Is the M240 actually a more adept B+W camera than the MM

[f16sunshine]

Lens Rental has the Monochrom for $400 for 4 days.
I will likely try it out for a vacation in September (Gulf islands and Van BC).
With well over 1000 rolls left in my freezer I'm tempted to shoot them all first and then buy into a digital M when those films are gone.
Leica may even have a new offering by then that could be a best fit!
Maybe I will look at getting Panda to do a bit of my developing so I don't fall so far behind on viewing current images after shooting.
It's summer now. Fall and winter are actually even busier times with the camera !

Thanks again all for comments.

Cheers!

 

[Calzone]

Andy,

Consider I own a Monochrom, but I stll shoot film (B&W 135 and 120).

For me I never thought I'd shoot digital, but Leica made the ideal camera for a B&W shooter like me. Also I found that using a light yellow filter compresses the histogram helping tame clipping of the highlights and shadows and minimizes post processing. I tend to control contrast at image capture rather than in post.

According to Edwin Putz Leica engineers stated that for panochromatic results the Monochrom sensor was designed to be used with a light yellow filter. My histgrams are wide and are not flat like other MM users report.

Cal

 

[thompsonks]

That's interesting, Cal. I'd been using a medium yellow filter on MM for landscapes and now that you mention it, I'd seen the same thing without really being aware - they just seemed to need less post-processing, and occasionally even contrast reduction.

Do you keep the Y filter on at all times - for example, indoors?

Kirk

 

[Calzone]

That's interesting, Cal. I'd been using a medium yellow filter on MM for landscapes and now that you mention it, I'd seen the same thing without really being aware - they just seemed to need less post-processing, and occasionally even contrast reduction.

Do you keep the Y filter on at all times - for example, indoors?

Kirk

Kirk,

My favorite lenses for use on the MM are a 28 Cron and 35/1.8 Nikkor in LTM. With these two lenses I found that there is a drastic difference between B&W and Heliopan yellow filters. On these two lenses I discovered that they like Heliopan 2X filters which are considered "light" yellow. Understand that the 35/1.8 Nikkor has radioactive glass that has yellowed and kinda has a half stop of yellow filter built in. I feel that B&W medium yellow (3X) is a lot stronger than a Heliopan medium yellow (3X); and Heliopan makes a light yellow (2X) that seems to make the broadest histograms with the most range of contrast (think midrange of medium format) with this glass.

I wish all my glass responded in this manner. It seems that when using my 21/3.4 SEM, 35 Lux ASPH Pre-FLE, or my 50 Lux ASPH that these lenses do not respond in the same way and the contrast to me gets excessive.

I really like the midrange of the 28 Cron and 35 Nikkor with a light Heliopan yellow filter for that optimized sweet spot that makes it easy to get broad histograms with rich/detailed midrange. I can't explain, but A-B'ing either lens with and without a filter either eliminates or dramatically reduces clipping in both the highlights and shadows. IMHO I think I capture more information and detail by optimizing contrast of my image capture to the sensor. I think this is much better than trying to recover or manipulate in post.

Also know that I have used the Heliopan 2X on this glass for shooting at night with no adverse effect. Exposures at nigh with and without the yellow filter seems to have no effect on my exposures.

Cal

 

[Vince Lupo]

Cal, are you going to share some of your MM photos in the 'Monochrom Best Pics' thread? Would love to see what you've done.

 

[uhoh7]

Been a long time since a leica model has generated a passion like the MM with so many users.

This thread has new insights into that for me.

I love the m9 and prefer color, so I am not tempted by the camera, but very interesting to hear all the varied takes on the camera.

Here is an mm shot from Kirk I find impressive

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2374813&postcount=3263

 

[Calzone]

Cal, are you going to share some of your MM photos in the 'Monochrom Best Pics' thread? Would love to see what you've done.

Vince,

I'm sorry: I don't post my work.

Trust me that the histograms can cover 9 zones and clipping (both shadow and highlights) is either drastically reuced, minimized or eliminated. As an old analog B&W shooter in art school from the 70's I was taught to make perfect negatives that more or less just got straight printed on number 2 graded fiber paper without use of any contrast filters in the darkroom.

These technics, I learned decades ago, I apply to my digital shooting, and instead of trying to make an easy to print ideal negative, I try to make an ideal histogram. In the end just realize that I'm just a lazy slacker who wants to minimize any digital artifact AMAP by minimizing PP.

I think the way the MM displays it's histogram is a major advantage over any color camera BTW. Also know that I also utilize the clipping indicators set at 1% to indicate the true blacks and true whites.

The histograms don't lie.

Cal

 

[willie_901]

The point is that, since the M-Monochrom has no color filter array (CFA), there is no need for demosaicing, which means that each captured pixel gives one output pixel. Therefore, there are no artifacts resulting from combining of neighboring data that exults from demosaicing, which rsults in substantially better resolution. That also means that capture sharpening is not necessary. You can google "M-Monochrom" and "demosaicing" and find lots of explanations of this.

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Do You Know What is Really Real?
Download link for PDF file of 15-shot portfolio

It turns out all digital images require reconstruction using mathematical interpolation (modeling). There is no color demosaicing of course. Because non-CFA sensors are so rare, demosaicing and color reconstruction are synonymous. So it was misleading to use the term demosacing. But there must be tonality reconstruction. The MM is a wonderful camera. But it can not overcome the fundamentals of information theory.

The only way one can model continuous spatial phenomenon using discrete spatial information(digital space) is with mathematical interpolation. This is essentially monochrome demosaicing. The model that renders the image and the data are fundamentally incompatible. The light is spatially continuous but the raw data is spatially discrete. The resulting, inevitable modeling errors (artifacts) can be minimized using input sharpening.

As Michael inferred it was also sloppy as well to use the word pixel. The words sensel, sensor site, or other description that indicates there is no gray analog information would be more precise.

 

[kennylovrin]

It turns out all digital images require reconstruction using mathematical interpolation (modeling). There is no color demosaicing of course. Because non-CFA sensors are so rare, demosaicing and color reconstruction are synonymous. So it was misleading to use the term demosacing. But there must be tonality reconstruction. The MM is a wonderful camera. But it can not overcome the fundamentals of information theory.

The only way one can model continuous spatial phenomenon using discrete spatial information(digital space) is with mathematical interpolation. This is essentially monochrome demosaicing. The model that renders the image and the data are fundamentally incompatible. The light is spatially continuous but the raw data is spatially discrete. The resulting, inevitable modeling errors (artifacts) can be minimized using input sharpening.

As Michael inferred it was also sloppy as well to use the word pixel. The words sensel, sensor site, or other description that indicates there is no gray analog information would be more precise.

There's quite a bit of difference though in taking multiple physical sensor sites and merge into a single pixel, it's impossible to do without merging information that belong to physically different locations (with the exception of the Sigma sensors) and it will blur the contents.

That doesn't need to happen on a MM, there it's enough with digitizing the analogue current from the sensor site, so no "smudging" of visual content in the same sense.

That is my understanding at least - on a color sensor it takes multiple pixels to represent one pixel on screen, on the MM it takes one sensor pixel to represent one screen pixel.

 

[__--]

It turns out all digital images require reconstruction using mathematical interpolation (modeling)...The only way one can model continuous spatial phenomenon using discrete spatial information(digital space) is with mathematical interpolation. This is essentially monochrome demosaicing...The light is spatially continuous but the raw data is spatially discrete. The resulting, inevitable modeling errors (artifacts) can be minimized using input sharpening...

Thanks. Unfortunately, my knowledge stops at what I wrote in my earlier post above. In practical terms, however, I'm not sure when you would need input sharpening for M-Monochrom files. Incidentally, the first time I got a hold of one of these files, before all the usual raw developers could handle them, I sent one to one to Andrey Tverdokhleb, the author and publisher of RPP (Raw Photo Developer), asking him whether he could provide a version of RPP that could handle M-Monochrom files. A few hours later he sent me a link to download a new version of RPP and wrote that he could do it so quickly because there was no need for demosaicing.

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Do You Know What is Really Real?
Download link for PDF file of 15-shot portfolio

 

[thompsonks]

Vince, you picked an example of what Cal was writing about: That was a 40 Cron with a B+W 2X yellow filter. This perhaps helped keep the highlights from clipping, though the file was still pretty contrasty. While I'm not going to run out and swap my B+W filters for Heliopans, I think this illustrates that Cal is onto something.

We're beginning to talk like LF Zone System devotees of about 35 years ago. That's because you can achieve such a flexible open midrange and so much Zone II-III-IV shadow separation with MM files.

Have you noticed Tony Kuyper's software that lets you locate (approximations of) AA Zones for specific expansion/contraction? And I'm told that Nik Silver Efex Pro software has something like that too. There's so much to explore about BW inkjet printing, now that the files offer more detailed information.

@ Willie: You're now saying very clearly and precisely what I think was meant in the first place. To put it in anthropomorphic terms (for those as simple-minded as I am), the algorithm has to query adjacent BW photosites as to whether they'd like to join or separate, to present a continuous tone or an edge. But it doesn't have to conduct a more complicated four-way conversation among two photo sites designated as green, and their red and blue neighbors, to come up with its guess about the same edge/tone questions in shades of color. The result of fewer and more direct 'conversations' is more good guesses, and so the file comes somewhat closer to the smooth tonal gradations and clearer micro-resolution of larger-format photography.

@ Mitch: So would you use capture sharpening on MM files primarily to compensate for lens resolution problems?

Kirk

 

[Calzone]

Vince, you picked an example of what Cal was writing about: That was a 40 Cron with a B+W 2X yellow filter. This perhaps helped keep the highlights from clipping, though the file was still pretty contrasty. While I'm not going to run out and swap my B+W filters for Heliopans, I think this illustrates that Cal is onto something.

Kirk

Kirk,

You have some great insights. It took about a year of use before I discovered that a 3X Heliopan yellow is actually weaker than a B&W 2X yellow. The Heliopan 2X is weaker even more and I found the Heliopan 2X to be the optimum with these two lenses. It also took a bit of testing and comparing to see that some lenses seem to hit that sweet spot of the sensor, while others don't respond the same with filters.

The 21 SEM I think uses APO glass so it seems that this particular lens works best with just a plain UV filter (BTW the 21 SEM without any yellow filter works really well on my MM). I found a similar response from a Leica 18/3.8.

There seems to be a dramatic difference between the 28 Cron and the 35 Lux ASPH Pre-FLE in that the 28 Cron seems to have magical range of contrast (think wide detailed mids) over the 35 Lux.

Interesting to note that a 35/2.8 Summaron, while sharper than my 35/1.8 Nikkor, did not have the broad range of contrast displayed by the Nikkor. If you can find one of the 1500 35/1.8 Nikkors in LTM, I say buy it because it is a magical lens on the Monochrom. The Nikkor seems to convey the tonality of medium format film readily and repeatedly makes these wide broad histgrams with fat mids.

Also know that even though I shoot only small format and medium format my approach to both is that of a large format shooter, and I tend to shoot to print big (exhibition in mind). In this regard to my large format approach I shoot as if at image capture I'm making a negative for contact printing. I found very flattering that a large format shooter, who I respect, once made a comment about some 6x9 negatives I showed him. "With negatives like these you don't need a 4x5," he said.

For me I seem to have found how to get to the sensor's sweet spot using the 2X Heliopan's with my exposure. Seems to be a big bonus that digital noise and artifact (very important if you want to print big) is minimized with my "slacker" technic.

Cal

 

[__--]

...@ Mitch: So would you use capture sharpening on MM files primarily to compensate for lens resolution problems?...

Kirk, I wouldn't think you could make up for what the lens does not resolve.

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Do You Know What is Really Real?
Download link for PDF file of 15-shot portfolio

 

[thompsonks]

But that's pretty much what sharpening is – it just heightens contrast along edges, and the question is whether or not you might do it without generating an artifact-y appearance. If, for example, you shoot a portrait with a middle-aged lens, at 100% you can see pores, wrinkles, and whiskers (mostly on males) taking on more definition.

 

[__--]

Yes, but my feeling is that with the M-Monochrom, you'll be better off just to do output sharpening to compensate for the "softening" caused by the printer. Not convinced that input sharpening of M-Monochrm files is going to make an old run-of-the-mill 50mm lens look like a Summicron-50 ASPH — in other words why bother to add artifacts, when the M-Monovhrom sensor is not "softening" what the lens produces?

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Do You Know What is Really Real?
Download link for PDF file of 15-shot portfolio

 

[Turtle]

My previous post seems not to have posted so here goes again.

A2 is not large enough for the MM to show what it can do. You only need about 18-20MP to make an A2 print that cannot be distinguished from an A2 from a 36 MP camera.

Compare A1 prints and the difference will be much easier to see.

Compare A1 prints at ISO 1600 and the difference will leap out at you.

... and this is before you have heavily manipulated local contrast and tones.

The image at the top of this page (http://thephotofundamentalist.com/?p=249) was worked very heavily due to the need for good separation in deep shadow and it makes a cracking A1 print and could go larger. What grain is present is vey pleasing, unlike typical noise from most bayer cameras.

FWIW, there is no need for fixed rules on what files need to be sharpened and by how much. Just use your eyes. I do capture sharpen some of my MM files and not other. It depends on lighting, textures, the lens used and the intent. Its fair to say they don't need much and one can easily go too far. My 21mm Biogon and 24mm Elmar-M f3.8 are quite different though. The former needs sharpening and the latter only a sniff.

 

[dcsang]

I've never shot the Monochrome so I don't know what it can/can't do...but so far, I love the M(240) for both colour and B&W. The camera/lens combination is giving me what I want - and that's something that is as close to film as I can get without having film.



I've been using Nik Silver Efex to produce my digital B&W images and it gets REALLY close to being like film without being film... 🙂

I think I'm to the point where my 35mm film days may be coming to an end.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[thompsonks]

Following up on Cal's remarks about MM sensor/firmware and filters: This is typical of what you get with a B+W Yellow filter photographing a landscape with greenery. The raw file wast flat and the foreground, with more illumination, was pretty 'hot' and needed darkening with a gradient curve. Not much other post-processing. When I print it, I'll go for more highlight detail. Per Cal, Heliopan Y would yield less contrast.

Kirk

MM 35 Summicron v4, B+W 022 MRC, @ f16. (I had to use f16 bcz the foreground was so close, and so I expected some softness from diffraction at f16; but the file seems nice and sharp @ 100%. )


Codornices Creek, Live Oak Park, Berkeley by thompsonkirk, on Flickr

 

[Calzone]

. Per Cal, Heliopan Y would yield less contrast.

Kirk

MM 35 Summicron v4, B+W 022 MRC, @ f16. (I had to use f16 bcz the foreground was so close, and so I expected some softness from diffraction at f16; but the file seems nice and sharp @ 100%.)
Codornices Creek, Live Oak Park, Berkeley by thompsonkirk, on Flickr

Kirk,

You are correct: Heliopan equals less contrast, but more midrange. This compression of contrast also limits and reduces clipping which to me means you record more information. There's this saying: you can't print what's not there. Clipping is a loss of information.

Thanks for posting this example.

Cal

 

[jaapv]

I've never shot the Monochrome so I don't know what it can/can't do...but so far, I love the M(240) for both colour and B&W. The camera/lens combination is giving me what I want - and that's something that is as close to film as I can get without having film.



I've been using Nik Silver Efex to produce my digital B&W images and it gets REALLY close to being like film without being film... 🙂

I think I'm to the point where my 35mm film days may be coming to an end.

Cheers,
Dave

To be honest, despite the real niceness of the shot, I think you have lost too much detail in the right side of her face.
That is one of the advantages of the Monochrom. In the conversion of the 240 file you do lose dynamic range.
With the Monochrom you would have exposed for this important highlight, giving control over the high key effect, and pulled the detail in the shadows up without adverse effects giving a filmlike impression, as film is noted by the gentle rolloff in the highlights.
That is without going into the midtone differentition of the Monochrom.