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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Leica M Monochrom

pretty brilliant. it's coming from a company dedicated to the art, and craftsmanship of photography and the camera. pretty ballsy to come out with a pure monochrome camera in this day and age, but the sentimentality totally make since. and it's probably gonna some amazing looking b&w photos coming off this cam. the m9 alone is already amazing, with it not needing to process any color and just working hard on processing a monochrome image I"m sure produces some amazing results.
 
Actually I think it is a pretty good idea. B&W + digital hasn't come as far (IMHO) as digital + colors. That has of course a lot to do with the lack of filtering to achieve the different B&W looks, too... But as a CMOS sensor is basically grayscale, why not try to optimize that and make some kind of digital refernce camera for B&W? THEN one could start teaching peeps how to achieve those looks with standard digital cams.

Just my 2c
 
Phase One has offered a 39 MP B&W digi back for a while. It's also available in an Infrared version if you REALLY miss B&W Infrared film. The huge advantage with this approach is that you are no longer interpolating an image from the BAYER pattern. Produces very sharp images.
 
Tack sharp FF B&W through Leica glass...love it + messing around with color filters takes me back to the old days in the wet lab at school :)
 
I love the idea, but it's just a little too rich for my blood.
 
When making a B&W image with a color CMOS sensor is throwing away 66% of the pixels. So in theory this thing should give incredible results. But Leica is moving so far away from what actual users, even professionals can afford. In the film days you could buy one Leica and load it with either stock. Now you have to buy a second body just for B&W. I already have an M9 and I'm really not that tempted.
 
Sam, that's not actually the case. Luma is extracted from all pixels, although predominantly the green ones. The red and blue pixels help with the resolution. I always thought RED should do a B/W camera, if only to answer that age old question: "What's black and white and red all over?" :-)

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
Sam, that's not actually the case. Luma is extracted from all pixels, although predominantly the green ones. The red and blue pixels help with the resolution. I always thought RED should do a B/W camera, if only to answer that age old question: "What's black and white and red all over?" :-)

Graeme
Click to expand...

But you shoulldn't have to make a separate camera.

Graeme... B&W Firmware... Pretty please!
 
B/W mode is Saturation=0 is it not? Adjust the RGB gains to simulate different colour filters.

Graeme
 
The Leica Mono literally removed all the colours so I guess RED could do a Scarlet with a B&W sensor?

Could be a rental from RED if anything...be nice to see what 4K cinema with a B&W only twist would be...they say its sharper too, which I guess makes sense and the ISO performance is better since a lot more light is being captured (at least thats the marketing material claims)

I say Scarlet only because an EPIC may seem a bit pointless in B&W but a 4K B&W cinema camera seems pretty awesome
 
The Leica monochrome is backward radical, against all odds, the truth is US$8,000.00 camera. Leica M9 be able to produce the same results as new Mono's, and I don't like "preset" different monochrome setups. I create my own set-ups and become my signiture look that Red Digital had established for. I'm not against Leica AG' strategy... But, yes, your own style and tastes are more important. PERIOD
 
Imran Farouk said:
be nice to see what 4K cinema with a B&W only twist would be...they say its sharper too, which I guess makes sense
Click to expand...
An 8k bayer sensor used for 4k would be as sharp as a 4k B&W, that is what the canon c300 does for 1920x1080.
 
No, that's not what the C300 does for 1920x1080. THe C300 uses a simple extraction technique averaging greens. This technique is inferior (from an aliasing and resolution) to performing a full demosaic followed by a proper downsample. The main "loss" of resolution in any camera system (and not just ones using Bayer pattern CFAs) is from the optical low pass filter. Some cameras use weaker filters than they should and allow through more aliasing, but if you want minimal aliasing you must expect a resolution loss, and actually, that's the right way to do things.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
No, that's not what the C300 does for 1920x1080. THe C300 uses a simple extraction technique averaging greens. This technique is inferior (from an aliasing and resolution) to performing a full demosaic followed by a proper downsample.
Graeme
Click to expand...
Averaging greens is what i was thinking about. They do use a 3840x2160 bayer sensor right? And i am sure you are right that debayering followed by downsampling would be an improvement. I think the end result will be very close to a stacked color sensor with full pixel coverage without optical low pass filter.
 
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