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I tried a Pixii for a month back in Spring 2022. I ultimately found it to have too many issues (key of which was that I'd often need to carry 3 or 4 batteries for a single photo walk, and the shutter activation no matter how I configured sound or tactile notifications made it very difficult to know for sure when I'd actually made an exposure...) and returned it, but it convinced me that I really really wanted a monochrome camera. Once the Pixii was returned, I bought one of the last Leica M10 Monochrom cameras available new from my dealer.
By comparison, the M10-M just works and lasts for several of my shooting sessions on a single charge of its battery (typically 600-800 exposures per charge in normal use), and its haptics are just right. It has just a bit more dynamic range at the limit and just a bit more resolution at the limit, and of course it is full frame vs my Pixii's APS-C format which nets more DoF control with a less "exotic" range of focal lengths. I liked it so much that after four months, I hunted up a nice, clean M10-R and sold my Leica CL so that I'd have a color camera identical in all other respects to the M10-M to work with. These are now my primary shooting tools and displace my other digital cameras for most purposes, including the Hasselblad 907x/CFVII 50c (which I keep along with the rest of the V system for sentimental reasons mostly, and because there are certain situations where the larger sensor—and access to 6x6 format on film!—still has an advantage).
I hope that the Pixii Max and later developments of the Pixii firmware have overcome some of the more egregious annoyances of my 2022 Pixii. The folks at Pixii all seemed to be trying hard to produce a quality camera; the issues that I ran into point to how complex and difficult it can be to do that for a broad customer base. Very small and seemingly insignificant things can make or break an otherwise excellent design for a lot of individuals.
G
Thanks Godfrey,Hi MIke,
You're making some very nice photos with your Pixii Match! Bravo!
It's sad to hear that most of the same old issues remain with the Pixii Max. The battery life, in particular, was absolutely awful when I tested the camera, and made it next to useless. Other haptics problems made it difficult to make settings or even tell when an exposure had been made. Ugh ... It was actually sad to me that these basic elements of camera usage had problems. But that's long ago and far away now. I hope the Pixii Max gets the development it needs!
Keep on shooting and posting, I like seeing your photos! thanks!
G
The monochrome mode is switched on in the cameras settings menu or via the Pixii app. In monochrome mode it produces monochrome DNG files. If you shoot in monochrome DNG mode no colour information is available post production.Thanks for all your pics in B&W.
I am still trying to figure out how it switches to monochrome and are those B&W images DNG or of RAW file nature?
I don't think so. It basically knows the "filter factor" for the R, G and B filters on the individual photo cells and applies these in camera to achieve an even monochrome image. So I think the signal from the sensor is never "debayered" when shooting monochrom. Only people with a PIXII will be able to test how much more resolution this yields in practice vs. an "after the fact" B&W conversion of a debayered colour image.Thanks. So is it interpreting the color data and then converting to B&W DNG?
You only have one data point - a voltage output from the sensor. Tell me how, even in principle, you could determine the illumination level of two different colors which produce the same signal at the sensor. Even a Foveon sensor, knowing three color measurements, is subject to metamerism (yellow and blue may be filtered differently from green - we see them the same, but the sensor wouldn't).Matt,
It seems to me that if you know the color and strength of the filter and the spectral response curve of the sensor (both of which will be fixed constants), you can calculate the illumination level of the incoming light regardless of what color it might be since you can infer it from the three things you already know, and put out a reasonably accurate value to record as its monochrom value.
Sensor response at color(1) is X (constant)
Filter absorbtion at color(1) is D (constant)
Filter pass at color(1) is W (constant)
input light total luminance is R
output signal representing monochrom value is L
So for some arbitrary color light at luminance R, the sensor pixel puts out voltage G. You know the absorption (how much of which wavelengths will hit the pixel at luminance R due to D and W), and you know how much voltage X the sensor will output, so you can calculate the monochrom output luminance L from that.
Please correct me if you think this is wrong...
I haven't looked at my calculus books in three or four generations of high school students... LOL!
G