Buying an M11M - any hidden traps?

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Coming a little late to this party ... : You have a windfall to buy an M11 Monochrom and a top-line Leica lens for your own indulgence? eh: Go for it! What's the big deal? 

If you never spent much time shooting B&W film without the option of shooting color film, it will be a bit of a learning experience. Is that a "hidden trap"? Not to me, it's just a different way of seeing that you are unfamiliar with, a different technology of capture and rendering that you have to learn. 

A good friend of mine was recently seduced by the Q2 Monochrom ... He had no history of B&W film, had learned and always made photos with color digital cameras. But he was rendering many of his photos to monochrom, and the Q2M tickled him enough that he bought one. He spent a few weeks beginning with it, and making great photos, and then came to me for discussion and advice. 

"It's the same but different. I don't know how to see with it yet. When should I use it instead of my Lumix camera?"

"In answer to the question, put the Lumix away and don't think about it. Just use the Q2M for the next six months. Look at each of your photos and think about what tonal/gradation things you want for them, whether they achieved it or not. Play with a couple of filters ... Green, Orange, Yellow ... and see what makes the tonal and gradation values you are looking for. Play with it a lot."

"Use it for everything? !! That's a tough thing..."

"Yes: the key is to see how you can express what color expressed for you in your Lumix work by thinking about the relationships of tone and intensity, how they effect the emotional response you are after. "

He's been working at it since: his photographs are evolving beautifully. He has always had a superb, natural eye ... Making this abstractive step past the literal is bringing that talent to the fore. 

I started photography when doing color was too expensive, too difficult for my home darkroom. It took me years to begin to see how color could be used in place of tone and gradation in my photographs, and to this day I prefer the simpler, more abstractive look of monochrom. I finally bought a M10 Monochrom in 2022, and have been over the Moon with it ever since, it just does what my eye wants a camera to do and does not get in the way. 

May you find it to be the same for you and the M11 Monochrom.

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Directional & Constrained - Santa Clara 2022
Leica M10 Monochrom + Color-Skopar 21mm f/3.5, Orange filter

enjoy, G