The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

The New Monochrom - a fine report

Godfrey

Well-known member
I'm not sure, Kirk, but I think I'd try a yellow, a deep yellow, a green, a deep green, an orange, and a deep orange to see what actually separated tones best for a subject like that. And bracket the heck out of all of them to find what works best. Once you get used to the spectral sensitivities of the camera and how the sensor interacts with different filters, it becomes easier to make a guess and get there.

This same problem was always there for me with B&W films as well. Getting a color -> B&W tonal translation when you're talking about very subtle shades of greens, or any other color, really, is not easy. I see no reason for the MM246 to do much better than the MM9 in this regard. It might be slightly different, but better implies a lot more.

Another tactic is to use a color camera to do a test capture, figure out the exposure and filtering required to get the separation you're looking for, and then replicate that through optical filters on the MM9 or MM246.

G
 
I guess that would be the right way to explore all possibilities. My guess was that with so much yellow in young ferns, a light yellow filter would yield what a favorite band of yesteryear called 'a lighter shade of pale.' But experimenting would be better than guessing.

I thought that some of the M246 examples I'd seen have subtler highlights than I'm accustomed to with MM in landscapes. But those examples have mostly been images of reflective objects, not of vivid yellow-green leaves; so maybe the answer is as you say: more a matter of color balance/filtration.

I'm also attracted to the nonexistent A7rII, staying with RGB files and then relying on more delicate tonal adjustments with the BW conversion sliders (in this case Y and G).

Kirk
 
V

Vivek

Guest
I thought that some of the M246 examples I'd seen have subtler highlights than I'm accustomed to with MM in landscapes.
I doubt if any of them had used any filters on the lenses at all. Any yellow filtration increases the contrast (thus lowers the DR).
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Dont ask me why but my experience with the MM has been that a yellow filter helps to get less blown highlights. Maybe because it darkens the sky a bit.
 
Either way, it wasn't really the effect of filters that I was asking about - it's how well the two sensors / processing algorithms will distribute the higher tones.

My fault - I should have posted an unfiltered example.

Kirk
 

jrp

Member
The Reid reviews are interesting largely for their almost uniqueness. But even trying to read them on a full-powered PC is painful: I have not found a way of scrolling through his material other than by dragging the side-bar. He does not clearly label what items are being reviewed; he will just mention the main lens, eg, but often you are interested in comparisons with other lenses but you have to guess in which of his reviews they might be covered. He does not summarise his conclusions.

By way of template to follow, the Poles at lenstip provide uniformly structured reviews with good summaries, so one can refer back to the pages that illustrate the pros and cons that they call out.

I'm no great fan of digilloyd's apparent arrogance, but he seems to be able to make a living producing will indexed, easily accessible and navigable content. Hard to see why Sean should produce content which is not bad in substance, but which it is virtually impossible to use other than on a completely one-off basis.
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
The Reid reviews are interesting largely for their almost uniqueness. But even trying to read them on a full-powered PC is painful: I have not found a way of scrolling through his material other than by dragging the side-bar.
Cut and paste into a new window with a word processor and read at your own speed and ditch the slow sidebar.

Bob
 

Shashin

Well-known member
For what I have seen, a color M and a monochrome M do not have the same spectral response. Blue particularly is not the same. Which makes sense as a color model needs to transform response to create a natural appearing image. In that case, blue will have to be altered--as will yellow.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Either way, it wasn't really the effect of filters that I was asking about - it's how well the two sensors / processing algorithms will distribute the higher tones. ...
I don't know that there's any way to evaluate that without having test images captured in raw format from both cameras under the same controlled lighting/subject circumstances, with the same lens, so that you can evaluate what has been recorded and how it differs one to the other by measurement using the same rendering tools.

Any other evaluation implies too many ambiguous and subjective differences based on the rendering applied either by the camera or the user.

G
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Any thoughts and experience to share from people using the MM type 246? Also thoughts of "old"MM vs "new" MM are appreciated?
Thanks, Tom
 

baudolino

Active member
Any thoughts and experience to share from people using the MM type 246? Also thoughts of "old"MM vs "new" MM are appreciated?
Thanks, Tom
Most appealing results for me are with old lenses (Summicron 35 v1 and 50v2); both very sharp but lower contrast than modern lenses. My PP technique adds contrast in itself, so lower contrast lenses are good for me. Experimenting with green filter for portraits (yes, emphasises blemishes but enhances lip color and preserves structure of the skin).
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Most appealing results for me are with old lenses (Summicron 35 v1 and 50v2); both very sharp but lower contrast than modern lenses. My PP technique adds contrast in itself, so lower contrast lenses are good for me. Experimenting with green filter for portraits (yes, emphasises blemishes but enhances lip color and preserves structure of the skin).
Mmmh, seems the opposite what works well on the M type 240.
 

baudolino

Active member
Mmmh, seems the opposite what works well on the M type 240.
Yes, that's my conclusion, too. I really like how the modern lenses perform on the M240 (especially the 35FLE and 50APO) but perhaps it's the aesthetics of the 1950s/60s black and white images (shot with the old lenses of that era) that is working somewhere in the back of my mind and causing the preference for the old lenses. Coincidentally, I haven't even tried the old lenses on the "colour M" yet.
 
Top