Longer focal lengths in B&W

[Likaleica]

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Nicco4444, where is all your anger and hostility coming from?  People are legitimately trying to help you and you seem offended by nearly everyone's response.  What I meant by my comment (deep breaths) was to take the emotion out of it.  This is a camera forum.  It's not politics or religion.  And since it is about photography, there are very few right or wrong answers, just opinions.

As for a dearth of examples of people using telephoto for B&W work, recently Ralph Gibson said he's now using the 135mm almost exclusively.  Other notable photographers using telephoto include Nick Brandt, Salgado and Michael Kenna.

I hope this helps.

[Jeff S]

And Andre Kertesz was equally adept with wide angle or telephoto for his remarkable body of work.  He paid no attention to the zone system, but he clearly understood everything necessary regarding great black and white photographs, including ‘street’ work.

Jeff

[AceVentura1986]

Wow, just read some of the hotter posts in this thread. Geez. Reminds me of my days on the Canon 1D forum in DPReview years ago. Don’t know what that forum is like today, but I’ve always found the Leica forums to be more collegial and friendly, until now that is.  I guess there’s a first time for everything. 

Anyway, I’ve shot predominantly  BW for over two decades now and Leicas for over a decade and have never used the zone system. Can it work? Well, yeah, of course. Is it the best system for digital BW? Not sure about that, especially w the Leica Monochrom cameras. Their lack of multiple color channels and inability to retrieve blown highlights in post means it’s imperative to preserve the highlights at nearly any cost. Their ISO-invariance makes slight under exposure and correction in post a quick, simple, and effective method of preserving the highlights and ensuring they’re not blown. I don’t think this matches the zone system, but I could be wrong on this. 

As for focal lengths, well, I’ve expressed my preference for 50, 40, and 35 (in that order) and 75 occasionally, but think that is more of an aesthetic choice than one that would affect the zone system; actually, I cannot imagine how it would affect it.  

I also can’t imagine why someone would shoot 135mm on Leica M systems, BUT PEOPLE DO; that’s why these are aesthetic choices. As the Brits say, different horses for different courses. 

[Jeff S]

39 minutes ago, AceVentura1986 said:

Is it the best system for digital BW? Not sure about that, especially w the Leica Monochrom cameras. 

As I mentioned earlier, the first M Monochrom provided a RAW histogram with zone markings. It was a nod to the past, but hardly a fully baked concept, given that the camera doesn’t provide for built-in spot metering, and editing software doesn’t provide zone markings, etc. Subsequent Monochroms dropped the feature. Digital technology makes life so much simpler now, including having a histogram, and malleable files with incredible dynamic range, in the first place. 
 

Jeff