m10 vs M246 no comparision for BW

[Jeff S]

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8 minutes ago, budjames said:

 

Choices today are great. Use what works for you and I will do the same.

 

Agreed.  Better advice than telling others to “ditch LR” as you wrote.  Whatever works.

Jeff

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[david strachan]

Often it's the processing.  Everyone has different feelings for B&W.

 

Some like high contrast, which can lead to blocked-shadows, others like a long tonal range...as usual it all depends.  The modern trend seems high contrast.

 

In the past the subject brightness range is treated differently by every photographer-printer. Still the same with digital files.

 

Modern digital from any camera can make a very good B-&W...print or screen...just depends on taste.

 

The rest is fairies-dancing-on-pins.

...

 

 

[Stuart Richardson]

My experience is as a printer and a photographer. I do exhibitions for museums and galleries, both myself and for clients. I am a Leica M, S and film shooter. One of my clients uses the Monochrome M cameras. I have not used them myself, but I have worked the files and printed them up to 1mX1.5m. That is, in my opinion, too big for the M Monochrome. What was interesting to me about them is that their per pixel quality is indeed higher than their color M counterparts. But, pixels are pixels, and resolution is resolution. The resolution breaking point is pretty similar between the M monochrome and the M cameras, though the monochrome will look better at that size. I find that 100x70cm is about where I would want to put a max size for a sharp, high quality print. You can go bigger, but then you really start to push up against soft/mushy details. I have 100x150 prints from the S in the studio, and when compared to the monochrome prints, there is no question that the S prints look better.  

As regards to black and white tonality, that is harder for me to say since I have not done a lot of work converting my M and S files to black and white. I do it sometimes, but primarily shoot medium and large format film for black and white. Mostly Tmax 400 and Neopan Acros (RIP). I still think 6x7 and 4x5 look better than the monochrome files, which I think mostly share the strengths and weakness of digital files...the very clean, smooth tonality, particularly noticeable in the highlights. Film is more or less the opposite, with grainier highlights than shadows. I guess it is about the negative...the area where the signal to noise ratio is lowest is the opposite for the two media. In any case, I think the monochrome is a superb camera and very nice for people who know with certainty that every photo they shoot will be black and white, and who also do not want to deal with film. Basically, think of it as a slight boost compared to stock. It is a better 24mp, but still 24mp. The S's 37mp wins the day. I have not done a detail comparison, as I said, but I also imagine that would be the case for the tonality as well. 

Edited October 28, 2018 by Stuart Richardson

[fabior]

thanks Stuart for sharing your experience reported in practice