B&W with a type 262

[Shadow Blaster]

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Pardon me if this has been addressed already, but is there a way to take black & white photos with a 262?  I can't find anything in the manual that addresses this issue.

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[ramarren]

For in-camera JPEGS: Page 142 in the German/English Leica M typ 262 owners manual dealing with Picture Properties / Contrast, Contrast, Color Saturation states "... In the case of SATURATION, a black-and-white setting is available as a sixth variant. ..."

IMO, the best B&W rendering from a digital camera is usually obtained by capturing raw data and utilizing image processing applications to render the image in monochrome. I do it often with the M-D typ 262 and CL nowadays, but I've done it with virtually every digital camera I've owned the same way.

 

[Shadow Blaster]

Thanks Ramarren. Very helpful.

[_Michael]

I will frequently use a setting capturing raw plus black and white jpg.  I find this can be helpful when shooting to get a better sense if I am capturing what I am trying to. The raw gives full flexibility to process as desired.  Lately, I think more and more along the lines of only adding color if needed verses taking color away.  Subtle, but important difference to me. 

[ramarren]

44 minutes ago, _Michael said:

I will frequently use a setting capturing raw plus black and white jpg.  I find this can be helpful when shooting to get a better sense if I am capturing what I am trying to. The raw gives full flexibility to process as desired.  Lately, I think more and more along the lines of only adding color if needed verses taking color away.  Subtle, but important difference to me. 

That's a quite reasonable strategy ... but it doesn't really work for me. After 50+ years of seeing the image in the viewfinder in color and pre-visualizing what B&W film will record with filters in place, I find it difficult to see what I'm going to get if I set the viewfinder to B&W since I can't apply the filtering to it. I imagine what it's going to be pretty accurately with my eyes. 

Like you, though, I often start my rendering process with a B&W conversion to see what's there, and then decide whether the image works the way I want with color in it. This is the total flexibility of capturing raw and working with digital image processing—pre-visualization and post-visualization can work together in a more complete coalescence.