Leica M-Monochrom Hands-on Preview

Preview based on an M-Monochrom with Firmware 0.012

Leica has long been a manufacturer pleased to control marketers - its M9 may be a awesome power photographic digital camera to catch with, but the company's keeping to the near-obsolete, details focus rangefinder design, moreover to its amazingly exclusive expenses assures its digital cameras will only ever be knowledgeable by a few. However, we can't think of any of its products that combine 'fascinating' and 'niche' as well as its latest growth - the Leica M-Monochrom. As the name indicates, the Monochrom is a truly black-and-white power photographic digital camera, with no narrow broad variety to allow the catch of shade details.

Just as any discussion between former film camcorders fans will progressively come 'round to the idea of a make details focus image power photographic digital camera with the huge, bright split-prism viewfinder they keep in concepts from their film-shooting times, it was almost as certainly get in touch with on the idea of a black-and-white image power photographic digital camera. But it's not just admiration for previous times that creates the idea of a dark and bright power photographic digital camera sound eye-catching - especially on a program well-known for its (expensively achieved) top awesome connections.

Removing along with narrow broad variety from the top element of a sign has several benefits. There are certainly benefits with regards to interference, mainly because all the light getting the sign is available to be taken, rather than just one shade being allowed through to each sign place. But also, because interference isn't propagate by a demosaicing process, the interference schedule doesn't appear to unclean details. These two factors see the electrical powered electronic digital camera's maximum possible possible ISO enhance to 10,000, rather than the M9's 2,500.

However, the biggest benefits is awesome - each taken pixel gives one result pixel, with none of the detail-blurring mixing of within arrive at details that demosaicing certainly provides. Consequently, the M-Monochrom immediately surpasses even the low-pass-filter-less M9 for sharpness. Given the reputation of Leica connections, this has immediate attention.

There are drawbacks, of course - the 'headroom' found in Raw details information comes mainly from the element that bright places have usually only over-exposed one of the three shade applications, with useful details still available for the other two applications. With a actual mono sign, any too much exposure is overall - once the route has connected with bright, there's no probability of recovery. In the same way, anyone who has got used to producing mono images by changing shade images, with all the particular shade mixing that provides, will have to get used to getting the appropriate shade narrow out of their power photographic digital camera bag at the element of catch.

And that is a process - the best dark and bright images are due to a tonal response that is definitely printed to the subject, usually as due to extensive darkroom or post-processing execute. With only five evaluation solutions to select in the electrical powered photographic digital camera, even with perfect exposure, it'll probably take a bit of Raw managing to get the best out of each image. The M-Monochrome generates 34.7MB DNG details information (there's no stress option), for clients willing to try.

Interface changes

The process of getting appropriate exposure are somewhat reduced because the histogram is not suffering from colour or shiny balance. Leica says the histogram is based on Raw information (rather than the evaluation JPEG, which many digital cameras use), to offer a apparent understanding of what has and hasn't been taken. Still being based on a enhanced version of the M9's 18MP Kodak CCD indicates the Monochrom still can't offer stay viewpoint, so this histogram is only available after you've taken your taken.

Beyond this, changes to the present M9 interface are little - the vividness and colorspace solutions have been removed from the choice, and shiny balance has been excised from the 'Set' quick choice but otherwise it's almost the same. The electronic picture image picture electronic picture photographic electronic camera has a little bit more modern highlight and night reducing signals than the M9, it also earnings three 'toning' solutions, each with two durability levels, but those are the only additional solutions. The creating solutions are Sepia, Cold and Selenium.

Given the price of buying into the Leica system, it's not awesome that Leica wishes most clients to come from the discuss of present M business owners. However, moreover to M8 and 9 clients, Leica clearly also wishes some film digital cameras lovers who haven't approved electronic will appreciate the apparent fulfillment and awesome that regional mono getting provides. When explaining the electronic picture image picture electronic picture photographic electronic camera to us, Leica constantly came returning to the term 'authentic' and it's this wish for an 'authentic' getting experience that we think will offer this electronic picture image picture electronic picture photographic electronic camera.

Leica M-Monochrom specifications

• 18MP CCD monochrome sensor (24 x 36mm)
• No anti-aliasing filter
• No color filter array
• ISO 320-10,000 (with a 'Pull 160*' option)
• 2.5" 230,000 dot rear LCD
• Supplied with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro 2

*Pull 160 is essentially the ISO 320 setting given 1EV extra exposure, with a different tone curve to give the correct final image brightness. The result is a reduction in highlight dynamic range, compared to the full ISO settings.

M-Monochrom - color sensitivity

It may seem odd to think about the M-Monochrom's sensitivity to different colors, since it can't distinguish between them. However, as with mono film, the best results from the Monochrom come from adding colored filters in front of the lens. For this to work, the camera needs to be fairly similarly sensitive to light from all across the visible spectrum (it needs to be panchromatic). We asked Leica whether it had needed to add any color filter to the sensor, to balance-out its sensitivity to different wavelengths of visible light, and were told it hadn't.

Source:www.dpreview.com

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