Freakscene
Obscure member
You’re welcome. Thanks for looking and the feedback.You've posted some lovely photos! Thank you!
I don't need a sophisticated metering system that does scene evaluation or weights the readings. I need a simple metering system with a clearly defined pattern and accuracy, that's all. I can do the weighting in my head and make adjustments as long as I trust the values that the meter provides. I discovered this ages ago ... I do better with limited area or heavily center-weighted metering than with any evaluative system.
In fact, I'd have to say I always get my best exposures when I use an incident light meter or 1° spot meter for tele work...
G
"Just the facts, camera. Thank you."
I could write an essay on this, but for me, the metering in the MM, 246 and M10M are ok at best. I would never accuse them of being good. The asymmetrical pattern often works badly, the cell is more UV and IR sensitive than the sensor, the algorithms in AE are a poor match for a lot of real world situations and their base idea of exposure placement relative to scene luminance is off.
I’ve taken maybe 100,000 frames with the Leicas, so I’ve got used to it. But I still lose some shots that I take in a hurry to poor exposure because the camera does some thing weird. Amusingly that basically never happened with film after I worked it out. But with the Pentax I just turned it on, pointed it and the camera got it pretty much right. The M11M is about halfway between the Pentax and the earlier Leicas. Metering off the sensor helps. All my hand held meters are still calibrated for film; I found them inconsistent in a number of ways with digital exposure/metering so I’ve never used them habitually.
But that’s all off my original point. Once you learn how the cameras do expose, you avoid highlight clipping except where unavoidable, and go for it. You can basically forget about the shadows - they will be there when you go looking. The better the metering the easier you can get there with avoiding clipping was my point.
Marty
Last edited:
cboy
Well-known
Great to see your also in my neck of the woods shooting street! Found Sydneysiders aren't always keen on being photographed and like their privacy in public.lol (if ever that's such a thing)
IMO the only reason I'd wouldn't go with a dedicated monochrome, which I had dabbled the thought of, is it's inflexibility in post. It's difficult to tweak and push and pull tones without colour channels HSL. This all must be done on camera and with filters using a monochrome. And when it's not the perfect scene the monochrome image seems somewhat flat. Also there's some focus shift with the red filter when using the rangefinder.
Other than that the tones and iso advantage its amazing
mfunnell
Shaken, so blurred
I have to confess that the "shooting street" part of this is almost an accident. What I set out to do was to take some photos deliberately made with intent for later B&W conversion, to see if my "eye" was in for that, and to see if my conversion skills were up to scratch (by my standards, if by nobody else's). But I also wanted to double-check this with some non-photographer friends, so figured there needed to be something at least vaguely interesting about the shots: non-photographers being unlikely to pay much attention to photos of brick walls and such, no matter how subtle the greyscale tones might (or might not) be 😂
Then a couple of things happened. One is the whole questioning of whether I really want to go down the path of a dedicated monochrome camera at all: to my tastes and standards, I think I'm probably getting what I want when converting from colour; and prompted by comments here and elsewhere I've been thinking some more on the restrictions imposed on post-processing when there's no colour information in the shot (for example to provide contrast to separate tones of similar luminosity but different colour by emphasising and de-emphasising particular colours during conversion). As with everything, there are always trade-offs - I just need to figure out what's important to me within this set.
Another thing that happened is that by just trying to take a couple of shots to practice converting each day, I've inadvertently started something of "a series" of related photographs: all in my local area, all in B&W, all including my bicycle somewhere in the frame (even though the photo which started me off only had the "B&W" bit). I'm not sure if I'll continue that or not. 🤷♂️ In any event, I've collected my "test conversion" shots here:
Testing B&W conversion
Some "test shots" playing with converting digital to B&W. I'm contemplating whether or not to buy a monochrome-only digital camera but haven't (yet) reached any firm conclusion.
www.flickr.com
Even one of my shots, today to show the camera I've been using (a converted RAW from my iPhone) has my bike in the background:
The final oddity is that I've been using my old and quirky (to put it mildly) Canon G1X (the old, original, mark I version) for most of this, simply because I don't want to be bouncing my M type 240 around my bike pannier, because of fears for rangefinder alignment etc. Which has reminded me that for all its (many, many) foibles and restrictions, it has some advantages as well. The main one being that I can compose and shoot from waist-level using the flip-out screen, as well as use the (somewhat restrictive) optical eye-level finder. At waist-level, I'm just an old guy looking at the screen of an strange and old-fashioned camera - not someone obviously taking photos. That's something nobody has fussed about (at least not so far). Sure, I could use an older SLR, but that somehow didn't seem to be "in the right spirit" for this. I could also use my X-Pro1 (and I might) - but I've forgotten how to use the thing, and it has 'forgotten' all the custom settings I'd made to make it behave the way I want but barely remember (I'll have to correct that). Neither would have that waist-level advantage, though.
Anyway: thanks - and I've probably carried on long enough...
...Mike
mfunnell
Shaken, so blurred
As September comes to a close (even though it's not quite there yet) I'm drawing a line under this: whatever else happens I've decided I'm not going to be buying a dedicated monochrome-only camera. Not because I think such cameras are bad cameras, nor because I think that kind of a camera is a bad idea - just because I don't think they'll work for me (YMMV). For anyone interested (🤭) I'll give some reasons down the end of what's likely to be an overly-long post.
Despite deciding 'not', I have found this to have been a very valuable exercise (you can see the photos I took during my exercise in the Flickr album linked in post #43 above, which I'll stop updating).
The value I found came in many parts:
What do I think I've learned from all this?
One thing (and I kind-of already knew it) is that some photos work well in colour, some work well in black and white, and that you (well, really it's me) have to take the photo with intent for one or the other. Thinking "I'll decide later" often produces something that's neither Arthur nor Martha and often (and deservedly) hits the reject list.
Another is that, for me, it's harder to take an OK photo in B&W than it is to take an OK colour photo. Of course, taking a good photo of any kind is a lot harder: but I find myself paying more attention when I'm aiming for B&W. That can only be a good thing, right? (I just have to bring that back to colour photography as well.)
As far as my 50mm lenses go:
As an example, this shot:
.. is nothing much. Just a simple photo-of-record, for some construction down the street from me (one McMansion knocked down, to be replaced by what I assume will be another McMansion).
But: as it happens, the arm of the crane was a rather bright blue. But of roughly the same luminosity as the trees behind. In colour, that contrast would stand out. In B&W, not so much. On a mono-only camera, a yellow filter (a strong one, assuming I had one) would have brought that out (and my conversion from colour showed that's pretty much what would have happened). However that same yellow filter would have turned the street-sign (turn arrow; 35km/h) to near-black, which my initial conversion did. But with that colour conversion, I could mask out the sign, convert the rest of the photo with one mix, and convert the sign with a different mix. Which I did. You can't do that with filters (nor could you have, really, with B&W film plus filter - you can only burn so much).
That kind of thing (plus what I fondly imagine is an eye for B&W, even while carrying a colour-capable camera) is what's decided me against buying a dedicated mono-only camera. That's most decidedly not to say that other people might decide otherwise, nor to say such cameras are a bad idea (they're not): just to say that for me, at least right now, I can't see the upsides outweighing the downsides.
...Mike
Despite deciding 'not', I have found this to have been a very valuable exercise (you can see the photos I took during my exercise in the Flickr album linked in post #43 above, which I'll stop updating).
The value I found came in many parts:
- It got me taking photos regularly and with intent, after a fairly long hiatus
- It got me thinking more about the photos I did take
- It showed me that I can both "look for" and "find" photos I think will work well in B&W, even while carrying a colour-capable camera
- Specifically, it showed me I don't need to carry a mono-only camera to 'see' B&W (though I understand how that might help)
- It improved my B&W conversion skills and workflow (you might not like the results, but I do like some of them)
- It got me adding things to the exercise: using cameras I'd not used in a while plus re-learning things about my 50mm Leica-mount lenses
What do I think I've learned from all this?
One thing (and I kind-of already knew it) is that some photos work well in colour, some work well in black and white, and that you (well, really it's me) have to take the photo with intent for one or the other. Thinking "I'll decide later" often produces something that's neither Arthur nor Martha and often (and deservedly) hits the reject list.
Another is that, for me, it's harder to take an OK photo in B&W than it is to take an OK colour photo. Of course, taking a good photo of any kind is a lot harder: but I find myself paying more attention when I'm aiming for B&W. That can only be a good thing, right? (I just have to bring that back to colour photography as well.)
As far as my 50mm lenses go:
- My 'old' (late 50s; M-mount) collapsible Summicron can produce surprisingly 'modern-looking' renderings
- My Summitar collapsible (LTM) 50mm isn't that much different from it's Summicron successor (and is a nice lens itself)
- My Canon "Japanese Summilux" 50mm/f1.4 is a really nice lens, full-stop; and remarkably well-behaved at all apertures
- My ZM C-Sonnar 50mm/f1.5 is a really good lens, and not as problematic as it's online reputation would have you think
- My Konica M-Hexanon 50mm/f2 isn't quite as good as I remember it, and doesn't really shine 'til stopped down to f4ish
As an example, this shot:
.. is nothing much. Just a simple photo-of-record, for some construction down the street from me (one McMansion knocked down, to be replaced by what I assume will be another McMansion).
But: as it happens, the arm of the crane was a rather bright blue. But of roughly the same luminosity as the trees behind. In colour, that contrast would stand out. In B&W, not so much. On a mono-only camera, a yellow filter (a strong one, assuming I had one) would have brought that out (and my conversion from colour showed that's pretty much what would have happened). However that same yellow filter would have turned the street-sign (turn arrow; 35km/h) to near-black, which my initial conversion did. But with that colour conversion, I could mask out the sign, convert the rest of the photo with one mix, and convert the sign with a different mix. Which I did. You can't do that with filters (nor could you have, really, with B&W film plus filter - you can only burn so much).
That kind of thing (plus what I fondly imagine is an eye for B&W, even while carrying a colour-capable camera) is what's decided me against buying a dedicated mono-only camera. That's most decidedly not to say that other people might decide otherwise, nor to say such cameras are a bad idea (they're not): just to say that for me, at least right now, I can't see the upsides outweighing the downsides.
...Mike
Freakscene
Obscure member
Nicely explained. You can still have a go with my mono cameras in Sydney some time.
Last edited:
mfunnell
Shaken, so blurred
Freakscene
Obscure member
You’re welcome. Besides, if you take off with one of them I know how to find your dad (!). [that’s a joke].
The Nikon Zf uses pixel-shift to make 4 frames, each pixel with full color information stored. If it works well, time between frames is short, should make some great monochrome images. If it does- a good alternative to dedicated monochrome cameras.
Freakscene
Obscure member
The Olympus and Pentax cameras with pixel shift make very good B&W. They are too slow for things that move quickly, but they are good otherwise.
I'm waiting to see some results posted- but will still most likely buy a Zf.
It's faster than using tricolor filters with the M Monochrom...
It's faster than using tricolor filters with the M Monochrom...
Timmyjoe
Veteran
Interesting that you mentioned the small sensor camera. For years I tried to convert color images to B&W from full frame sensors, and never was satisfied with the results. Then, I think it was LynnB, mentioned on a thread that he was getting good results converting files from the Nikon 1 (1" sensor) camera. I tried that and was much happier with the results converting Nikon 1 color images to B&W. Not sure why it was easier than full frame images, but it just seemed to work.
Best,
-Tim
Richard G
Veteran
You never see so many good colour photographs as when you carry a monochrome camera. That is the flip side of seeing only in black and white when carrying the same camera. At the time I bought the Monochrom, ten years ago, the increased resolution was a crude advantage over the M9: you could grab a shot with a wide lens and make a passable photo from a very small section of the original frame. I mostly now carry my M9 and nearly always with the new Summaron M 28 f5.6.
But the original Monochrom is a whole different love affair. The shutter is sweeter and smoother than my 2012 M9-P, and the files are miraculous, endless shadow detail retrievable at low ISO, the gradation of mid-tones rather like medium format. I used it in Paris and Nice in 2014 and got some precious images. It’s an inspiring camera.
Still, we then we had the black and white conversion M9 thread here, including the delicious SOOC Black and White jpegs, and it shook your conviction about the need of a Monochrom.
Agree with you about the ZM C Sonnar 50: had it on my M6 and then M5 for a year. One of the few lenses that makes my heart flutter.
I actually think a colour photograph is harder: the colour has to be justified.
But the original Monochrom is a whole different love affair. The shutter is sweeter and smoother than my 2012 M9-P, and the files are miraculous, endless shadow detail retrievable at low ISO, the gradation of mid-tones rather like medium format. I used it in Paris and Nice in 2014 and got some precious images. It’s an inspiring camera.
Still, we then we had the black and white conversion M9 thread here, including the delicious SOOC Black and White jpegs, and it shook your conviction about the need of a Monochrom.
Agree with you about the ZM C Sonnar 50: had it on my M6 and then M5 for a year. One of the few lenses that makes my heart flutter.
I actually think a colour photograph is harder: the colour has to be justified.
D
Deleted member 82967
Guest
Not mentioned yet is that a monochrome sensor captures the scene without the need for interpolation, i.e. "de-mosaicing" - whereas taking a color shot and converting it to monochrome involves a loss of resolution.
I am lucky in that I shoot a Foveon-based camera and can get "pure" monochrome by extracting one of the layer images.
Some apps can by-pass the de-mosaicing by normal color cameras and extracting the green pixels only but consequently half the linear resolution.
For example RawDigger.
I am lucky in that I shoot a Foveon-based camera and can get "pure" monochrome by extracting one of the layer images.
Some apps can by-pass the de-mosaicing by normal color cameras and extracting the green pixels only but consequently half the linear resolution.
For example RawDigger.
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
THAT is what I'm waiting to find out and if turns out to be true, my wallet is in a world of hurt.
shawn
Veteran
There are quite a few cameras that can do this (or even more). I think for all of them you really need to be using a tripod since any motion of the camera will totally mess with pixel alignment as the sensor shifts around.
agentlossing
Well-known
A few manufacturers have implemented a handheld hi-res mode, but in my experience it is still hit or miss. Best to leave it to static/tripod shots.
Out to Lunch
Ventor
My two cents: other than looking at camera bodies and lenses have a close look at photo editing software keeping in mind that there's more out there than PS and LR. Cheers, OtL
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
I last used PS at CS4 and never used LR. I currently use ART. It's sufficient for my needs and I prefer it's price tag 
The thing is that if the monochrome mode on the Zf is good enough for me then along with the rest of the benefits of the camera it makes it worth seriously considering. That lifts it up from simple consideration of conversion via which ever methodology or a dedicated body since a Zf would cost about the same as a K3III Monochrome but use all of the lenses I currently own unlike the Pentax body while still being able to make color images as well.
The thing is that if the monochrome mode on the Zf is good enough for me then along with the rest of the benefits of the camera it makes it worth seriously considering. That lifts it up from simple consideration of conversion via which ever methodology or a dedicated body since a Zf would cost about the same as a K3III Monochrome but use all of the lenses I currently own unlike the Pentax body while still being able to make color images as well.
agentlossing
Well-known
Every decent sensor has a terrific monochrome mode, it's called DXO Nik Silver Efex.I last used PS at CS4 and never used LR. I currently use ART. It's sufficient for my needs and I prefer it's price tag
The thing is that if the monochrome mode on the Zf is good enough for me then along with the rest of the benefits of the camera it makes it worth seriously considering. That lifts it up from simple consideration of conversion via which ever methodology or a dedicated body since a Zf would cost about the same as a K3III Monochrome but use all of the lenses I currently own unlike the Pentax body while still being able to make color images as well.
shawn
Veteran
Realistically with as high resolution as some sensors are the resolution benefit of a monochrome camera seems questionable at this point. If Ted's method of extracting only green works you can get basically the same resolution (or higher) as a MM246 with a 50-60 megapixel camera while also still getting full color. The monochrome will have an advantage on DR though. Haven't tried it but some advocate for converting to LAB and then just using the luminance channel for monochrome conversions too.
And using one of the high resolution cameras in pixel shift mode can get you extremely high resolution (with full color resolution at every pixel) and give a big DR benefit too. My S1R gains almost 2 stops in that mode while delivering 187 megapixels.
And using one of the high resolution cameras in pixel shift mode can get you extremely high resolution (with full color resolution at every pixel) and give a big DR benefit too. My S1R gains almost 2 stops in that mode while delivering 187 megapixels.