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!

Leica Monochrom vs Nikon Z7

jdphoto

Well-known member
More than just emulating B/W, it comes down to Leica M lenses and whether the Z7 can make use of them in a meaningful way. The M is very tricky with highlights even when one takes care to preserve them. A 3 stop ND or more is your best friend in good light. Good technique rewards you with sumptuous tonality and clarity up to a certain size. An important benefit of the Z7 is that the MF and composition are taken right from the sensor with peaking and zooming. Especially, the 50mm Lux at f/1.4. The 28 Elmarit surprised me the most because my expectations we not too high, but from my quick, unscientific, pixel peeping opinion...it looks great.
However, the M is a Leica. The source of an impassioned, sometimes unreasonable connection to its film heritage. There's no denying that emotional connection, something I don't think any camera manufacture has achieved.
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
A couple of thoughts raised by Stuart’s post:

One is just a technical point about Leica M lenses on A7r2 and probably other FF mirrorless bodies: The Tri-Elmars, MATE & WATE, cover the 42mm sensor with no difficulty, because they’re retrofocus lenses. So you have 6 useful focal lengths from 16 to 50mm before you get to 75mm.

The second is a question, or maybe just a matter of taste: I’d never print BW images in 100x150cm (40x60”) format, and I wonder who else would be interested in that? I’ve never printed BW as large as color, and my BW Piezo printer is deliberately a size smaller than my color printer. In galleries and museums, BW prints haven’t blossomed to the ‘corporate board room’ size of so many color exhibits. The only exceptions I recall are Salgado’s. So I don’t think 40x60” resolution is a particularly important parameter for judging usefulness of Nikon/Sony/MF sensors for BW.

Just my two cents,

Kirk
Hi Kirk,

My suggestion was not that anyone need print that big, in fact I advised against it for the M Monochrome. My only point was that the superiority of BW only sensor is primarily when compared to cameras of similar resolution. If you compare it to higher resolution cameras, it does not hold up as well. The person I was making the print for is a very talented artist, and it was a museum show. I think often artists are faced with filling quite large spaces during solo shows, and one way to address it is by printing larger as opposed to printing many smaller prints. For example, I printed a show here for the national museum last year which was 12 108x135 prints, 21 40x50cm prints, a 100x80, 7 50x60s a few more smaller prints...this was all for a single large room. All of it was work from a single project made in a few months. In order to fill the room without making it feel empty or crammed with massive numbers of prints, it can help to have a smaller number of larger prints. There can also be the issue of trying to show only the strongest work, and having good editing for a project, as opposed to filling the space with lots of smaller, lesser works that dilute the quality of the show overall. In this way, a solo show at a good museum or gallery can be a bit of a trap, as you need a lot of excellent work to fill it up. Some fantastic projects might be suited to fewer images...size is one way of addressing this issue.

As for a difference in size between black and white and color prints, I have not really noticed it, to be honest, but it could be a difference in whom we are looking at. Even though I talk about large prints a lot, it is certainly not something I think is necessary or even always good. I love Robert Adams, for example, and his prints are often quite small. On the large side, however, I love Awoiska van der Molen's works which are often displayed as huge black and white analog prints, or for example some of Taiyo Onorato and Nico Kreb's works. Not so familiar with the boardroom stuff as the market for that is not so big here, and I am not often in one, for better or for worse!

As for the Sony's for the Leica's for M lenses, I agree that at smaller sizes it is likely not an issue. I know that for my own work, I tried the M lenses on my Sony's and did not like either the handling or the results compared to an M, with the exception being the 90mm and 135mm lenses, which I really liked. I do not have the Tri-Elmars, so I cannot speak to them, but since they are retrofocal I have no doubt they are much more usable. The lenses I was mostly using were the 35mm and 50mm summilux asph lenses, neither of which did so well.
 
Last edited:

jdphoto

Well-known member
Since retrofocal lenses work best on mirrorless cameras. Which Leica M lenses are of retrofocal design?
 

jdphoto

Well-known member
We invited a couple of LDS missionaries over for dinner, so I made sure to get some portraits. One is with the Leica Monochrom (CCD) w/50mm Lux (11 856) and the other with the Z7 same lens. Obviously, different apertures, one @ f/2.0 and the other @ f/4.8
 
Last edited:

jdphoto

Well-known member
Here's a few more comparisons...Obviously, nothing scientific, just for fun. The light is different and as a result one has a bit more contrast. These were taken about 10 days apart.
 

Auni

Member
One is just a technical point about Leica M lenses on A7r2 and probably other FF mirrorless bodies: The Tri-Elmars, MATE & WATE, cover the 42mm sensor with no difficulty, because they’re retrofocus lenses. So you have 6 useful focal lengths from 16 to 50mm before you get to 75mm.


Just my two cents,

Kirk
Technically, you have 3 focal lengths on the MATE and infinite FLs on the WATE. Zoom zoom...
 
Top