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Mono owners -tell me your feelings....

trioderob

Member
just chat about your Mono.

any subject you like but in particular:

are you happy with the camera ?

was it worth the price to you ?

would you buy it again ?

if shoot 35mm too - which do you like the look of better ?

really anything you want to say about the camera after owning it a while
 

bradhusick

Active member
astonishing photo quality.

i had one, foolishly sold it, buying another.

you can't match the image quality by shooting an m240 and processing, but you can come close with work.

avoid overexposing highlights- you can't recover truly blown highlights

same crappy LCD as the M9, but who cares?
 

MCTuomey

New member
it gives me more pleasure to shoot, process, and print than any 35mm camera i've owned

if i had to sell my gear, it's probably the last i'd let go

it spoils me for other gear, it's that good (for me)
 

chrism

Well-known member
I haven't counted my cameras and would rather not do so, but if they all had to go save one, the survivor would be the Monochrom. I grew up with film, and I feel no guilt when I use the Monochrom, but rather continue to use film to see if I can get anywhere near the quality of the Monochrom's files.

Chris
 

airfrogusmc

Well-known member
I haven't bonded with a camera like this since my 500 C/Ms in the mid 1980s. Certainly nothing digital has done it for me until the MM. As already mentioned the files are amazing and it is a camera that just gets out of the way.
 
Got mine just before New Year. Love it; there´s just one big problem:

What should I do with my M9 that is just gathering dust in the cupboard since then? :eek:

It´s just like having an ex still hanging about the house when you´re trying to settle down with a new wife….:facesmack:

 

Double Negative

Not Available
I was deciding between the M and MM. It went back and forth for a while, but in the end I went with the MM. I do not regret that decision one bit - I love my MM! Would I do it again? Yes. It's just like my M9, which is perfectly fine with me too... In fact, that was part of the reason I went with the MM and like it so much. ;)

 
I love my Monochrom! I've had it since last August. I recently had been thinking about trading it in for an M240. My Leica dealer was able to loan me his M240 for a weekend. It's a very nice camera. I really enjoyed using it. But in the end, I just couldn't give up my Monochrom. While both are very capable of doing b&w well. It's the mindset I have when shooting with the Monochrom; I know I'm only capturing b&w and therefore look at the world that way. With the M240 I was thinking, will this be colour or should I convert.

In reading forums and posts bashing the Monochrom, people have never used one and therefore do not know or seem to understand how it changes how you view what you plan to photograph. They are assuming it's no different than with a colour camera... but it is!
 
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fotografz

Well-known member
It is easy to wax poetically about such a camera.

It harkens back to a different time of photography. Before digital. Yet it is itself digital. A conundrum.

The best compliment I could pay this camera is that I wish I had it 20 years ago. When I was frequently in London, Paris, NY, Chicago, Miami and LA. To walk those streets with wide-eyed freshness. What I would not have given for a M Rangefinder that I could shoot in any light by changing sensitivity at will. ISO 5000? Impossible. Yet it is.

I've said this before, I almost never shot color with a M, and a M was almost always with me, an unbroken chain for almost 50 years. This M Monochrome made it possible to keep that chain unbroken.

- Marc
 

fotografz

Well-known member
"Avoid overexposing highlights- you can't recover truly blown highlights".- Brad.

This HAS to be emphasized, because this MM is a new learning experience when you first get it.

Here's a little exercise that taught me about exposure with this camera in difficult light.

Two RAW images of my sister-in-law reading by a window. One exposed for the highlights, the other a bit more for the shadows. Both look unusable, but the image exposed for the outside highlights was just fine. The other one is indeed unrecoverable.

The underexposed one was initially corrected for basic exposure in LR, then brought into Nik Silver Efex Pro-2 for the final image. Quite an exposure trek from the original to final. Unbelievable really.

With a color digital camera you'd need flash to balance out such exposure extremes, or live with tons of noise in the shadows and color shifts with noise on the subject's face.

Hope this helps a little bit,

- Marc

P.S., They didn't load in order, just click on the image and which is which is in the title below left of each photo.
 

250swb

Member
Of all of them I prefer the one with the 'blown' highlights, it is a much more dynamic and exciting picture.

But yes, generally speaking don't blow the highlights, although it shouldn't be a strict rule, there are many occasions in the history of photography where blown highlights have been used creatively.

Steve
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Of all of them I prefer the one with the 'blown' highlights, it is a much more dynamic and exciting picture.

Steve
Yes Steve, we always have subjective choices, and that is a good thing. I also sometimes prefer a high key effect with a pictorial dynamic like that.

However, that wasn't the point of the post was it?

It is easy to blow highlights for creative effect, it is impossible to recover them if they were never there. Big difference.

For example, I can easily process the first underexposed version to look like the over-exposed shot. I cannot process the over-exposed one to look like the first one.

Like this:
 

jthurs

New member
Agree with everyone else. I'm techie and love new gear, but I've had my MM over a year and I really don't think another camera will ever replace it.
 

quadtones

Member
Absolutely thrilled with my Monochrom, and the more experience I have with the files, the more I want to shoot with the MM. My M9 is now relegated to back up, and may have to move to another home.
 

ashwinrao1

Active member
Favorite camera ever, period. I have written extensively and posted many photos about it...It's a singular camera in today's recycling photographic landscape.
 

Robert Campbell

Well-known member
A (deceptively) simple camera, one reduced to the basics; focus, aperture, shutter speed.

But a "difficult" camera, for b/w is a different way of seeing and visualising compared to colour—our "normal" way of seeing.

And an unforgiving one—beware of overexposure.

Yet when you get it right—in my case, not so often—the most satisfying.
 
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