M Monochrom . . . . it's not a review folks

[Vivek]

Maybe an M10 in half a year permits similar images?
K-H.

If it is a monochrome camera. I know it is difficult for people to accept that a monochrome camera is better in some aspects (all to do with IQ, tones) than a regular color one but that isn't the case at all.

Edit: BTW, even if a color camera is physically converted (as Maxmax do to a couple of Canon DSLRs), the M9M is still a cut above them in that the Leica camera (sensor) has still has microlenses and no Bayer. The de-Bayering (of a regular color sensor) results in the loss of the microlens array and hence the sensitivity would be a bit below that of the M9M's sensor.

 

[k-hawinkler]

If it is a monochrome camera. I know it is difficult for people to accept that a monochrome camera is better in some aspects (all to do with IQ, tones) than a regular color one but that isn't the case at all.

Hi Vivek,

I am not getting my point across. Sorry.

Let's assume an M10 matches or exceeds a D800/E in resolution, dynamic range, and high ISO. Then one could produce B&W images as usually done on DSLRs or M9s, namely using filters etc after the fact.

Of course, with the MM one has to work differently.

My previous post wasn't concerned with the process, but only the end result achievable.

Best, K-H.

 

[Vivek]

Hi K-H, Mine was also directly towards the end results.

As I mentioned, the tonal range I see from a tiny NMOS sensor is difficult to achieve with something with higher resolution (more pixels), high S/N ratio and such.

I am sure there will be endless "comparison" threads :watch:

[FWIW, they do not do much for me ]

 

[rayyan]

An interesting camera. And I wish it success.

If I like film..I should use film!! If I am thirsty I should get a drink. Yes, of course. If I like digital, use a digital camera.!!

But why include Nik Silver Efex software. And prominently advertise its inclusion on the Leica site.

Why also the reference to the effect that with a push of a button..zing.. one can get the tonalities..sepia etc. The darkroom.

Why do I need Nik b&w emulation software, if I have a monochrome camera.?

Could it be that the ' look and feel ' that we have become accustomed to over decades of b&w film is still so strong that digital ( however advanced )
leaves us wanting.

There is a nagging feeling that one could use an M9 and say Nik software and
get similar results ( or better even ) than from raw M Monochrom.

This is just me think out aloud. And I realize film and digital are two different
mediums. But..

 

[Vivek]

Why do I need Nik b&w emulation software, if I have a monochrome camera.?

Could it be that the ' look and feel ' that we have become accustomed to over decades of b&w film is still so strong that digital ( however advanced )
leaves us wanting.

There is a nagging feeling that one could use an M9 and say Nik software and
get similar results ( or better even ) than from raw M Monochrom.

Rayyan, It is a monochrome camera with vestiges of the regular color camera in terms of processing. The single significant advantage here is for the buyer. If it had been a true monochrome camera and outputted only grey instead of RGB, there is no need for Nik pluggins but it would end up costing 3 times! Another advantage is the use of software filters in the post than real optical filters at the moment of the capture (realistically how many Leica or other users would be carrying a host of filters and keep swapping them according to the situation? In fact, I see very few "old school" filter usage among the current film shooters. Not many even know much about filter factors and such mundane things, let alone which color filter affects the tonality in what way.).

I am sure there will be many comparison threads and blogs about that M9 + Nik software = M9M. It will be loads of fun to read/discuss.

 

[rayyan]

Vivek, thanks again. But price has never been a factor for Leica. A 50mm f/2 for US$7,000.00.

Re: filters; I carry quite a few. uv/ir, uv,gnd, nd and on the nikon a variable nd, polarizing etc. Even Leica themselves allude to the use of the usual b&w filters ( R,O.Y) in their literature.

I think with a base iso of 320 and fast lenses one might need nd filters if one wants to shoot wide open.

I do appreciate what you are saying. And also agree with you that there shall be quite a few comparisons in the coming days with M9 + conversion vs M Monochrom.

I shall eagerly await such comparisons. Then there is the prospect of the M10
in Sept. There are questions that I believe shall be gradually answered in time.

Thank you once again for your response.

 

[woodyspedden]

I have to say I love how different everyone's perspective is! Personally, I love color film in an M camera -- the m lenses have fantastic color, they really sing with slide film. That said, I will shoot black and white film with them as well, perhaps even more often. And I don't think the M cameras are only street cameras -- I use them for all sorts of things, as do many others. Nor is everyone is truly interested in photographing the human condition, as Marc put it. My own street photography stems from an interest of the interplay of light, architecture and people who are more compositional elements than representatives of a well-defined emotional state. When I am photographing people, it is almost exclusively people who I know and care about. We all have our interests, and we will grab the tools that seem to serve them best...it's quite nice to know that we use the tools to make different things.
In terms of the M9M, it seems superb for people who exclusively shoot black and white. Personally, I like the option to do both, but I would of course love to have one body to do B&W and one for color, but at 8000 it is not in the cards. That said, it does not seem THAT extreme compared to the regular M9P, not to mention the Noctilux or new summicron. I would rather have an M9M rather than a noctilux or 50mm summicron asph any day!

I second what you say here Stuart and furthermore, I love using Lightroom to convert to B&W and being able to vary the saturation of the individual colors in the conversion to get as many effects as I have imagination.

This is not to demean the MM, only to say I find advantages to converting. However the ability to get the dynamic range and high ISO available from the MM is unique, and probably ultimately compelling

Woody Spedden

 

[CharlesK]

Jono, thanks again for these excellent examples! Love the seascape shot, and the detail of the wooden door. The seascape shot to my eyes, looks very much the depth, I remember with silver halide prints.
I don't feel, there is a need to emulate film, but it may well be possible to improve the depth and rendering to the B&W media with this new sensor concept. The weakest link will be computer monitors, and really the seeing the IQ on a fine art print will be the test
As Marc, has suggested, I love the thought of low light, nite street photography, and being able to truly use ISO 3200 to 8000 with full tonality would be great, even with the lux's and nocti's!
Again, I would to try out some raw DNG files myself also, and see how malleable they are, and what they look in large prints.

Personally, I love B&W, and should the M-M specs stack up, I would have this as my backup to the M9-P. This would be a great combo. Even if the M10 is announced in Photokina, I suspect the M10 will not be available until Jan or Feb next year.

 

[m_driscoll]

Jono, thanks again for these excellent examples! Love the seascape shot, and the detail of the wooden door. The seascape shot to my eyes, looks very much the depth, I remember with silver halide prints.
I don't feel, there is a need to emulate film, but it may well be possible to improve the depth and rendering to the B&W media with this new sensor concept. The weakest link will be computer monitors, and really the seeing the IQ on a fine art print will be the test
As Marc, has suggested, I love the thought of low light, nite street photography, and being able to truly use ISO 3200 to 8000 with full tonality would be great, even with the lux's and nocti's!
Again, I would to try out some raw DNG files myself also, and see how malleable they are, and what they look in large prints.

Personally, I love B&W, and should the M-M specs stack up, I would have this as my backup to the M9-P. This would be a great combo. Even if the M10 is announced in Photokina, I suspect the M10 will not be available until Jan or Feb next year.

Charles: +1. I'm also concerned that the M10 sounds like it's going a little mainstream - CMOS Sensor/HD video/24 hour concierge service/etc.!

Cheers, Matt

Zenfolio | Matt Driscoll

 

[GrahamWelland]

I'm more concerned that Leica will be insanely proud of their M10 and hence will jack up the price significantly compared to the M9-P or Monochrom. The current supply & demand with Leica products suggests that they could basically charge whatever they want these days if the newer lenses are anything to go by.

 

[fotografz]

An interesting camera. And I wish it success.

If I like film..I should use film!! If I am thirsty I should get a drink. Yes, of course. If I like digital, use a digital camera.!!

But why include Nik Silver Efex software. And prominently advertise its inclusion on the Leica site.

Why also the reference to the effect that with a push of a button..zing.. one can get the tonalities..sepia etc. The darkroom.

Why do I need Nik b&w emulation software, if I have a monochrome camera.?

Could it be that the ' look and feel ' that we have become accustomed to over decades of b&w film is still so strong that digital ( however advanced )
leaves us wanting.

There is a nagging feeling that one could use an M9 and say Nik software and
get similar results ( or better even ) than from raw M Monochrom.

This is just me think out aloud. And I realize film and digital are two different
mediums. But..

I fear that the point of this camera is still being over-looked.

It is dedicated to the B&W aesthetic, and happens to be digital. It makes no claim to supplant film as a medium of expression. It is its own form of expression.

That Nik Silver Efex Pro-2 is supplied simply provides a powerful processing program also dedicated to the B&W aesthetic.

Only part of Nik is designed to mimic the response of various film emulsions ... which is not mandatory to produce effective variations in B&W digital imagery. It's there IF you find that using one of the film types delivers what you want for any given lighting or creative scenario. Personally, I rarely use the film presets, and If I do, I alter it with all the adjustment tools ... which include very sophisticated and highly controllable local adjustments.

Why you need Nik is like asking why one needs all the various tools and processing protocols for individual creative expression in the film darkroom.

Then the other aspect of this camera compared to either the M9 or film based Ms ... it shoots at higher ISOs than the M9, and seems to do it well ... film Ms have a top shutter speed of 1/1000 compared to 1/4000 and you cannot change the ISO from 400 to 10,000 in 2 seconds.

Whether that fits one's desires, or is worth the money is a personal question no one else can answer.

-Marc

 

[rayyan]

Marc, I agree with all that you say.

I guess for someone like myself, at the bottom of the food chain, it becomes
Very important to decide if and whether ' b&w aesthetic ' offered by this digital
Form of expression cannot be derived from the existing digital forms of expressive cameras.

Maybe I am just trying to find an excuse to avoid buying this and it indeed is
Better than I would expect it to be.

Best regards.

I fear that the point of this camera is still being over-looked.

It is dedicated to the B&W aesthetic, and happens to be digital. It makes no claim to supplant film as a medium of expression. It is its own form of expression.

That Nik Silver Efex Pro-2 is supplied simply provides a powerful processing program also dedicated to the B&W aesthetic.

Only part of Nik is designed to mimic the response of various film emulsions ... which is not mandatory to produce effective variations in B&W digital imagery. It's there IF you find that using one of the film types delivers what you want for any given lighting or creative scenario. Personally, I rarely use the film presets, and If I do, I alter it with all the adjustment tools ... which include very sophisticated and highly controllable local adjustments.

Why you need Nik is like asking why one needs all the various tools and processing protocols for individual creative expression in the film darkroom.

Then the other aspect of this camera compared to either the M9 or film based Ms ... it shoots at higher ISOs than the M9, and seems to do it well ... film Ms have a top shutter speed of 1/1000 compared to 1/4000 and you cannot change the ISO from 400 to 10,000 in 2 seconds.

Whether that fits one's desires, or is worth the money is a personal question no one else can answer.

-Marc

 

[fotografz]

Marc, I agree with all that you say.

I guess for someone like myself, at the bottom of the food chain, it becomes
Very important to decide if and whether ' b&w aesthetic ' offered by this digital
Form of expression cannot be derived from the existing digital forms of expressive cameras.

Maybe I am just trying to find an excuse to avoid buying this and it indeed is
Better than I would expect it to be.

Best regards.

Well, with all the new items ravishing one's wallet, finances get to be a very serious part of the equation no matter what.

I'm actually in the same place as you are, and wonder the same thing in terms of using what I have, and slogging onward with conversions.

However, while the B&W thing is quite a draw, the higher ISO is even more so when comparing a M9 to this MM. If this camera topped out at ISO 1250 it would be an easy thing to just ignore it. :banghead:

-Marc

 

[Vivek]

I guess for someone like myself, at the bottom of the food chain, it becomes
Very important to decide if and whether ' b&w aesthetic ' offered by this digital
Form of expression cannot be derived from the existing digital forms of expressive cameras.

Well, with all the new items ravishing one's wallet, finances get to be a very serious part of the equation no matter what.

I'm actually in the same place as you are, and wonder the same thing in terms of using what I have, and slogging onward with conversions.

However, while the B&W thing is quite a draw, the higher ISO is even more so when comparing a M9 to this MM. If this camera topped out at ISO 1250 it would be an easy thing to just ignore it. :banghead:

-Marc

This is exactly what I meant in another contentious thread talking about the "relevance" of a particular brand in present day photography.

This exactly why I praised Steve Huff's writing on Leica.

I guess the 50 AA Summicron is out of the equation?

 

[rayyan]

....

I guess the 50 AA Summicron is out of the equation?

For me, and for photographic purposes, it would appear so. For the time being
anyway!

 

[Vivek]

Yeah, I am looking to see if I have any spare cash laying around along with a set of soft cotton gloves and a humidor.

 

[fotografz]

Yeah, I am looking to see if I have any spare cash laying around along with a set of soft cotton gloves and a humidor.

Humidor .... :ROTFL:

-Marc

 

[Brian S]

Too Funny. The last piece of image processing code that I used with a Monochrome Digital camera was a piece of code that I wrote in FORTRAN and assembly. Uncompressed RAW image file formats are straight-forward to figure out and to work with. Want it to look a certain way, just write some code. My wife had me do a lot of image processing algorithms for her monochrome microscope camera as well. Interesting "Honey-Do" list, usually involving Fourier transforms and scene segmentation.

That's probably the driver for me to get this camera.

 

[D&A]

I fear that the point of this camera is still being over-looked.

It is dedicated to the B&W aesthetic, and happens to be digital. It makes no claim to supplant film as a medium of expression. It is its own form of expression.

That Nik Silver Efex Pro-2 is supplied simply provides a powerful processing program also dedicated to the B&W aesthetic.

Only part of Nik is designed to mimic the response of various film emulsions ... which is not mandatory to produce effective variations in B&W digital imagery. It's there IF you find that using one of the film types delivers what you want for any given lighting or creative scenario.

Why you need Nik is like asking why one needs all the various tools and processing protocols for individual creative expression in the film darkroom.

-Marc

Hi Mark,

While considering some of your statements (reproduced out of context above), two questions came to mind.

What if the same scene was photographed simutaniously with both the M9 and M9M (same lens of course) at low and similar ISO. Exposure settings on each camera were set so the resulting respective RAW images from both cameras were set in order to obtain as similar a looking RAW file as possible when opened in the same RAW converter

Now assuming we try adjusting these two files, so that each image looks as close to the other and then bring them into the same post processing softeware such as Photoshop.

Understanding the look of the two resulting images will greatly depend on the lighting and tonality of the elements being photographed as well as many other image parameters....

1. How close or different will these two images appear and what might be the differences?

My second question is for me maybe the more important one and that is...

2. Assuming there are moderatly significant differences seen, say in the tonality of each image, if an identical Nik preset is chosen to be applied to each image, will the resulting two images keep their repsective differences or somehow do the algorithms contained and used within a Nik preset, overide to a degree those differences when elmulating say a given film setting, and the two resulting images (after Nik), loose their individuality to a greater degree?

Dave (D&A)

 

[ptomsu]

Well, with all the new items ravishing one's wallet, finances get to be a very serious part of the equation no matter what.

I'm actually in the same place as you are, and wonder the same thing in terms of using what I have, and slogging onward with conversions.

However, while the B&W thing is quite a draw, the higher ISO is even more so when comparing a M9 to this MM. If this camera topped out at ISO 1250 it would be an easy thing to just ignore it. :banghead:

-Marc

Same considerations from my side! I actually am pretty sure that for my needs (level of expected IQ) the M9 would do already more than enough WRT B&W.

What I cannot get out of my head is the new 2/50 AA. Because this seems to be a really great step forward, also in consideration with an upcoming M10 and higher resolution. So this lens would make me again concentrate on the really important things in photography, while delivering the most natural angle of view at a hard to beat IQ, low weight and in combination with a hopefully better high ISO in the upcoming M10 make faster primes pretty much less important.

Not sure if I can resist this new Summicron

Pretty sure I can resist the M9M