows photography knows that B&W film has a specific sensitivity to the different colors of light. My concern, as expressed above, is that the color filters we used with B&W film to get specific results, (by knowing what the sensitivity of different colors of light are to B&W film), will have a different effect when used with a B&W digital sensor. As demonstrated by the images above.

 

Digital sensors, just like film, have different responses to different wavelengths of light. Indeed, they have a much broader overall response than any single film I am aware of, but its not purely linear. In general, sensors designed for daylight imaging are designed to have the highest quantum efficiency (essentially sensitivity) to green light, matching the way our human eyes and brains see the world. You can see this by looking at any of the technical white papers online for the True Sensor (ex-Kodak) sensors, or almost any other brand out there. To that end, they will respond to colored filters on the lenses, but you're right, it won't exactly match what you would have gotten from film--but then again, neither would a full-color sensor converted. You should be able, however, to somewhat emulate the looks you want, and even experience new looks--like a new film.

 

While we're talking sensors, it would appear that the sensor in the Monochrome is really just a slightly modified version of the current M9 sensor. A slight tweak to tuning for base ISO, and remove the CFA and there you go. Nothing too hard. Given the price point, I suspect that's all it is, otherwise it would have been too pricey for the camera's MSRP. Without the CFA in front of the pixels, you'll gain some resolution and some overall DR, but not a lot of DR. The noise will look much better because the most noise in the color sensors is in the color channels where the CFA reduces QE, and the Bayer interpolation makes the noise look worse by making it blotchier.

 

As for the M10, if Leica sticks with CCD and Truesense, then you might see something like this sensor in the next gen M10:

 

Kodak Image Sensor Solutions - KAF-31600

 

Given that the "special" sensor in the M9 was just a slightly modified version of a standard Kodak sensor, they will likely do the same if they stick with Truesense. The more I think about Leica, and what the Monochrome tells us, the more I think the M10 will be but a slight evolution of the M9--higher resolution to show off what they can do with their lenses (and I think the new 50mm APO is a hint in this direction), and some better electronics/buffer, but not a lot more. Maybe the LED RF from the M9T. The sensors keep improving, and if I'm reading the white paper linked from that page I linked above correctly, their new CCDs have a better structure that will reduce noise, increase DR, and deal better with light fall-off with the micro-lenses, which should also help with the notorious color-shift problems on the M9.

 

Interesting times ahead. As for the Monochrome, I like the idea, but I'm not a B&W shooter, so I'll leave it to others. I was pleasantly surprised at the price point--I thought they would go higher. That said, the price of the new 50mm is just way too much for an f/2 lens.

 

Jeff

[urs0polar]

It is going to be a different camera than both film and color digital. Why would they spend all those engineering resources to replicate tri-x when tri-x already does tri-x pretty well? This is of course going to be different from everything we've seen so far. It would really not be worth it if all it did was digital tri-x.

 

I think it's going to be awesome, and I want to have one eventually when I have the funds.

 

If I go out to shoot with only my M6 and B&W film in it, I am forced to be creative and try to shoot things that will work with what I have. With the M8, I think to myself "This *might* be good in black and white, but if it isn't, I still have color". Allowing myself this wiggle room frankly weakens the work and is distracting from the main purpose of what I'm there to do. Limited choice forces creativity.

 

As for the cost, you go and try to make a B&W full-frame sensor that mounts M lenses and see how much it costs to be sustainable.... that said, I hope someone (Zeiss, Cosina?) gives it a shot! Of course, I sold my Bessa R4A to afford the M6, and I'm sure I would do it again for the MM. So whatever

[Rick]

...you see dogs are supposed to be colorblind.

 

 

Never mind

[thebarnman]

I think it's funny how everyone intuively understands that this new camera's natural name is M9-M

 

I think it's funny that you think that...particularly since the M M is incapable of color unlike all the others before it. It's in a class all by itself and having the 2nd "M" stand for "monochrome" is perfectly understandable and at least to me, perfectly acceptable.

 

M&M would be funny...

[zoomphoto]

If I need B&W I will stick to my M5 and Delta 100. For color my M9P is the best. As long as film is available I just can not justify the cost.

[dante]

This camera fascinates and horrifies me.

 

I have shot black and white film for a long time and printed it for almost as long. The magic of black and white is that once you understand how lighting interacts with well-practiced exposure and development techniques, it often works on its own. Many times, there is little to do in post unless you scan the negatives - and even then, it can be very, very close. Sometimes conventional b/w is very hands-on. But even where you intervene (like dodging and burning a print), there is as much intuition as mathematics. The science and math are built into the materials.

 

In the M-M, I like the idea of a high-acutance compact camera. I shoot mainly 6x9, and the thing that keeps me there (other than the crushing 96Mp of resolution when fed through a Super-Coolscan ED or big grainless optical prints) is the fact that there is so much data that you can do almost anything. I also like the idea of reusing my M infrastructure (currently on M8) to compact things even further. There would be nothing to relearn except the vagaries of the sensor's color response and the camera's metering. I already have a calloused spot on my thumb from checking focus on the click wheel.

 

The horror doesn't come from the price; if I decided that an M-M was going to be "it," the money would not be a problem. As against costs like darkroom rent and scanning time, something like that would pay for itself in less than two years. Actually, if it kicked out great, saleable large prints (how could it not?), the cost would go pretty quickly indeed.

 

All of that said, I don't know how I feel about the idea of combining primitive metering with a form of black-and-white photography that blows out unrecoverably in the highlights if overexposed (try doing this with T-Max 400 - it's pretty much impossible unless you open shutter and leave the camera pointed at the sun). We are seeing some of this blowout in the Leica and other test pictures, and my worry is that we won't have any longer a sense of "take it on faith" or the ritual magic of having things come out "just right" every time.

 

As a second point, it's easy to live with overexposure (or super-contrasty scenes) with a color sensor for two reasons: (1) you already effectively have heavy ND filters covering every color of light and (2) as long as one of those 3 is not overwhelmed, you can recover enough highlights to get greyscale. And this makes a huge difference betwen what you might want to shoot in a high contrast situation and in low. If I know my intent is to shoot b/w, I use a Kodak 14n during the day. With its AA-filter-free sensor, base ISO of 80 and excellent highlight recovery ability, you just shoot to the right and bring the highlights down a little in post. If it's indoors, it's a D700 that can shoot pretty much noise free at ISO 5000. I haven't had an X-Pro1 long enough to break it in on low light (nor is there yet Lightroom support), but I'm sure it will be much more D700-like.

 

Third, there are a lot of options out there. There is a certain belief in some superlative Leica on-sensor look - but if you have had stick time with multiple cameras with no AA filters (for me, it's now Kodak, Leica and Fuji) - or even cameras with weak AA sensors (like the GRDII, the D700 and the X100) the Leica magic seems less and less special. Who knows what's going to happen when the D800E hits in earnest - even accounting for the lower resolving power of color, it's still going to be very competitive with the MM in every area except size and weight.

 

Fourth, the injection of Silver Efex into the workflow is inconvenient and somewhat pointless. A good deal of that program is building film profiles in two dimensions: tone curve and color sensitivity. If you have no color data to utilize, everything you can do with Silver Efex could be done more efficiently through Lightroom presets. And as for grain, the MM already has film-like grain.

 

Finally, I think the M-M sends a mixed message. One message (the positive one) is that Leica cares about serious photography and that people pining for the Kodak 760M have a new option. But the other message - the one that comes out when Leica's sample pictures are all overprocessed and appears on a page promising baryta prints from M-M files - is that the M-M is not so much "Henri" as it is "Anselgram."

 

Dante

 

P.S. The two of you fighting about the definition of an "orange" filter are giving me a chuckle. Maybe one of you can tell me whether it's a Wratten 18, a Kodak G, a Hoya G, a B+W 023, 40 or 41.

[Afzal Ansary]

I will stick with my M9 as I do like to shoot in colour as well - can always convert my colour shots to BW. In fact cheaper to use my M6 with Tri-X.

[Afzal Ansary]

I will stick with my M9 as I do like to shoot in colour as well - can always convert my colour shots to BW. In fact cheaper to use my M6 with Tri-X.

[jaapv]

@ Alnitak - Leica is not sticking with Truesense and their intended maker has no specs on the Internet.

Edited May 15, 2012 by jaapv

[01af]

I think it's funny that you think that ... particularly since the M M is incapable of color unlike all the others before it.

Well ... the first Leicas were incapable of colour, too, because 35-mm colour film became available to the average amateur at affordable prices only after WW II. And by the way—it's not M M. It's M Monochrom. Understand?

 

 

It's in a class all by itself ...

Sure it is. Still it's just a variant of the M9, technically. And it's a very clumsy name, it's aslant to the traditional naming scheme—it's an M after all, isn't it?—and it will become even more clumsy when a successor model comes out eventually.

 

I guess they wanted no digit '9' in the name because most likely, the M Monochrom is planned to remain in production for a while after the M9 will be discontinued and replaced by a successor. In the presence of an M10, any M camera with a '9' in the name will look old. But then ... why not call it MM, plain and simple? That would be in line with names like MD or MP and naturally lead to successors' names like MM-2, MM-3, and so on.

 

Okay, it's just a name. I accept it—what else can I do?—even when I don't like it. I do like the camera so I'll get over it. Now let's put this to rest.

 

 

I will stick with my M9 as I do like to shoot in colour as well—can always convert my colour shots to B/W.

Sure you can. But colour pictures converted to b/w are no good b/w pictures (well ... exceptions may happen—but regular is often and exception is rare, as my old physics teacher used to say). Serious b/w shooters want a serious b/w camera. If you are not into black-and-white then better stick to a colour camera ... there's nothing wrong with that. But shooting in colour, with converting to black-and-white as an optional afterthought, will never get you anywhere near to being a b/w photographer.

Edited May 15, 2012 by 01af

[egidiobandini]

What do you think about the new LEICA M MONOCHROM?

 

Vote and tell us your opinion in this thread!

Penso che, forse, Leica potesse occuparsi dei problemi col CCD Kodak della M9, di cui sono terminati i ricambi oppure di come restituire fiducia a chi ha speso un monte di quattrini per acquistare il DMR e poi ritrovarsi senza la possibilità di riparazioni o anche solo di acquistare una batteria (si trovano batterie e pezzi di ricambio per le Kodak DCS derivate dalla Nokin F5!!!!!). E' vero che chi usa le Leica ama forografare in B/N, ma è anch vero che da Leitz ci si aspetta sempre il massimo, anche in termini di serietà e di assistenza al cliente. Avendo un partner come Panasonic non credo fosse poi così difficile far realizzare le parti elettroniche di ricambio, sia per il DMR che per la M9 (bastava farsi dare i progetti da Imacon e Kodak!), magari sarebbe costato meno che progettare una fotocmera digitale in bianco e nero da 8000 dollari. Comunque, spero che la Monochrom risollevi le sorti e che Leica non venga assorbita, magari da Hasselblad (l'anello adattatore per ottiche Hasselblad sulla S2 non vi dice niente?)

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[ThomasGroendahl]

Thanks for the interesting tread about BW filtering when using the Monochrome camera! This camera really interest me, since 95% of work is BW. Without having had the chance to work on a DNG of the new camera, I can't help thinking of the way I produce "filtered" black and white images from my M8, by pulling the colour faders in Capture One, until I get the desired result. The latest C1 has a BW section with red/yellow/etc filter pre-sets that closely resembles the old filters of panchromatic film emulsions.