Buy the M-Monochrom, or Wait for the M10?

[jaapv]

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It may have to do with the M10 though. That one may be so close to the S2 in image quality that the coming upgrade to S3 is inevitable.

[Guest malland]

...I've followed you for a long time - way back to the original Ricoh GR (loved that little camera) in 2005 and the dpreview forum (that was a great group). One thing that I've noted about you through the years is that you develop a certain esthetic that begins with your style of street shooting. Your style of street shooting seems to very much depend on the camera you are using.

 

Based on this I think you should absolutely get the MM. It will return you to a certain aesthetic. I believe the MM is the only camera right now that delivers files that seem to have a very different tonal range. You don't get that with the M9. The M10 may have 36mp but, it still won't give the same kind of file as the MM...

 

I think the MM would instantly feel right for you starting from your style of a sort of harsh equatorial shooting esthetic, from the moment you visualized and raised the camera to your eye right on through to how you like to PP and print. The way this camera delivers a certain type of file would become integral to your whole style of visualizing and shooting and developing files. And, of course, it is a RF which I know you are very comfortable with.

 

I think this camera was just made for someone like you and I don't think that anything that comes out with a Bayer filter is going to come close to what you want. This is it Mitch, they finally made a small B&W street camera that can make medium format quality files. And you are agonizing over comparing it to something (M10) that is conceptually designed to be something else, that won't be able to deliver the unique files of a Bayer-free sensor, and won't get you closer to your style of artistic expression.

 

Mitch, the MM is simply the camera made for your simple style of shooting and your unique PP style. This camera may be the last camera you buy for a looooong time.

I couldn't agree more, which is why I said in an earlier post that your approach would be refreshing compared to how others may use the MM...Vive la difference.

As I re-read this thread this morning I was struck by Rick's and Jeff's posts above because they describe pretty much the experience that I've had with the M-Monochrom, which I bought in September. It's an astounding camera and you can see my review of this camera and a series shot with it in Sri Lanka.

 

In the meantime I have been following the various threads here on the M240 while thinking that I also want sometimes to be able to shoot color — and I thought of this more and more as I was completing my Basquait book project (linked under my signature below), in which I have both B&W and color pictures. Initially, I thought that I would wait for the M240 to come out and see how that looked. But I was influenced by what Charles Peterson has been posting about the M9 color being similar to slide film while CMOS color was more like color negative film — something which was also stated by douglasf13 in a LUF post yesterday.

 

With that in mind I started looking at the M-E, but quickly concluded that I would prefer a new M9-P if I could find a black one that was still being sold at the promotion price. This morning, my Paris dealer confirmed that he received one whose cost is only a few hundred dollars more than an M--E — and this is what I am now buying. Not that I think that the M240 will not be a great camera, but I know that I like the M9 color and, at this stage, prefer to have a camera produced at the end of the M9-P line rather than a new M240 that may still have some teething problems after it's released.

 

Now, while I used to think that LiveView was useful and that the low-resolution LCD on the M9-P was problematic, after shooting with the M-Monochrom, I concluded that the important thing that I want from the LCD is the histogram and that the viewfinder/rangefinder takes care of the composition.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Paris au rythme de Basquiat and Other Poems [download link for book project]

[Jeff S]

Makes a lot of sense, Mitch, based on your stated needs and preferences; always better to have a camera in hand than wait for something that's unknown. You can always try the M240 down the road (and I suspect you might, depending on eventual reports), but you'll have something you like and can use now. There are some dealers guaranteeing trades on the M-E for the M240, but getting a discount on the M9-P is nice.

 

I would have gone for the chrome, but that's me. Happy shooting. (And good to know the MM is working out well for you.)

 

Jeff

[IWC Doppel]

I may follow from another angle, I have a black M9-P and adding an MM at some stage might be my path

[IkarusJohn]

I can vouch for the joys of owning an M9-P and a Monochrom. Swine in manure spring to mind :-)

[MarkP]

I'll just have to slum it with the Monochrom and M9.

The M9 of course takes inferior photographs compared with the M9-P

[IkarusJohn]

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Okay - M9, upgraded to M9-P. Somehow, silver chrome did it for me over grey paint, and the rest ... well, while the camera was on Solms, why not ...

[Guest malland]

Picked up the M9-P this morning. I'm not that fussed about looks and would have gladly bought the M-E if it had the sapphire LCD glass but, as I said above, the promotional pricing making the M9-P only a few hundred dollars more than the M-E (both ex-VAT) swung me to the M9-P. On the how the M9-P looks, I would have preferred the M-Monochrom black chrome to black paint, and am not crazy about the writing in white on the top plate, but no big deal.

 

—Mitch/Paris

Paris au rythme de Basquiat and Other Poems [download link for book project]

[JDFlood]

Interesting discussion of color. But isn't color only the presets in LightRoom that you use or how you tweak it? JD