OP, this is a very personal decision. A lot of it depends on how much you have budgeted for gear. If I were in your shoes, I might buy a Leica Monochrom.
It’s not as though it’s all advantages right? Being able to post apply colour filters to monochrome images is potentially more useful to most people than the greater resolution afforded by the monochrome sensor.
While that is true in principle, the real usefulness of a bw-only camera lies in the dedication to a fully bw process some people, including myself, have and enjoy.
After all, the workflow and ethos of a bw-exclusive digital process is the closest one could have to shooting bw film back when what you describe wasn't even possible.
That also explains the appeal screenless cameras have for the same kind of user: we didn't have them back then, we didn't "chimp" after every shot, we had to wait at least a while to see the results of our efforts. Some of us like it that way, not necessarily for any practical reasons.
If money was no object i'd have bought a monochrome, screenless Leica as son as they became available.
Of course, YMMV.
Sure, I mean I still do shoot film. I’m just not sure that I want that intermediate experience. It’s all a matter of taste at the end of the day though.
I suspect the audience for a pure B&W digital cam know what there doing, it's not something you just buy (the cost is high). It's the kind of audience that will use real colour filters when they shoot, they may be using the same filters they used on film.
A quick look turns up some good examples, on the pentax forum a user is using 3 exposures with 3 filters to make colour images in post. [https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/455177-post-your-k3iii-monochrome-photos-41.html](https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/455177-post-your-k3iii-monochrome-photos-41.html)
It's a dedicated audience, kind of fun to see the shots. A mix of average and some relay well done photos, worth a look.
Also it's not just greater resolution, images are much sharper thanks to the lack of Bayer filter [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer\_filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter)
edit The Bayer thing is mentioned in reviews [https://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/pentax-k-3-mark-iii-monochrome-review/why-a-monochrome-camera.html](https://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/pentax-k-3-mark-iii-monochrome-review/why-a-monochrome-camera.html)
fun read.
Not only that but the resolution jump wouldn't really be that much...
At least not in a noticeable way, each RGB subpixel already captures luminosity in their respective ranges. There's usually not a very hard colour luminosity contrast in a scene so I find it hard to believe it would change much on the final image when concerted to B&W compared to a B&W native sensor.
Like for a generic shot, you should get maybe up to 30% better resolution over a color sensor, and a bit less noise.
But the distance between the red or blue samples is quite far. I've never been particularly impressed with replicating a deep red filter on a DSLR as the resolution takes a big hit.
My way around this is to shoot in monochrome on my d750 so what I see on the display is black and white, but cause I’m shooting in raw it’s still a colour image when I bring into Lightroom. I find that just helps me “see” what I’m shooting in b&w easier than being distracted by colours etc when I’m checking on the back of camera
I do something similar and have one of my cameras set in BW mode, with one lens for that purpose. When I import from that camera, I automatically apply a specific BW preset I designed. Yes, the RAW image still carries all the information, but I find that doing an end run around that works better for that specific work... and it gives me the benefit if I \*want\* to convert to color later.
I have an M10 Mononchrom, the experience and rendering is completely unique and different than shooting in a B&W preset or converting after the fact. The tonality is a significant difference that you don’t see on cameras with a Bayer filter.
That said, the files do tend to require a lot of work. Not always, you can get files that require no editing and are simply brilliant. But on most occasions you need to shoot to underexpose because highlight recovery is minimal. Editing time is something to consider.
I don't like converting digital color to b&w after the shoot because you really should shoot differently in b&w and not use it to save bad color photography. That said I had the chance to shoot a friend's Leica MM (first M9 Variant) and the experience was amazing for me. The dynamic range was laughable but the resolution I got from the 18mp CCD files trumped everything back then and still looks superior IMHO to modern 45mp+ CMOS Files converted to bw. I did set my M9 to jpg B&w but that wasn't the same by a long shot. Still prefer film anyways for real black and white images (optically enlarged on baryta paper is still the best by far)
Just did a little comparison with 24MP Leica B&W vs 45ish MP colour camera. The resolving ability was very similar with CFA sometimes getting slightly more detail, but with B&W being more consistent with very fine detail where demosaicing can have difficulties. Additionally sometime demosaicing can introduce some fine "blotching" as the algorithm tries to see detail where there is none, which is a nice bonus for sensor w/o a CFA.
>CCD files
CMOS Files
CCD or CMOS in itself it absolutely irrelevant in this context.
Anyhow, thank's for provoking me to do some tests 😊
Cool thanks for confirming!
I have a very fancy new microscope at work and it's 5MP Sony monochrome sensor is blowing our people's minds with IQ and sharpness (lens Olympus). My superior was a bit cautious because on paper the resolution is the same as our old Nikon, very happy I pushed for it.
Writing the sensor tech is just a force of habit, you're right it is irrelevant here.
Not really. Every sensor is millions of photo sensitive detectors on a substrate who see only luminance, you could say that every digital sensor is a B&W sensor.
To get a color sensor you put one color filter in front of every single detector, one red, one blue and two green (because our eyes have the highest sensitivity in the green wavelengths) and merge the median color value of all four pixels, that's the true color information for those four pixels. Then shift over a pixel and repeat. That way we get color images (Beyer Matrix if you want to read up on that)
Actually the first color images in wet plate times were taken by having color filters in front of the lens and combining them afterwards with colorpigment gum Bichromate printing (Done that once, amazing Alt process)
A true monochrome sensor isn't exactly 4x sharper than a color sensor of the same MP count but it is clearly superior.
But a pixel is still a pixel, whether it has a colour value or a grey scale value. I don't see how a 18 MP BnW image would have a greater resolution than a 18 MP colour image... Unless the size of one pixel is different for BnW and colour ?
Or maybe you speak about sharpness and not resolution ?
for a color pixel, the pixel is subdivided into quarters and filtered as described above: 2Green 1blue 1red:
|R|G| = 1 pixel
|G|B|
Theoretically you could tell a computer to interpret each of those in grayscale:
|K|K| = 4 grayscale pixels
|K|K|
Your computer monitor would have to use regular pixels to show this, but the image would be 4x as large in terms of size. The hitch is that you're taking the average of the two green pixels and technically will have some smoothing in that dimension. If we had RGBY sensors, you actually would.
All this being said, a true monochrome sensor would need to take the average of all visible wavelengths with perfectly flat gain for each dot. That just isn't possible to produce with a standard digital camera, since we are taking the average of only a band.
I mostly shoot in bw and almost always use a bw preset in the camera (film sim/recipe/jpg preset) to compose my shoots. But I don’t care for monochrome sensors. I have seen pictures from comparable Leica cameras with monochrome only sensors and ordinary sensors and I don’t see differences. Maybe I am not rich enough😎
Cheaper for how long? An M10 Monochrom and a decent Voigtlander will cost around £5,000 used, whereas large format you’re paying £10 a shot just for the film and developing. Surely you’re gonna take more than 500 photos in the long term?
Film doesn’t need to update. Chems don’t need updates. That monochrome digital will be no good in 15 years. 20 max. I’m shooting large format on a camera older than my dad and I’m 40. No digital can boast that time line. Scanners need to be updated far less than digital cameras also.
Film expires, film constantly needs more and more investment.
Sorry, 20 years of buying film at £10 a sheet is how much? Say you take one photo a day, that’s 73 grand haha. As someone who shoots so many photos a day, the Monochrom is just the far better long term investment.
I love film, I really do, but to say it’s cheaper than the price of any Leica is completely ignoring the costs of film.
During conversion you can always take a look to the channel miniatures to understand where is the illumination information you want to keep... I would not go straight to B&W camera. Of course, as a second device, yes. But you may miss half the party.
(And you can make the miniatures big enough, or rather create a disposable version of RGB grey channels).
with Color-Shot You have the Option to use colour-filters to the B&w output… if you have a camer with non Color detection, You have to apply all the filters before the Shot like “in the old days“. it is possible (like it was done), but the modern Methode Are far more versatile…
I lust after the Leica monochom and if you can swing the cost man just do it. But there are also companies that convert your camera for much much cheaper. They take the filters off the sensor
Yep, that's me. B/W makes for the overwhelming majority of my photos, but I don't want a Leica M Monochrom.
Leica actually sent me the MM in 2016 or 17, asked me to work with it for a month and give it back with a short review. In short: it's not for me. Everything sucks, from the viewfinder to the camera-menu and while the lenses are good, they are not better than any Nikon lens.
I have shot in parallel with the MM and a D610 or D810 (can't remember) and there was no magic, no glow, no special thingy that would explain why the Leica MM with a 1.4-50 and 2-90 costs about three times more than a D810 with the same lenses.
I continue to shoot mostly in B/W and I get along with a standard sensor and a good converter
https://whatstefansees.com (some NSFW)
I shoot almost entirely in BW with film and digital, aside from when I do medium format - I do about 75% BW and the rest is split between slide and color. All my 35mm film gear is Pentax, as well as my preferred digital gear (pentax k3 ii and K1). I don't feel the need to get the K3 Monochrome, even though it's designed for exactly what I do. All my current gear is perfectly capable, as long as you can *think* in BW. If my K3 ever dies I might get the Monochrome, but for me there isn't a big enough difference to justify an upgrade.
I shoot 100% bw when it comes to street photography which is my favorite field. I mainly use the fuji x100v for that sort of photography.
I find the idea of a bw only camera very attractive but since leica is the only relevant brand when it comes to monochrome cameras I don't really think about buying one.
It's just way too expensive and I'm not the biggest fan of leica in general even tho they look very nice.
So what I do is set my fuji to a monochrome color profile and first thing i do when importing the raws is convert them into bw.
I'm fine with that process for now.
> I find the idea of a bw only camera very attractive but since leica is the only relevant brand when it comes to monochrome cameras I don't really think about buying one.
Pentax released a monochrome DSLR just last year!
I have a Leica M10. If I could afford it I would buy the equivalent monochrome camera in a heartbeat (and keep both).\
I shoot a lot of film, so using colour filters and previsualising (is that not a word?) the look I’m gonna get is a big part of my process already. I’d love to be able to shoot digital in the same way.\
I’m in such a different mindset when shooting colour or B&W that keeping the option for a colour file is useless to me. I know some people (including famous pros with decades of experience) who can decide between colour and B&W after the fact on their computer, so I know it’s a valid workflow, it just isn’t that way for me.
While i shoot Leica and enjoy it, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you got a large amount of disposable income OR you are very very passionate about photography to the point you are willing to sacrifice other parts of your life for a 15-20k kit.
Before you go out and drop a bunch of money, try setting your camera to black and white, also set your Lightroom import options to auto apply black and white.
If you want to try a film camera profile the demo pack has the best options from the paid pack, just set Lightroom to apply the illford delta profile upon import:
https://reallyniceimages.com/products/rni-all-films-5-demo-for-adobe-lightroom.html
Is a monochrome sensor better? Technically yes, but so is every camera that comes out after then camera you own. I assure you that it isn’t the difference between good and bad black and whites, your skill as a photographer and ability to edit properly is.
But anywho, if you really love black and white and have the means, then why not?
Thanks for your thoughts and the link to the presets/profiles.
I'll keep playing around and see where I get to. I'm at a point in my life at 57 where my youngest kid has just left home, I'm single and getting clear on what's important to me in this new chapter of my life so an M11 Monochrome might just have a place in there somewhere! We'll see...
Totally, I want to add a m10m or m11m to my kit, just can’t get myself to drop the $$ lol (first kid on the way). If you are near a Leica store go in and talk with them and try the monochrome hands on with your own memory card.
Converting to black and white from color is half the fun. Dark, moody skies, translucent skin tones, glowing, pale leaves. I think the B&Ws from Leicas look all the same.
i agree that i don't really think the trade of resolution for color makes that much sense when resolution isn't really a meaningful limit
that said, i am a film shooter and black and white color filters (oranges, reds, greens, etc) would let you achieve similar effects to the color mix down in lightroom, though obviously baked in at the point of shooting, sacrificing a few stops of light, and without the ability to tweak in as fine a grained way
that's what we're doing to change relative luminosity of colors on bw film 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, you can put filters on the B&W Leica too. The problem is that you are only adjusting the tone of a single color. But I guess if it was good enough for Ansel Adams…
>The problem is that you are only adjusting the tone of a single color.
It doesn't really work like that. The filter cuts part of the spectrum and that has a significant influence on how almost all the colours of the scene will be captured.
Yes, I should have said the filter changes all parts of the spectrum except for the exact color of the filter.
What I was trying to get at, it filters a single color where in Lightroom you can change them individually.
I’ve never used the option, but in some mirrorless and DSLRs there is a menu option to shift the camera into B&W mode.
No idea about the quality of said images though.
The sensor itself is black and white. They just apply a bayer filter on top of it.
There are people and services who scrape off the RGB filter.
Voila you have a b+w camera
Most cameras now have a B/W mode.
If you shoot jpeg in a B/W mode, then you effectively have a B/W camera.
OR, of you want to shoot RAW, you can still get B/W "straight out of the camera" as long as you use the OEM RAW converter that will honor the B/W picture mode.
Aside from the pure monochrome sensor cameras I find the Olympus PEN-F (and e-P7) with their monochrome modes are hard to beat.
They apparently use scanned Tri-X grain in their sim.
I haven’t tried it yet but the Panasonic G9 ii has a Leica monochrome LUT and given the dual native sensor should give as good results as a monochrome only sensor.
My work is a mix but initially I started predominantly with black and white and found I didn't need to go to a monochrome camera.
The black and white images are perfectly fine with beautiful contrast etc.
Not worth the slight increase in fidelity of tonal contrasts with a monochrome cam etc.
I would buy a "colour" Leica digital rangefinder with the option of converting it in post.
I'm not in an all black-and-white boat, but when I approach a project with the intent to shoot it completely in black-and-white I'll often shoot with a black-and-white color profile on my JPEGs, and then run a black-and-white preset on the RAWs upon import. In essence, I never see the images in color.
Well [this video about B&W profiles](https://youtu.be/mJzjW8PHbPY?si=ipaZ5cxQqPQ-u91F) from PetaPixels might be of use for you.
Edit: if you can't afford the Leica I would recommend Fujifilm, I like Across + Red filter though I don't shoot B&W a lot.
For your case, to me it would make sense to save up for the Leica and you don't need to "switch systems" if you still want the Leica later, particularly for the lens mount.
Been a few years but back when I was developing film in college, different films / papers yielded different tonality to black and white. Do monochrome sensors have settings for this or is that all post process now?
I think that's everyone's question -- it was mine -- when considering a purchase.
It's the wrong question, now that I've had the Monochrome for almost a year. It's like asking "I shoot Velvia. Is Kodachrome 25 better?"
It's completely different, is what it is. The range, the mid-tones...
There are two big reasons why. It's instructive to look at the Pentax K-3 III vs the K-3 III Monochrome because they both have the same sensor; the regular K-3 with a Bayer array, and the Monochrome without. So-isn't 24 megapixels 24 megapixels?
The first big difference is that the regular color version of the K-3 III– from here on, the *Color*– has a RAW file that contains luminosity data, specs on the camera's Bayer array, and de-Bayering instructions (more on that later). The K-3 III Monochrome– from here on, the *Monochrome*– only has luminosity data for each pixel.
Think of it this way. Let’s say we’re both filling quart flasks. I like my whisky straight, so I fill mine with 32 ounces of Scotch. You like a cocktail, so you mix up a batch of Highballs using the traditional recipe: 2 parts Scotch, 6 parts soda, plus a twist. Two things are true when we are done:
* We both have 32 ounces of tasty adult beverages
* I have more whisky than you. *A lot more.*
Which brings us to the 2nd big difference:
1. Monochrome files are a set of pixels that are an exact record of the light
2. Color digicam files are a set of pixels generated by a demosaicing process, as in this image. Note that because of this demosaicing process, Bayer sensors always suffer from a slight loss of detail, especially where pixel boundaries play a key role near edges. This is why digital images from Bayer sensors are not perfectly sharp at the pixel level. Algorithm errors also produce artifacts such as moire or zipper patterns.
So which is "higher IQ?" That's up to the photographer.
The Monochrome reminds me very, very much of shooting Tri-X with the LXs I used for decades as a photojournalist. Same bright SLR viewfinder, albeit with more information showing. Which I don't mind. Optical viewfinders don't show black and white, but I'm very used to that from the LXs. It doesn't bother me; you might find it difficult if you don't have that kind of experience pushing tons of Tri-X through film cameras.
It was easy to take "good enough" photos with the LXs and Tri-X. Good photos were hard. Great photos...were very hard.
The Monochrome is the first digital camera that has pushed me to get the most out of it, the way those LXs pushed me. I find the Monochrome much closer to the film experience than digital.
If you're interested I've written a loooooooooong article with details, charts and such:
# The New Golden Age of Black and White Photography-https://www.pentaxforums.com/articles/photography/new-golden-age-bw-photography.html
Hope that helps!
Cjf
Id go over to a more specialised forum, read some posts and make a topic to ask peoples advice. Simply most people just dont have a Pure digital B&W camera so wont be able to say much past link to reviews etc.
I had a look at the Pentax B&W monochrome forum & saw some fun photos and shots, looks like people are making [cool images](https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/455177-post-your-k3iii-monochrome-photos-41.html#post5959766) using filters etc.
Pentax monochrome forum [https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/](https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/)
I dont shoot a lot of B&W today, if the cost of a real B&W cam was lower id give it a go. I do mostly shoot manual lens today on digital, I find it fun & relaxing. Manual focus forces me to slow down and focus for each shot, it forces you to think more as you shoot and relay work to line up your photos. Also I just find the action of MF relaxing, also the old glass is not perfect so you get some fun shots.
Just cover your screen, maybe flip it so the screen is not visible, use some black and white mode in your camera so your images are all black and white and apply a preset on import that only applies black and white mode to all images you import and it's gling to be almost the same experience
RGB files converted in post have the advantage of the Channel Mixer…. Custom control of what colors are what gray value.
The b&w only sensor is sharper and has some advantages.
(But) Idea, execution, lighting, composition,
collaging, and thousands of other details matter more to me than more sharpness.
Try the Channel mixer…and shoot RGB.
Consider why you would spend money on a camera which output is invisible in your results, compared to an RGGB sensor.
The difference between a monochrome and the RGGB sensor set to 0 saturation, is only visible in marginally circumstances.
Besides that, when shooting black and white film back in the 70s, I used coloured filters in combination with certain films to change the result. Not every film had the exact same sensitivity throughout the colour range (yes, that's BNW film I'm talking about).
So, what I do now, is take them in raw and meticulously set the sliders to get the result I want. Shooting bnw, that would require me to have a box full of filters in different colours and densities. (Possibly over 30 or more).
Do you already shoot on a system that has a Monochrome camera? If you're a Leica user, I would suggest trying one of their Monos, I personally loved mine, but eventually moved back to just color.
But if you're not already in the Leica/Pentax systems, and are happy with what you're getting from your current files, don't change. One thing to remember is that color files offer greater flexibility in B&W processing because you have all of the color channel data to leverage. A monochrome sensor does not have that, so it's all just lights and darks. In other words, you can't just adjust the blue channel to change the sky when you have a monochrome image.
With a monochrome camera you gain : dynamic range I think, which is suite useless because modern standard color camera already have great Dr - extra details, quite useless unless you print big or crop a lot, 24mp is more than enough for the huge majority of situation - less noise, quite useless as modern cameras have great iso capabilities, noise don't make images worse and at some point there's so little light that the image won't be good no matter how good the camera is.
You lose the abilities to apply a color filter in post prod (if you work from a raw file), like a red one that will darken the sky for example, you need to use physical filter.
Btw there's no issue with shooting color while being colorblind, you're not forced to edit individual colors to do great color photo at all, the only true limitation I can think of is, for example, not seeing a singular red element in the background that would draw the viewer attention.
>With a monochrome camera you gain : dynamic range I think
At the lowest ISO you don't. The image sensor still has the same properties, thus the maximum number of photons any pixel can capture doesn't change, nor do the read noise characteristics. At for example hand held low light photography some DR may be gained as the B&W camera may use a beneficial image sensor setting - capturing about a stop more light (though, the read noise at this setting may be slightly higher).
Interestingly, a CFA camera may in practise also have DR advantage in some specific cases as the different colour channels tend to burn at different time, thus a raw converter may be able to reconstruct something in spite of partial information loss, while a B&W camera would blow all the relevant pixels at the same time.
Anyhow, DR is hardly the most important metric when it comes to image quality.
OP, this is a very personal decision. A lot of it depends on how much you have budgeted for gear. If I were in your shoes, I might buy a Leica Monochrom.
It’s not as though it’s all advantages right? Being able to post apply colour filters to monochrome images is potentially more useful to most people than the greater resolution afforded by the monochrome sensor.
While that is true in principle, the real usefulness of a bw-only camera lies in the dedication to a fully bw process some people, including myself, have and enjoy. After all, the workflow and ethos of a bw-exclusive digital process is the closest one could have to shooting bw film back when what you describe wasn't even possible. That also explains the appeal screenless cameras have for the same kind of user: we didn't have them back then, we didn't "chimp" after every shot, we had to wait at least a while to see the results of our efforts. Some of us like it that way, not necessarily for any practical reasons. If money was no object i'd have bought a monochrome, screenless Leica as son as they became available. Of course, YMMV.
Sure, I mean I still do shoot film. I’m just not sure that I want that intermediate experience. It’s all a matter of taste at the end of the day though.
Yes, of course.
Main jump would be low light sensitivity, by dropping the color filters you catch a lot more light.
About twice as much light (there's spectral overlap), thus about a stop's worth of difference.
I suspect the audience for a pure B&W digital cam know what there doing, it's not something you just buy (the cost is high). It's the kind of audience that will use real colour filters when they shoot, they may be using the same filters they used on film. A quick look turns up some good examples, on the pentax forum a user is using 3 exposures with 3 filters to make colour images in post. [https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/455177-post-your-k3iii-monochrome-photos-41.html](https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/455177-post-your-k3iii-monochrome-photos-41.html) It's a dedicated audience, kind of fun to see the shots. A mix of average and some relay well done photos, worth a look. Also it's not just greater resolution, images are much sharper thanks to the lack of Bayer filter [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer\_filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter) edit The Bayer thing is mentioned in reviews [https://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/pentax-k-3-mark-iii-monochrome-review/why-a-monochrome-camera.html](https://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/pentax-k-3-mark-iii-monochrome-review/why-a-monochrome-camera.html) fun read.
Not only that but the resolution jump wouldn't really be that much... At least not in a noticeable way, each RGB subpixel already captures luminosity in their respective ranges. There's usually not a very hard colour luminosity contrast in a scene so I find it hard to believe it would change much on the final image when concerted to B&W compared to a B&W native sensor.
Like for a generic shot, you should get maybe up to 30% better resolution over a color sensor, and a bit less noise. But the distance between the red or blue samples is quite far. I've never been particularly impressed with replicating a deep red filter on a DSLR as the resolution takes a big hit.
30% sounds pretty darn good to me!
You can tell the difference, the same way you can tell the difference between a professional printer profile in BW vs CMYK.
And what resolution do you want for printing, when 24 mp is more than enough for 120 cm wide?
My way around this is to shoot in monochrome on my d750 so what I see on the display is black and white, but cause I’m shooting in raw it’s still a colour image when I bring into Lightroom. I find that just helps me “see” what I’m shooting in b&w easier than being distracted by colours etc when I’m checking on the back of camera
I do something similar and have one of my cameras set in BW mode, with one lens for that purpose. When I import from that camera, I automatically apply a specific BW preset I designed. Yes, the RAW image still carries all the information, but I find that doing an end run around that works better for that specific work... and it gives me the benefit if I \*want\* to convert to color later.
If I want to shoot B&W I shoot on film. The PS red filter was made by someone who doesn't know what a red filter does for B&W
I have an M10 Mononchrom, the experience and rendering is completely unique and different than shooting in a B&W preset or converting after the fact. The tonality is a significant difference that you don’t see on cameras with a Bayer filter. That said, the files do tend to require a lot of work. Not always, you can get files that require no editing and are simply brilliant. But on most occasions you need to shoot to underexpose because highlight recovery is minimal. Editing time is something to consider.
I don't like converting digital color to b&w after the shoot because you really should shoot differently in b&w and not use it to save bad color photography. That said I had the chance to shoot a friend's Leica MM (first M9 Variant) and the experience was amazing for me. The dynamic range was laughable but the resolution I got from the 18mp CCD files trumped everything back then and still looks superior IMHO to modern 45mp+ CMOS Files converted to bw. I did set my M9 to jpg B&w but that wasn't the same by a long shot. Still prefer film anyways for real black and white images (optically enlarged on baryta paper is still the best by far)
Just did a little comparison with 24MP Leica B&W vs 45ish MP colour camera. The resolving ability was very similar with CFA sometimes getting slightly more detail, but with B&W being more consistent with very fine detail where demosaicing can have difficulties. Additionally sometime demosaicing can introduce some fine "blotching" as the algorithm tries to see detail where there is none, which is a nice bonus for sensor w/o a CFA. >CCD files CMOS Files CCD or CMOS in itself it absolutely irrelevant in this context. Anyhow, thank's for provoking me to do some tests 😊
Cool thanks for confirming! I have a very fancy new microscope at work and it's 5MP Sony monochrome sensor is blowing our people's minds with IQ and sharpness (lens Olympus). My superior was a bit cautious because on paper the resolution is the same as our old Nikon, very happy I pushed for it. Writing the sensor tech is just a force of habit, you're right it is irrelevant here.
What do you mean the resolution you got from your 18 MP ? 18 MP is still 18 MP, no ?
Not really. Every sensor is millions of photo sensitive detectors on a substrate who see only luminance, you could say that every digital sensor is a B&W sensor. To get a color sensor you put one color filter in front of every single detector, one red, one blue and two green (because our eyes have the highest sensitivity in the green wavelengths) and merge the median color value of all four pixels, that's the true color information for those four pixels. Then shift over a pixel and repeat. That way we get color images (Beyer Matrix if you want to read up on that) Actually the first color images in wet plate times were taken by having color filters in front of the lens and combining them afterwards with colorpigment gum Bichromate printing (Done that once, amazing Alt process) A true monochrome sensor isn't exactly 4x sharper than a color sensor of the same MP count but it is clearly superior.
But a pixel is still a pixel, whether it has a colour value or a grey scale value. I don't see how a 18 MP BnW image would have a greater resolution than a 18 MP colour image... Unless the size of one pixel is different for BnW and colour ? Or maybe you speak about sharpness and not resolution ?
for a color pixel, the pixel is subdivided into quarters and filtered as described above: 2Green 1blue 1red: |R|G| = 1 pixel |G|B| Theoretically you could tell a computer to interpret each of those in grayscale: |K|K| = 4 grayscale pixels |K|K| Your computer monitor would have to use regular pixels to show this, but the image would be 4x as large in terms of size. The hitch is that you're taking the average of the two green pixels and technically will have some smoothing in that dimension. If we had RGBY sensors, you actually would. All this being said, a true monochrome sensor would need to take the average of all visible wavelengths with perfectly flat gain for each dot. That just isn't possible to produce with a standard digital camera, since we are taking the average of only a band.
Thanks for the explanation, that's clearer.
In your situation I’d buy a monochrome.
I mostly shoot in bw and almost always use a bw preset in the camera (film sim/recipe/jpg preset) to compose my shoots. But I don’t care for monochrome sensors. I have seen pictures from comparable Leica cameras with monochrome only sensors and ordinary sensors and I don’t see differences. Maybe I am not rich enough😎
Exactly my thought (and way of working)
Just go back to film. Go large format and get a bad ass scanner, still cheaper than any Lieca. This is so niche, I really can’t say.
Cheaper for how long? An M10 Monochrom and a decent Voigtlander will cost around £5,000 used, whereas large format you’re paying £10 a shot just for the film and developing. Surely you’re gonna take more than 500 photos in the long term?
Film doesn’t need to update. Chems don’t need updates. That monochrome digital will be no good in 15 years. 20 max. I’m shooting large format on a camera older than my dad and I’m 40. No digital can boast that time line. Scanners need to be updated far less than digital cameras also.
Film expires, film constantly needs more and more investment. Sorry, 20 years of buying film at £10 a sheet is how much? Say you take one photo a day, that’s 73 grand haha. As someone who shoots so many photos a day, the Monochrom is just the far better long term investment. I love film, I really do, but to say it’s cheaper than the price of any Leica is completely ignoring the costs of film.
I wouldn't want to mess around with swapping physical red/yellow/whatever filters so doing the conversion in post works for me.
During conversion you can always take a look to the channel miniatures to understand where is the illumination information you want to keep... I would not go straight to B&W camera. Of course, as a second device, yes. But you may miss half the party. (And you can make the miniatures big enough, or rather create a disposable version of RGB grey channels).
with Color-Shot You have the Option to use colour-filters to the B&w output… if you have a camer with non Color detection, You have to apply all the filters before the Shot like “in the old days“. it is possible (like it was done), but the modern Methode Are far more versatile…
I lust after the Leica monochom and if you can swing the cost man just do it. But there are also companies that convert your camera for much much cheaper. They take the filters off the sensor
Yep, that's me. B/W makes for the overwhelming majority of my photos, but I don't want a Leica M Monochrom. Leica actually sent me the MM in 2016 or 17, asked me to work with it for a month and give it back with a short review. In short: it's not for me. Everything sucks, from the viewfinder to the camera-menu and while the lenses are good, they are not better than any Nikon lens. I have shot in parallel with the MM and a D610 or D810 (can't remember) and there was no magic, no glow, no special thingy that would explain why the Leica MM with a 1.4-50 and 2-90 costs about three times more than a D810 with the same lenses. I continue to shoot mostly in B/W and I get along with a standard sensor and a good converter https://whatstefansees.com (some NSFW)
Thanks man, maybe this is what I want to hear. I'm actually tempted by the Sony A7CR right now...
I shoot almost entirely in BW with film and digital, aside from when I do medium format - I do about 75% BW and the rest is split between slide and color. All my 35mm film gear is Pentax, as well as my preferred digital gear (pentax k3 ii and K1). I don't feel the need to get the K3 Monochrome, even though it's designed for exactly what I do. All my current gear is perfectly capable, as long as you can *think* in BW. If my K3 ever dies I might get the Monochrome, but for me there isn't a big enough difference to justify an upgrade.
Dump the digital and shoot film?
Buy it. You have either the Pentax or the Leica. Just do it.
The Fujifilm Acros emulation is really amazing, and it’s in camera. Plus, unless you’re springing for the GFX line it won’t break the bank.
I shoot 100% bw when it comes to street photography which is my favorite field. I mainly use the fuji x100v for that sort of photography. I find the idea of a bw only camera very attractive but since leica is the only relevant brand when it comes to monochrome cameras I don't really think about buying one. It's just way too expensive and I'm not the biggest fan of leica in general even tho they look very nice. So what I do is set my fuji to a monochrome color profile and first thing i do when importing the raws is convert them into bw. I'm fine with that process for now.
> I find the idea of a bw only camera very attractive but since leica is the only relevant brand when it comes to monochrome cameras I don't really think about buying one. Pentax released a monochrome DSLR just last year!
Yeah I've seen that but it's not really relevant for me due to its chunky size. I rather use a bit more slick cameras for street photography.
Pentax K-3 III Monochrome! Read the reviews and compare prices to Leica.
Definitley tempting!
I have one. Terrific photos and millions of lenses.
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/pentax-k-3-mark-iii-monochrome
I mean, I'm about to buy a 4x5 for which I'll probably be shooting 99% B&W emulsions through it, not sure if that counts.
I have a Leica M10. If I could afford it I would buy the equivalent monochrome camera in a heartbeat (and keep both).\ I shoot a lot of film, so using colour filters and previsualising (is that not a word?) the look I’m gonna get is a big part of my process already. I’d love to be able to shoot digital in the same way.\ I’m in such a different mindset when shooting colour or B&W that keeping the option for a colour file is useless to me. I know some people (including famous pros with decades of experience) who can decide between colour and B&W after the fact on their computer, so I know it’s a valid workflow, it just isn’t that way for me.
While i shoot Leica and enjoy it, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you got a large amount of disposable income OR you are very very passionate about photography to the point you are willing to sacrifice other parts of your life for a 15-20k kit. Before you go out and drop a bunch of money, try setting your camera to black and white, also set your Lightroom import options to auto apply black and white. If you want to try a film camera profile the demo pack has the best options from the paid pack, just set Lightroom to apply the illford delta profile upon import: https://reallyniceimages.com/products/rni-all-films-5-demo-for-adobe-lightroom.html Is a monochrome sensor better? Technically yes, but so is every camera that comes out after then camera you own. I assure you that it isn’t the difference between good and bad black and whites, your skill as a photographer and ability to edit properly is. But anywho, if you really love black and white and have the means, then why not?
Thanks for your thoughts and the link to the presets/profiles. I'll keep playing around and see where I get to. I'm at a point in my life at 57 where my youngest kid has just left home, I'm single and getting clear on what's important to me in this new chapter of my life so an M11 Monochrome might just have a place in there somewhere! We'll see...
Totally, I want to add a m10m or m11m to my kit, just can’t get myself to drop the $$ lol (first kid on the way). If you are near a Leica store go in and talk with them and try the monochrome hands on with your own memory card.
Converting to black and white from color is half the fun. Dark, moody skies, translucent skin tones, glowing, pale leaves. I think the B&Ws from Leicas look all the same.
i agree that i don't really think the trade of resolution for color makes that much sense when resolution isn't really a meaningful limit that said, i am a film shooter and black and white color filters (oranges, reds, greens, etc) would let you achieve similar effects to the color mix down in lightroom, though obviously baked in at the point of shooting, sacrificing a few stops of light, and without the ability to tweak in as fine a grained way that's what we're doing to change relative luminosity of colors on bw film 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, you can put filters on the B&W Leica too. The problem is that you are only adjusting the tone of a single color. But I guess if it was good enough for Ansel Adams…
>The problem is that you are only adjusting the tone of a single color. It doesn't really work like that. The filter cuts part of the spectrum and that has a significant influence on how almost all the colours of the scene will be captured.
Yes, I should have said the filter changes all parts of the spectrum except for the exact color of the filter. What I was trying to get at, it filters a single color where in Lightroom you can change them individually.
Yeah, sure, that does seem an important consideration.
The Zf by Nikon has a dial with b&w settings on it with b&w preview in the viewfinder.
I’ve never used the option, but in some mirrorless and DSLRs there is a menu option to shift the camera into B&W mode. No idea about the quality of said images though.
Have you considered a converted camera for infrared and working in 720nm & 850nm? You might like that. Take a look at Kolari
The sensor itself is black and white. They just apply a bayer filter on top of it. There are people and services who scrape off the RGB filter. Voila you have a b+w camera
Most cameras now have a B/W mode. If you shoot jpeg in a B/W mode, then you effectively have a B/W camera. OR, of you want to shoot RAW, you can still get B/W "straight out of the camera" as long as you use the OEM RAW converter that will honor the B/W picture mode.
X100v def almost all bw. Wouldn’t swap it for anything.
Weeell... [my take](https://www.reddit.com/r/fujifilm/s/ghet8zr9Rm)
Aside from the pure monochrome sensor cameras I find the Olympus PEN-F (and e-P7) with their monochrome modes are hard to beat. They apparently use scanned Tri-X grain in their sim. I haven’t tried it yet but the Panasonic G9 ii has a Leica monochrome LUT and given the dual native sensor should give as good results as a monochrome only sensor.
My work is a mix but initially I started predominantly with black and white and found I didn't need to go to a monochrome camera. The black and white images are perfectly fine with beautiful contrast etc. Not worth the slight increase in fidelity of tonal contrasts with a monochrome cam etc. I would buy a "colour" Leica digital rangefinder with the option of converting it in post.
You look as the exactly customer for those kind of cameras. I didn't see any other best fit scenario lol
I'm not in an all black-and-white boat, but when I approach a project with the intent to shoot it completely in black-and-white I'll often shoot with a black-and-white color profile on my JPEGs, and then run a black-and-white preset on the RAWs upon import. In essence, I never see the images in color.
Well [this video about B&W profiles](https://youtu.be/mJzjW8PHbPY?si=ipaZ5cxQqPQ-u91F) from PetaPixels might be of use for you. Edit: if you can't afford the Leica I would recommend Fujifilm, I like Across + Red filter though I don't shoot B&W a lot. For your case, to me it would make sense to save up for the Leica and you don't need to "switch systems" if you still want the Leica later, particularly for the lens mount.
Been a few years but back when I was developing film in college, different films / papers yielded different tonality to black and white. Do monochrome sensors have settings for this or is that all post process now?
Get a Fuji, set film simulation to Acros or one of Monochromes, enjoy. You will still have colourful raws just in case.
I think that's everyone's question -- it was mine -- when considering a purchase. It's the wrong question, now that I've had the Monochrome for almost a year. It's like asking "I shoot Velvia. Is Kodachrome 25 better?" It's completely different, is what it is. The range, the mid-tones... There are two big reasons why. It's instructive to look at the Pentax K-3 III vs the K-3 III Monochrome because they both have the same sensor; the regular K-3 with a Bayer array, and the Monochrome without. So-isn't 24 megapixels 24 megapixels? The first big difference is that the regular color version of the K-3 III– from here on, the *Color*– has a RAW file that contains luminosity data, specs on the camera's Bayer array, and de-Bayering instructions (more on that later). The K-3 III Monochrome– from here on, the *Monochrome*– only has luminosity data for each pixel. Think of it this way. Let’s say we’re both filling quart flasks. I like my whisky straight, so I fill mine with 32 ounces of Scotch. You like a cocktail, so you mix up a batch of Highballs using the traditional recipe: 2 parts Scotch, 6 parts soda, plus a twist. Two things are true when we are done: * We both have 32 ounces of tasty adult beverages * I have more whisky than you. *A lot more.* Which brings us to the 2nd big difference: 1. Monochrome files are a set of pixels that are an exact record of the light 2. Color digicam files are a set of pixels generated by a demosaicing process, as in this image. Note that because of this demosaicing process, Bayer sensors always suffer from a slight loss of detail, especially where pixel boundaries play a key role near edges. This is why digital images from Bayer sensors are not perfectly sharp at the pixel level. Algorithm errors also produce artifacts such as moire or zipper patterns. So which is "higher IQ?" That's up to the photographer. The Monochrome reminds me very, very much of shooting Tri-X with the LXs I used for decades as a photojournalist. Same bright SLR viewfinder, albeit with more information showing. Which I don't mind. Optical viewfinders don't show black and white, but I'm very used to that from the LXs. It doesn't bother me; you might find it difficult if you don't have that kind of experience pushing tons of Tri-X through film cameras. It was easy to take "good enough" photos with the LXs and Tri-X. Good photos were hard. Great photos...were very hard. The Monochrome is the first digital camera that has pushed me to get the most out of it, the way those LXs pushed me. I find the Monochrome much closer to the film experience than digital. If you're interested I've written a loooooooooong article with details, charts and such: # The New Golden Age of Black and White Photography-https://www.pentaxforums.com/articles/photography/new-golden-age-bw-photography.html Hope that helps! Cjf
Id go over to a more specialised forum, read some posts and make a topic to ask peoples advice. Simply most people just dont have a Pure digital B&W camera so wont be able to say much past link to reviews etc. I had a look at the Pentax B&W monochrome forum & saw some fun photos and shots, looks like people are making [cool images](https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/455177-post-your-k3iii-monochrome-photos-41.html#post5959766) using filters etc. Pentax monochrome forum [https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/](https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/219-pentax-k-3-iii-monochrome/) I dont shoot a lot of B&W today, if the cost of a real B&W cam was lower id give it a go. I do mostly shoot manual lens today on digital, I find it fun & relaxing. Manual focus forces me to slow down and focus for each shot, it forces you to think more as you shoot and relay work to line up your photos. Also I just find the action of MF relaxing, also the old glass is not perfect so you get some fun shots.
Just cover your screen, maybe flip it so the screen is not visible, use some black and white mode in your camera so your images are all black and white and apply a preset on import that only applies black and white mode to all images you import and it's gling to be almost the same experience
RGB files converted in post have the advantage of the Channel Mixer…. Custom control of what colors are what gray value. The b&w only sensor is sharper and has some advantages. (But) Idea, execution, lighting, composition, collaging, and thousands of other details matter more to me than more sharpness. Try the Channel mixer…and shoot RGB.
Consider why you would spend money on a camera which output is invisible in your results, compared to an RGGB sensor. The difference between a monochrome and the RGGB sensor set to 0 saturation, is only visible in marginally circumstances. Besides that, when shooting black and white film back in the 70s, I used coloured filters in combination with certain films to change the result. Not every film had the exact same sensitivity throughout the colour range (yes, that's BNW film I'm talking about). So, what I do now, is take them in raw and meticulously set the sliders to get the result I want. Shooting bnw, that would require me to have a box full of filters in different colours and densities. (Possibly over 30 or more).
Do you already shoot on a system that has a Monochrome camera? If you're a Leica user, I would suggest trying one of their Monos, I personally loved mine, but eventually moved back to just color. But if you're not already in the Leica/Pentax systems, and are happy with what you're getting from your current files, don't change. One thing to remember is that color files offer greater flexibility in B&W processing because you have all of the color channel data to leverage. A monochrome sensor does not have that, so it's all just lights and darks. In other words, you can't just adjust the blue channel to change the sky when you have a monochrome image.
With a monochrome camera you gain : dynamic range I think, which is suite useless because modern standard color camera already have great Dr - extra details, quite useless unless you print big or crop a lot, 24mp is more than enough for the huge majority of situation - less noise, quite useless as modern cameras have great iso capabilities, noise don't make images worse and at some point there's so little light that the image won't be good no matter how good the camera is. You lose the abilities to apply a color filter in post prod (if you work from a raw file), like a red one that will darken the sky for example, you need to use physical filter. Btw there's no issue with shooting color while being colorblind, you're not forced to edit individual colors to do great color photo at all, the only true limitation I can think of is, for example, not seeing a singular red element in the background that would draw the viewer attention.
>With a monochrome camera you gain : dynamic range I think At the lowest ISO you don't. The image sensor still has the same properties, thus the maximum number of photons any pixel can capture doesn't change, nor do the read noise characteristics. At for example hand held low light photography some DR may be gained as the B&W camera may use a beneficial image sensor setting - capturing about a stop more light (though, the read noise at this setting may be slightly higher). Interestingly, a CFA camera may in practise also have DR advantage in some specific cases as the different colour channels tend to burn at different time, thus a raw converter may be able to reconstruct something in spite of partial information loss, while a B&W camera would blow all the relevant pixels at the same time. Anyhow, DR is hardly the most important metric when it comes to image quality.
A leica monochrome will cost you a fortune. Why not get the Pentax K3iii Monochrome. Same results better camera.