Leica M Monochrom: best pics

Enough With the Horses Already

Enough With the Horses Already

Looking at the recent posts on this page, and having just finished three hours of converting DNGs into TIFF, then jpgs from enormously large files to small (from only one shoot/outing!) I'm wondering if this is all worth it.

Clearly all these recent posts were created in a computer, and from my own experience I'm am more a slave to it than scanning from film than ever before.

Digital black and white with the Mono has the best representation of B&W as film I have ever seen, and it is very capable at free form manipulation, but I'm convinced those images can only be fully appreciated on a monitor, i.e. a complete electronic experience of an electronic media.

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Dektol Dan said:
...
Digital black and white with the Mono has the best representation of B&W as film I have ever seen, and it is very capable at free form manipulation, but I'm convinced those images can only be fully appreciated on a monitor, i.e. a complete electronic experience of an electronic media.
Click to expand...

My local photo store has a tag line :
It's not a photo until it's printed

Although I still have most of my stuff only on a hard drive, I totally agree. A photo needs to be printed. It's yet another step you will need to cope with and until you get the result you imagine, it will take a few prints but once you are there, the MM files printed on a large scale (e.g. at least 12" small side) are awesome.

Here some recent stuff :

The thing under the snow cap in the middle is a weber charcoal grill ;).










 
Dektol Dan said:
Looking at the recent posts on this page, and having just finished three hours of converting DNGs into TIFF, then jpgs from enormously large files to small (from only one shoot/outing!) I'm wondering if this is all worth it.

Clearly all these recent posts were created in a computer, and from my own experience I'm am more a slave to it than scanning from film than ever before.

Digital black and white with the Mono has the best representation of B&W as film I have ever seen, and it is very capable at free form manipulation, but I'm convinced those images can only be fully appreciated on a monitor, i.e. a complete electronic experience of an electronic media.
Click to expand...

Dan I can fully appreciate where you're coming from -- I'm very familiar with 'slaving' in front of a computer, and as a commercial photographer it's something I do every single day. Not so much 'slaving' when you're getting paid for it, but it can definitely be a ton of work either way.

Back in my darkroom days, there were many times I'd spend hours developing film and making prints and only end up with a few good ones (and after 20 years of darkroom printing, I can probably count only a handful that I still like all these years later). So that feeling of 'slaving' for seemingly little reward can be had in both analogue and digital forms!

Yes the images can and do look good on a screen (depending upon the calibration of the screen, of course), and I'm sure that's how we're seeing many images nowadays. However, to fully appreciate what the Monochrom can deliver, I think you really have to look at a print. Hopefully you'll then realize that all the 'slaving' was worth it.
 
I like Vince am also a commercial photographer and I to am an old darkroom rat. I studied the zone system (yep did all the tests) and have worked a lot with medium and large format film in the day. I'd say for every two hours of shooting it's usually an hour at the computer. I just finished processing a job I shot last week and know what it's like to slave at the computer. I do enjoy processing my personal work a lot more than my commercial work. I also am in line with it's not a photo until it's printed and the prints from the mm are amazing.
 
Printing Slavery

Printing Slavery

Thanks for you comments. My old man was a photographer, we always had a well equipped darkroom at home, so for twenty years or so, I lived in the darkroom beginning in childhood. There is nothing like going through puberty in a smelly darkroom at Spring time.

I longed for the day I could afford to shoot color and print it, and computers and scanning made that possible and I was there at the inception. Much latter came half way decent color digital cameras.

The Mono has brought me back to B&W and I love it all over again. (I'll never stop shooting film, however)

I've owned an Epson 800 printer (the standard for pigment inks) for an number of years, and I have yet to make the B&W print you folks seem to have achieved, but I'll keep at it! Silver halide rules!
 
Monochrome and Summitar

Monochrome and Summitar

One by one I'm going to try the Mono out with lenses from my olde Leitz collection. I'm dissapointed that I can't use the Dual Summicron, but it's not like I'm going to go out and buy a substitute considering that I vary rarely use 50's.

Anyway, here's one from my 1948 Summitar:

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