After getting downright dirty in details in Part 2, we’re going to begin Part 3 right where we left off — in the mud and the grime and the goo of image quality discussions…

Highlight Fetishists

There’s been a fair amount of internet chatter over the fact that clipped highlights in a Monochrom are well and truly clipped, and that you can’t reclaim highlight detail from the RAW file, as you might with a color file. The reason color cameras have a little extra highlight headroom is that they assemble an image from three different color channels — so if one of the channels isn’t quite clipped, your RAW converter can interpret this unclipped channel as “detail.” Contrary to this, the Monochrom records only a single (albeit much higher fidelity) luminance channel. So, when a highlight clips, there’s no second or third channel from which to recover possible data.

I spent an inordinate amount of time (days) shooting specular highlights and purposely overexposing scenes using both the M9 and the Monochrom. I took hundreds of shots to compare how the Monochrom responded to blown highlights, versus the M9.

Here’s what I found: When I purposely overexposed a scene (such that large expanses of highlight detail would “clip”), I could indeed recover a tiny bit of additional highlight detail in the M9 files. Interestingly, when shooting the M9 and the Monochrom under identical conditions and with identical exposure settings, my M9 shots are consistently a half-stop less exposed. So, I wonder if that factor (more than the three color channels) isn’t ultimately responsible for the M9’s ability to display just a wee bit more highlight detail in an identically exposed file?

To see how minuscule the differences really are, take a look at the following shot, in which an entire strip of windows on the high-rise building blew out the highlights on both the M9 and the Monochrom files. Using Lightroom 4, I was able to reclaim some of the “blown” M9 highlights, resulting in the crop shown on the left. The Monochrom file, which contains no recoverable highlights, is shown on the right. Pixel peeping and a whole lot of squinting reveal that there’s slightly more detail in the M9’s blown highlight region than the Monochrom’s… but the difference is really rather insignificant.

I’ll spare you from the gory details and the burden of looking through any more of the hundreds of comparison photos that I took, and will jump right to the conclusion: If you accidentally overexpose a shot, the M9 will allow you to recover some highlight details that the Monochrom will not. If you accidentally underexpose a shot, the Monochrom will allow you to extract much more shadow detail than the M9. If you properly expose a shot, the Monochrom will give you a much cleaner file across the board, and with more usable dynamic range.

The shot below is a classic example of overexposure. It was a sunny day, and I failed to take the man’s white shirt into account — blowing out a rather large section of highlights. Plain and simple, I botched the exposure. But whether I used the M9 or the Monochrom, the man’s shirt would still be blown out. From my tests, I know the M9 would have allowed me to recover a tiny amount of the shirt detail (a percent or two, at best), but it would not come anywhere close to “fixing” my exposure error.

You might think the key to using the Monochrom is to underexpose, but it’s not — it’s to expose correctly. And in the Monochrom’s case, “correctly” means “don’t expose to the right.” This is somewhat counter to everything we’ve been told about color digital photography, and it took me about a week to get comfortable with this notion. Initially, I would err in the other direction, and purposely underexpose my shots. But there’s no reason to underexpose unless you truly don’t care about the shadows. In the case of specular highlights, they’ll always be there (at least that’s true in my city of glass-enrobed high-rises).  No amount of underexposure will prevent these specular highlights from blowing — so who cares if the Monochrom’s specular highlights are a pixel or two larger than the M9’s? Particularly when the Monochrom’s shadows are so much cleaner and its mid-tones so much richer. But that’s a topic for the next group of fetishists…

Low Light Fetishists

For every up there’s a down — for every give, a take. Thinking in terms of the Zone System, I’ve seen that the M9’s Bayer filter gives me a slightly extended Zone VIII. But, in exchange for that, it takes away visual fidelity from Zones 0 through V — In my book, that’s a pretty fair tradeoff in favor of the Monochrom — lose a little something in one zone, gain something in six zones!

You might wonder why I’m including Zone 0 — after all there’s no detail there — it’s just black. The reason is that the Monochrom’s noise floor is so much lower that, unless you’re using high ISO’s, black really is black — not some dithered, noisy grey. Not only that, but files from the Monochrom contain ridiculously greater shadow detail (zones I and II); much less obvious noise in zones III and IV; and even a tiny bit more discernible detail in zones V and VI.

Removing the Bayer filter (and thus the camera’s color capabilities) means over an entire stop of additional light reaches the camera’s sensor. And with no color, there’s no need for color management or white-balancing — both of which require additional signal amplification, which also magnifies the noise. Furthermore, in color cameras, the noise gets processed through the de-mosaicing algorithms right along with the rest of the image. This tends to “spread” the noise even further across the image. When you use software to convert a color photo to B&W, the negative impact of that color noise does not disappear — it merely desaturates while it continues to rob the image of actual detail.

I’ll write more about the Monochrom’s noise characteristics when I address the Noise Fetishists, but for now I want to talk a bit more about the Monochrom’s shadows and mid-tones.

As you’ve probably learned over the years, digital sensors are linear. This means each stop contains twice as much data as the stop below it. Under ideal conditions, a perfectly exposed 14-bit file might contain over 4,000 shades of grey in Zone VII, but it will contain only 64 shades within the shadows. That’s why we’ve all been told to “expose to the right” with digital cameras — that’s where most of the data is!

Of course, just because the sensor can theoretically record this many individual shades of grey doesn’t mean it can actually “see” that may. Lens performance can obviously affect what the sensor sees, as can any filters applied in front of that sensor. Antialiasing filters and Bayer filters both rob the sensor of light and, therefore, resolution. Since the Monochrom contains neither an antialising filter nor a Bayer filter, it delivers maximum light to the sensor, meaning it can come closer to displaying the theoretical maximums outlined above. This is particularly important in the shadow regions, where digital sensors are already less-equipped to deal with minute levels of detail and smooth tonalities.

Almost every photographer who’s spent time with the Monochrom, has written about its rich and beautiful greys. This comment is almost always met with great derision from detractors who can’t or won’t understand why this is true. And the reason it’s true is that, with more light reaching the sensor, the sensor is able to distinguish between a greater number of luminosities, which results in far less visible dithering. Consider the following illustration. All three blocks represent an attempt to draw an area filled with 38% luminosity. On the left, I used 1-bit (2 greys) of data to create a 38% luminosity. In the middle, I used 2-bits (4 greys) to create a 38% luminosity. On the right, I used 4-bits (16 greys) to create a 38% luminosity.

All three blocks represent an attempt to display the exact same shade of grey — but it’s obvious that the higher-bit version does a better job of it. And this is why the greys appear so much richer in the Monochrom: The more bits of data you capture, the more shades of grey you can display. Removing the Bayer filter allows more light to reach the sensor, which increases the apparent bit-depth of each zone, meaning each zone can display more greys. In the case of the shadows and mid tones, this is a huge advantage since, as explained above, those zones inherently contain far fewer greys than the highlight zones.

Noise Fetishists

As discussed in my dissertation to Low Light Fetishists, the absence of a Bayer filter lowers the Monochrom’s noise floor substantially.

Unlike the film days, when “grain fetishists” were defined as people who actually liked the appearance of grain, “noise fetishists” are the opposite — they despise the appearance of digital noise. And well they should. Digital noise is just plain ugly. That’s why it’s so great to have a camera that minimizes it (rather than masking it). I have no problem claiming that an ISO 10,000 Monochrom file has far fewer detail-obfuscating “artifacts” than a Tri-X negative shot at ISO 400 — but that doesn’t mean I’d never use Tri-X again. Quite the contrary. Film grain is made from clumps of tonal clusters and adds a rich texture to a photograph, while the Monochrom’s noise looks like a very fine dusting of static spread evenly across the frame. The Tri-X simply looks more organic. But the reality is, the light dusting of Monochrom noise steals very little image data from a photo. If you’re a resolution nut, you’ll be thrilled at what the Monochrom is capable of resolving at high ISOs.

I’m simply stunned by the low noise characteristics of the Monochrom, and by the very fine character of that noise.  And frankly, up to ISO 3200, that “dusting” of noise is so minimal as to be essentially non-detrimental. At ISO 3200 and higher, the “static” is more visible, but I wouldn’t be inclined to call it objectionable. If smooth tonality is your goal, the Monochrom is your camera.

Curiously, as a self-professed grain fetishist (and as I mentioned in my discussion of Film Fetishism in Part 2), I actually find the Monochrom’s high ISO files too clean. I know this sounds ridiculous, but when I shoot at dusk, night, or in dark environments, I actually expect to see grain. No, I don’t want to see noise, but neither do I want to see a file so smooth and detailed that someone would think it was taken at noon on a sunny day. For this reason, when I shoot dark scenes at higher ISO’s, I actually use software to add some artificial film grain to the image. I know some of you will consider this sacrilege, but I’ve got a psychological aversion to clean files shot in darkness. So, yes — I’m actually complaining that the Monochrom has too much fidelity at high ISO’s. And though I would never wish for a higher level of digital noise, I do kind of miss the grain. Like I said way back at the beginning of Part 1, we’re all just a bunch of fetishists, and this happens to be one of mine.

To illustrate how low the noise really is, I present the following photo, which I suspect will go down in the annals of history as “the most pedantic test photo ever published.” Yes, it’s a full-frame photograph of my lens cap taken at ISO 10,000. A small section is shown zoomed in, so you can see how unobtrusive the noise really is — even with Lightroom’s Clarity slider set to its maximum value of 100.

Unfortunately, I did uncover one noise-related issue that I don’t think will find too many devotees — a situation that, for lack of a better phrase, I’ll call noise patterning. Specifically, if I shot at ISO 3200 or higher and then used the geometric transformation parameters in Lightroom’s Lens Correction panel, it would induce an underlying visible noise pattern throughout the image. Similarly (and more egregiously) if I simply rotated an image in Lightroom, it would induce a checkerboard-like pattern within the noise, which would appear throughout all the shadow regions in a photo.

If I pretended to be Cartier-Bresson — never rotating or geometrically altering an image — then I was never able to see any noise patterning, and no amount of aggressive dodging, burning, or contrast modification would ever reveal even the slightest hint of a pattern. But since my photographic skills are aligned more with mere mortals, I occasionally wanted to rotate or geometrically alter an image — and when I did that with an ISO 3200 (or higher) file, I’d induce a noise pattern into the photo. Although I suspect at least one photographer somewhere in the world would employ this flaw as a “special effect,” I can safely say that the majority of us do not want this.

I have been working on this issue with Leica, and the problem appears to be related to Adobe’s interpolation algorithms. Specifically, the Monochrom’s noise is so “clean,” that when you use Lightroom/Camera Raw to either rotate a high-ISO image, or perform any lens distortion or perspective corrections, moire-like patterns are introduced into the noise. This doesn’t happen with color cameras because the noise is blurred by the interpolation process.

The following example illustrates this phenomenon (as well as why I resorted to photographing lens caps). Here, the lens cap photo shown above has been subjected to a distortion correction of -30 in Lightroom’s Lens Correction module. Unless you have optimal room lighting and a well-calibrated monitor, it might be a little difficult to see the moire-like pattern in this down sampled web version, but you should be able to make out the design when you look at the zoomed-in section where Clarity is set to 100:

Leica informs me that Adobe is actively involved and is now working to modify their algorithms for the Monochrom. In the meantime, those who own a Monochrom and shoot at high ISO values might want to avoid rotating an image or modifying its geometry in Lightroom or Camera Raw. Fortunately, if such actions are unavoidable, there is a reasonable work around available: simply up-sample the image before applying the transformations.

Specifically, you can open the Monochrom file in Camera Raw and up-sample it from 18.1 megapixels to 25.1 megapixels. Save the up-sampled file and use this as the basis for your image manipulations. Up-sampling the image dithers the noise just enough to make Adobe’s rotation and lens correction algorithms far less intrusive.

The following example illustrates the workaround. Here, the lens cap photo has first been resized to 25.1 megapixels in Camera Raw, then subject to the same -30 Distortion Transformation in Lightroom. As you can see, this almost completely eliminated the moire-effect.

Although I certainly don’t consider this a “show stopper” (particularly since an effective workaround exists), those who routinely work at high ISO’s and who perform a lot of geometric alterations or rotations need to be aware of this issue. Hopefully, Adobe will be able to tweak their algorithms sooner rather than later, and the extra up-sampling step will no longer be required.

Interface Fetishists

I’ll grant you — there probably aren’t too many Interface Fetishists reading this. But I didn’t spend 15 years designing professional audio hardware and software products without learning at least a little something about user interface design. Consequently, during the time I was investigating the camera’s dynamic range, I “designed” what I think is a much better interface for alerting photographers to the presence of blown highlights and/or blocked shadows. I will present these recommendations as a series of escalating suggestions to Leica:

Suggestion 1: If highlights or shadows clip, put a big thick red (or blue) bar across the screen. Make it big, bold and obvious. Currently, there are only two ways to see if any highlights clipped: you can look at the far right of the histogram and try to see if the right-most 1-pixel wide line is red (indicating clipping), or you can look at a tiny thumbnail of the image and see if there are any red pixels within it. If there’s a lot of ambient light (which there always is when I clip a highlight), then it’s nigh impossible to see a few tiny red pixels on that LCD. If I’ve taken a photo and mostly just care whether I’ve clipped anything, it would be nice to have a couple “idiot” lights appear on the LCD — that way, I’d know with just a glance whether or not I need to retake the shot.

Suggestion 2: As long as you’re mucking about with the firmware, add an option to the “alarms” menu for highlight/shadow clipping. This would make the camera beep if the image clipped within the constraints set by the “amount” menu. Normally, I’m the first person to turn off every audible sound in his camera, but this function would be very useful to any photographer who worries about clipping, but who doesn’t want to check the LCD after every shot (event and/or wedding photographers, for example).

Suggestion 3: Better still, since I really don’t like a camera to make noise, make it vibrate instead! Granted, this feature would require a hardware modification (and not just firmware), so consider this a ‘freebie’ suggestion for some future model of Leica M.

Suggestion 4: If you’re feeling ambitious, I would like to offer a further improvement on Suggestion 1: instead of a big red (or blue) bar, put a big red (or blue) number on the screen, indicating what percentage of the pixels clipped. For example, if 2.3 percent of the pixels clip the highlights, put a big red “2.3” on the screen. That way I can decide quickly whether or not I care about the clipping.

Suggestion 5: To refine Suggestion 4 even further, consider this: It’s not as important how many pixels clip, as it is how many contiguous pixels clip. A few small regions of clipping likely indicates specular highlights, and I’m less likely to be concerned about that. What I’m more concerned about is clipping large regions where I would prefer to see a tiny bit of detail. So, instead of indicating the total percentage of clipped pixels, the big red/blue numbers could indicate the largest area of contiguous clipping in the image. Like it or not, the camera has an LCD, so let’s at least use it effectively!

Beach Fetishists

A few years ago, in a fit of jaundiced lucidity, I realized that nearly everything mankind had ever invented — nearly every moment of inspiration or technological leap — was ultimately motived by one of two purposes: laziness or the urge to procreate.

“What about money?” you ask.

“Merely a means to an end,” I counter cynically. “A way to buy oneself more recreation; more relaxation; more procreation.” Mankind is, perhaps, the only species that will work incredibly hard for the sole purpose of banishing even the most simple tasks from their lives. It’s all part of some grand master plan. Even global warming, I theorize, is nothing more than a way to create more warm, inland beaches. We can’t all live in Rio, so let’s make more Rios.

Man’s ultimate desire to turn life into a popular bossa nova does, at times, infuriate me. Like, for example, every time I read an article on the internet that complains about the Monochrom’s default output being too “grey.” ¿Que? Grey is good! Grey is desirable! Grey allows you, the photographer, to manipulate an image the way you want to manipulate it. Grey lets you add contrast where you want it. It lets you accentuate micro-contrast where you want it. It lets you dodge, burn and create a path through the image for the eye to follow. It lets you call the shots. Just because the files come out of the camera with a lot of beautiful grey tonality does’t mean you’re required to display them that way. You could, instead, spend 60 seconds inside Lightroom, Photoshop, or one of a myriad other applications and make the file look the way you want it.

Have we really gotten so lazy that we demand our cameras make all our processing decisions for us? I suspect it’s only a matter of time until a camera is nothing more than a little ball that sits atop our heads and continuously records everything in the spherical space around us —analyzing it, comparing what it sees to a giant database of the most “liked” images on Facebook, then selecting those moments within our sphere that best match those images. Our little head cameras will then apply “appropriate” processing to the images it selects, and wirelessly upload them to the web before sending out an automated tweet from our Twitter account, linking to our Flickr page and exclaiming “Hey, look at these 7 amazing photos I just took!” Yet all we’ve really done is walk 2-blocks to the local coffee shop for a machiatto and a chance to chat up that cute barista.

Grey is good. Grey is malleable. Grey is traditional. And grey is exactly the way I want my raw images to appear. But then, I’m not one for lazing about on beaches…

Purity Fetishists

Besides the beach fetish, there’s another sort of hang-up that prevents some folks from accepting the notion that the Monochrom’s low contrast file is an ideal starting point for image processing — and that’s the fetish that dictates that no image processing should ever be needed if a photo is taken correctly. There are those who believe a camera can be judged only by examining its pure, unprocessed and unadulterated images, and that any form of processing obscures the capabilities of the camera in question. But what constitutes a pure and unprocessed image? There’s no such thing. In the digital world, an image is nothing more than bits and bytes. There is no image — there is only a mathematical interpretation of an image. Your computer’s RAW or JPG converter (or the camera’s built-in converter) merely interprets these numbers and assembles an image based on a conservative estimate of what the software thinks the photo should look like. I don’t necessarily buy into the belief that a bunch of algorithm coders know more than I about how I want my image to look.

The idea of a “pure” image is a myth. Many whose photographic lives began after the demise of film seem to believe all those great, classic film photographs are somehow “pure” — that they couldn’t possibly have been manipulated since Photoshop didn’t exist. Little do they know about the magic of darkroom chemical selection; the mysterious art of the dodge and burn; the wonders of graded contrast papers; the flexibility of multigrade papers and variable contrast filters; and of the miracles of potassium ferricyanide. You don’t really think W. Eugene Smith would get hopped up on poppers and spend 72 straight hours working on a single print just for the fun of it, do you?

Freudian Fetishists

Some people believe that a camera is just a camera, but the Freudian Fetishists know better — they know that a camera is a mainline to their soul. Some believe a photograph is something to be seen, but the Freudian Fetishists believe it’s something to be understood. Are you a theorist? A thinker? An existentialist? A reader of the ULTRAsomething photography site? Then you’re a Freudian Fetishist, and you’ll understand what I mean when I say that one of the Monochrom’s greatest attributes is the psychological advantage you gain from losing any possibility to shoot in color.

If this statement makes you roll your eyes in disagreement, it stands to reason that you are not a carrier of the Freudian gene. Those who manifest Freudian proclivities are the type who prefer prime lenses to zooms, since primes force them to see their surroundings within the confines of a particular focal length, which sharpens their eye and heightens their sense of photographic opportunities. By restricting focal length, Freudian photographers know they actually increase their photographic options.

The same applies to shooting B&W. I’ll admit, even though the majority of my M9 images get converted to B&W, that knowing it can shoot color means I still keep an eye out for color. Such flexibility actually dilutes my vision. I’m well aware that 99% of the people will read this and dismiss it as ridiculous. But, for me, it’s true. There’s just something about the rigidity of shooting in B&W that inspires me. Post-capture B&W conversion has always felt wrong; like cheating; like a special effect rather than a dedicated choice. The Monochrom frees me from the distractions of color and from feelings of fraudulence.

Egor Fetishists

By all rights, this should be a rather small and exclusive group of fetishists, with a membership hovering somewhere around one.

I’m always surprised how many people seek the opinions of others as guidance. But then, nearly every one of my favorite movies rates below a “3” (out of 10) on IMDB, so you can see why I might think this. My tastes can best be described as “fringe.” Whether I ultimately like a camera should have no bearing on whether anyone else likes the camera.

Still, anyone who’s made it to the end of this article deserves some kind of closure — some indication of my overall personal assessment of this camera. And so, for the purpose of “entertainment” and with all caveats firmly articulated, I’ll deliver my final proclamation… right after I admonish one more group — the Impulse Fetishists.

Impulse Fetishists are people who form strong opinions about cameras and lenses simply by looking at a few photos on the web. I have no idea how someone can look at a photo on a website — a photo that they didn’t even take — and draw a conclusion about the camera that took it? Or how that same person can reach a conclusion about a camera’s imaging capabilities by simply looking at a web photo that displays only about 3% of the RAW image’s total resolution? I suspect, having seen enough Impulse Fetishists to polish my cynicism to a blinding glare, that hundreds (if not thousands) of people will see this article and instantly leap to a conclusion. They won’t read the article. They won’t even look at more than one or two pictures. But they’ll have seen “enough” to draw a decisive and incontrovertible conclusion. I’m quite comfortable publicly dismissing this fetish and all its practitioners, since I know none of them will actually be reading this text.

There is no doubt that I love the Monochrom. I am a B&W photographer. If I never had to worry about pleasing anyone other than myself, I would be perfectly happy to never take another color photo. I have always wanted a black & white digital camera, and ever since I first learned how color digital cameras worked, I’ve known that a black & white version would have certain fidelity advantages over its color counterpart. The fact that this camera was developed by Leica, and not one of the more mainstream companies like Canon or Nikon is, for me, a real stroke of luck. Not because I’m a brand loyalist, but because I’m a rangefinder shooter — and the advantages of a rangefinder are essential to the way I photograph. So to have my dream camera (a black & white digital) available in my preferred format (a rangefinder) is like winning the lottery.

But winning the lottery is what I’d have to do in order to afford this camera. Truthfully, if I sold my M9 (plus some other cameras and lenses), I could scrape together enough cash to buy the Monochrom. But that would leave me without a single color digital camera. And while it’s true that I would personally be happy to only ever shoot B&W, such ideology does not mirror that of any clients I might wish to pursue.

In one hand, I’m holding the camera of my dreams — the single best match for my photographic proclivities of any digital camera ever manufactured. In the other hand I’m holding nothing — no wad of cash; no list of clients clamoring for B&W photos; and no galleries screaming for my quirky and blurry little slice-of-life prints. In order to achieve equilibrium, I must either free up one hand by relinquishing the Monochrom, or I must find something of equal value to put into the empty hand to balance its cost. And so, unless any of you readers know someone who wishes to employ a discursive wordsmith with a black & white photography fetish, my time with the borrowed Monochrom has come to an end — replaced with a fond but fading memory of the best digital camera I’ve ever used.

In Part 1 of this series, I theorized that nearly every element of a photographer’s perceived needs are really nothing more than his fetishes — and each photographic fetish comes with its own adherents and detractors. I began with a discussion of the camera’s build quality and here, in Part 2, I’ll discuss various imaging fetishes, and how the Monochrom might or might not satisfy some of the more popular fixations.

Color Fetishists

As you might expect, a camera called the “Monochrom” is fundamentally incapable of delivering gorgeously saturated colors. If color photography is your bag, then the Monochrom has no place inside it.

But color fetishism isn’t the sole domain of color photographers. B&W photographers often obsess over color, because color translates into luminosity and tonality in a black and white image. In the film era, photographers often selected one film stock over another because of differences in their color interpretations. Similarly, B&W photographers always stocked a wealth of colored filters, knowing that a filter applied to the front of any lens would alter the scene’s relative contrast. For example, in the following photo I used an orange filter to drastically darken the bright blue sky, which I knew would be the predominant “color” in this photo. As contrary as the notion might seem, being a good B&W photographer once required having a much better understanding of color than many color photographers.

For this reason, one of the first things I did when I got the Monochrom was to run a series of tests to see how it responded to color. I had to know how the Monochrom “saw” color, so that I could train myself to see it in the same way.

The first thing I noticed when comparing output between the M9 and the Monochrom was their exposure difference. Specifically, when using the same lens and identical exposure settings on both cameras, shots from my M9 were consistently a half-stop less exposed than the Monochrom. The second thing I noticed was that a desaturated M9 shot looked nothing like a Monochrom shot — the M9 exhibited greater tonal contrast across a scene. Although you might think this is a good thing, it’s not. Too much contrast allows too little room for manipulation. By starting with a richer, smoother greyscale, there’s more opportunity to adjust an image’s tonal balance to your liking. When it comes to black and white, starting with a greyer image is, for me, preferable to starting with a contrasty image.

The following comparison shows an X-Rite color chart photographed with an old Leitz 50mm thread mount Elmar lens. On the left is the color version, as photographed by my M9. On the right is the same chart, as photographed by the Monochrom. In the middle is a desaturated version of the M9 file after adding a 1/2 stop exposure adjustment in Lightroom. Notice how the desaturated M9 image has much more built-in contrast — with much darker blues and much lighter yellows than the Monochrom file.

Next, I compared what happens when I let Lightroom perform a default B&W conversion on that same M9 file. On the left is the desaturated M9 file. On the right is the Monochrom file. In the middle is the default Lightroom B&W conversion. Notice that this file interprets color much more like the Monochrom, but with numerous subtle differences across the various colors.

Finally, I spent some time tweaking Lightroom’s B&W color conversion parameters to yield an image as close as possible to the one from the Monochrom. In the following comparison, you can see my custom results in the left image. In the center is the Monochrom output. Notice that they are nearly identical now. Furthermore, I shot the same color chart using the same 50mm Elmar lens mounted on my Leica IIIf, which was loaded with Tri-X (and which I developed in Rodinal). The Tri-X color rendering is shown on the right. It’s very similar to the Monochrom rendering, varying only slightly in the way it interprets greens. This is a good thing since my experience shooting Tri-X means I’ll have a pretty good idea how colors will render in the Monochrom.

The custom color-conversion preset that I created in Lightroom proved very useful for further analyzing differences between M9 files and Monochrom files, since it “levelled” the playing field — minimizing exposure and tonal differences between the two cameras. Some of these comparisons will be discussed further when other fetishes are addressed.

Film Fetishists

Now that we know the Monochrom has a color response that’s reasonably similar to Tri-X, it’s only fair to ask the next logical question: do images from the Monochrom look anything like film? This is a slippery slope, since film has a long and storied existence, and is thus laden with its own fetishes, feuds, facts and fictions.

In order to at least hint at the answer, I again took to comparing shots from the Monochrom with shots from my Leica IIIf. (NOTE: Should anyone wonder why I used the IIIf and not my M2 or M6TTL, it was simply a matter of access — both film M-bodies were loaded with some rather specialized film stock, but my IIIf had a roll of Tri-X inside and a few remaining exposures to burn). In order to minimize the differences between Monochrom files and Tri-X files, I performed these comparisons with old Leica thread-mount lenses, since they’re easily adapted to the Monochrom. Similarly, since I’d been exposing the Tri-X at ISO 400, I chose to set the Monochrom’s ISO to 400, as well. I used a tripod to minimize any external vibration and insure that both cameras would photograph the same scene from the same angle. The photos you see below were taken about 30 seconds apart, using identical exposure settings and the exact same lens.

So what do we see? Other than the Tri-X being obviously grainier (a side-effect of some aggressive Rodinal development), we don’t see a whole lot of tonal difference. The midtones render almost identically. The Tri-X shot has, perhaps, a tiny bit more contrast — but these are unaltered, straight-from-camera (or scanner) files. Any such subtle difference could be quickly altered with only the slightest nudge of a gamma curve.

The differences become more apparent when we pixel (grain) peep, and the following series of comparisons allow us to do exactly that:

The left column contains a detail from the top of the high-rise at the left of the frame. This part of the structure is clad in highly reflective metal panels, and a large section of this area completely blew the highlights on the Monochrom. The top image shows this blown-out area in the Monochrom file, and the bottom image shows this same blown-out area on the scanned Tri-X negative. (NOTE: For the edification of detail fetishists, I should mention that I scan my negatives using a Plustek 7600i scanner with SilverFast Ai Studio 8, and optimize each scan to extract the full dynamic range from each negative, which I then store as a 16-bit greyscale TIFF file). Frankly, I expected the Monochrom’s blown highlights to look somewhat posterized and the Tri-X’s to appear more gradual. This was not the case — both files gracefully handled the overexposure in a very similar way.

The next column contains another blown highlight detail — this one a specular highlight from a reflection in some building windows. Here, perhaps, we see a slight bit of posterization in the clipped region of the Monochrom file, while the Tri-X seems to clip ever-so-slightly more gracefully. But is that really the case, or is it just a side-effect of the Monochrom’s extreme level of detail?

The third column contains an extraction from the lower-right corner of the frame — where the sidewalk and trees are cast in deep shadows. Again, save for the fact that the Monochrom file is so much cleaner and more detailed, the two files contain almost identical amounts of shadow detail.

The right column is merely a random detail, which I extracted from the center of the frame. Again, we see almost identical tonality, but the Monochrom file is simply in another class when resolution is considered.

I must admit that I’m a bit of a film fetishist myself — in fact, prior to the Monochrom’s arrival, I’d shot more film “keepers” this year than I’d shot digital — the first time in over a decade this has happened. Please don’t interpret this statement as fodder for the ever-tiresome film vs. digital debate — it’s not.  I shoot and love both, because both have different characteristics. So what are the characteristics that make me still use film? And will the Monochrom allow me to repurpose my stainless developing tanks into stylish storage containers for screws, coins and buttons?

There are two reasons why I sometimes grab a film camera on the way out the door. The first is film’s tonality, and its response to light. The Monochrom definitely closes the gap here, but it doesn’t quite eliminate it. There are still differences with toe and shoulder response that, in some “real-world “situations, make me choose film. Note that I define “real world” as meaning “oops, I really screwed up the exposure on that shot!” And in these conditions, film’s unique toe and shoulder response curves completely save my butt. If I were more in control of my exposure, I wouldn’t hesitate to claim that the Monochrom could effectively eliminate the tonal advantages I get from film. But on the streets, where photo opportunities occur so quickly that I have to “make do” with dubious exposure and even more dubious focus, film remains somewhat more forgiving, and thus a viable medium.

The second reason I’ve been shooting more film is simply that I really like grain. My photos are often heavily flawed and, frankly, once I’ve drifted so far from perfect image quality, I adopt a “more the merrier” attitude when it comes to the presence of additional flaws. That’s why I like higher speed films, and it’s why I develop that film in Rodinal, rather than in some lower acutance developer. One look at the detailed “Monochrom v Tri-X” images shown earlier  will tell you that “grain” is not something I’m going to get from a Monochrom file.

In truth, when I shoot in dark environments and pump up the ISO, I’m almost dismayed by the Monochrom’s low noise floor. I expect images shot after sunset to be grainy — but the Monochrom remains spectacularly clean. There are, of course, grain emulators built in to today’s software, and the simulations in both Silver Efex Pro and Lightroom are quite capable, providing you use them carefully and intelligently. One advantage of the Monochrom is that any noise it does contain is a bit more like a dusting of static than a jagged assemblage of digital artifacts. So I’ve taken to adding a bit of artificial grain to the Monochrom’s high ISO shots — simply because this is how I expect these images to look, and the absence of grain seems somewhat strange to me.

The earlier image of the man sitting in a chair is a prime example. That photo was taken at dusk using ISO 1600, yet it was smooth as a double shot of Patrón. It’s not the way I wanted the image to look, so I “roughed it up” a bit in software. Let’s just say that it’s far easier to rough up a high-fidelity file than it is to polish a low-fidelity file. So is this cheating? I’ll leave it to the debaters to debate. Meanwhile, I’ll be out shooting the heck out of the Monochrom, and enjoying every second of it — even if it’s not film’s exact digital doppelgänger:

Ultimately, if you want something that looks like film, feels like film and smells like fixer, then let me point you to a little website called “eBay.” There you’ll find all manner of film cameras just waiting for a new home and a loving owner. If I owned a Monochrom, I would still continue to shoot film, but I’m quite certain that the quantity of Tri-X flowing through my cameras would drop precipitously. The fact that the Monochrom’s fidelity is higher (and its noise floor lower) than any camera I’ve ever used (film or digital) is not something to take lightly. In spite of its film-like tonality, the cleanliness and detail contained in these files still make them appear uniquely digital. Is this good or bad? That depends totally on you, your fetishes, and how flexible you are.

As I speculated in an article called Hatch Battening, which I wrote for ULTRAsomething, the Monochrom indeed has its own look — its files are cleaner, richer, sharper and more detailed than my M9, which makes the Monochrom a very enticing alternative to simply post-converting a color file. If a very realistic film “look” is what you’re after, the Monochrom won’t quite give it to you — but its capacity to give you so much more is not something film shooters should dismiss. The Monochrom is its own world — one that’s worthy of exploring for anyone seeking maximum overall fidelity in a black and white image.

Henri Cartier-Bresson Fetishists

At one time or another, we’ve all succumbed to the Henri Cartier-Bresson fetish. If you haven’t, you will. And if you have, it’ll always be with you — at least to some extent. My Cartier-Bresson fetish haunts me every time I consider cropping a photo. I know there’s absolutely nothing wrong with improving an image by cropping it, yet the ghost of Cartier-Bresson always appears and admonishes me quite sternly every time I reach for Lightroom’s cropping tool.

When I think of Cartier-Bresson’s photos, so many factors come to mind — the geometry, the timing, and the rich but subtle grey tonality, which is like a soothing sanctuary from today’s over-amped, hyper-contrast, hyper-reality photos. I have not nearly his eye nor his talent, but the knowledge that such abilities are within human grasp continue to motivate me to at least try.

Leica, too, was influenced by their own Henri Cartier-Bresson fetish when they developed the Monochrom, which they code-named “Henri” during its development cycle. Curiously, this knowledge had a major impact on the lenses I often chose for my time with this camera. I figured that if Leica was trying to create a digital camera worthy of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the least I could do was use some of the lenses that Cartier-Bresson would have used in his heyday — lenses like my 35mm f/3.5 Elmar LTM and, for maximum authenticity, my 50mm f/3.5 Elmar LTM.

It feels simply amazing to use a tool whose roots extend back nearly 100 years to Oskar Barnack’s first efforts to repurpose 35mm movie film into a still camera. In an age where everything needs to be marketed as revolutionary, Leica understands the value of evolutionary — and that each generation of products doesn’t need to supplant the previous generation, but enhance it. I don’t suspect there are many companies making bleeding edge products (like the Monochrom) that still work flawlessly with system components dating back to the 1920?s. The fact is, if you learned to use a Leica in 1935, you would instinctively know how to use one in 1957, and in 2012 and, most likely, even in 2041. For me, the Monochrom is the purest digital Leica yet, and while technically superior to my old Leica III in nearly every conceivable way, it’s still unmistakably a part of that lineage.

I cannot be so arrogant as to speak for the dear departed Mr. Cartier-Bresson, so I won’t. But as one of his many million fetishists, I believe the Monochrom is a camera well worthy of its intended association.

Sharpness Fetishists

If it’s sharpness ye seek, and ye seeketh not color, then ye may stoppeth thine search. The Monochrom is, without a doubt, the sharpest camera I’ve ever had the pleasure of shooting — it’s biblically sharp (as you can tell from my introductory prose). Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it’s encased within a Leica M body, meaning Leica’s entire historical inventory of truly stellar optics are all available to supply that camera with some seriously wicked fidelity.

I’ll admit that sharpness rarely plays a starring role in my own photography. As a street and documentary photographer, I simply have too many variables working against me, meaning motion blur and missed focus tend to eliminate whatever sharpness advantages exist in my gear. Those with the previously mentioned Henri Cartier-Bresson fetish are all likely nodding their heads in agreement. After all, it was Cartier-Bresson who once famously told Helmut Newton that “sharpness is a bourgeois concept.” But those who dole out commercial photography assignments don’t suffer from Cartier-Bresson fetishes — for them, sharpness isn’t bourgeois, it’s profit.

But every now and then, even for me, sharpness takes on a measure of importance. Consider the following photo. I was standing in sunlight with my camera’s exposure set accordingly when, off in the distance and in the shadow of some buildings, I saw a couple embrace — the man quickly extending his arm to avoid burning the woman with his cigarette. I am forever a sucker for spontaneous displays of affection, so I grabbed the shot — knowing full well I was too far away, had the wrong exposure dialled in, and had only enough time to guess at the focus distance. What you see here is, in reality, a crop (in spite of my imagined admonishments from Mr. Cartier-Bresson) — an area only about 15% the size of the entire frame. Yet, because of the Monochrom’s incredible sharpness (coupled with its shadow detail), I was able to salvage the shot, and get the photo I’d intended.

So, while sharpness is often unimportant to my own photographs, I’d rather have an abundance of it, then too little — and the Monochrom is the very definition of “an abundance of sharpness.”

In Part 3, I’ll continue combing through the various imaging fetishes before segueing into some of the more psychological aspects of Monochrom photography — exactly the sort of stuff that’s guaranteed to set off at least a few rants on photography forums around the world.

Sharpness is nothing more than a fetish. So, too, is tonality. Noise, contrast, micro-contrast and megapixels? All fetishes. Even black and white. Show me a photographer and I’ll show you a fetishist.

Every new camera will titillate some photographers, while disgusting others. Fortunately, none of us are so dysfunctional that we possess every known photo fetish, but we all possess at least a few. Curiously, most of us fail to see our own proclivities as fetishes — believing that our desires represent a photographer’s “true” needs, while anyone with contrary needs is some kind of deranged sicko. In reality, we’re all deranged sickos.

When Leica asked me to shoot with the Monochrom and articulate my impressions, I knew I could follow one of two paths: either I could look at the camera strictly within the confines of my own specific fetishes, or I could use it more liberally in situations where I wouldn’t normally be motivated to take photos. Because the latter path would benefit a wider range of sickos photographers, it became my roadmap for this series of articles.

Knowing that my Monochrom impressions would be read by thousands of potential purchasers had a profound influence on what I shot and how I shot it. Normally, I tend to be a very frugal photographer. I prefer to make my selects before I press the shutter rather than after. If a shot doesn’t make my heart skip a beat, I’ll usually skip the shot. Thus, if I go out for a day with my old M2, I’ll probably come home with only 3 or 4 shots — one of which might be vaguely worthy of some future consideration. With the M9, I’ll come home with about a dozen shots, though it remains likely only one still warrants any future consideration. When the Monochrom arrived, I knew such an austere methodology would yield an article with only 2 or 3 photos. Since my readers would definitely want more, I needed to devise a way to take a lot of photos in a very short time. To meet this task, I released my inner-Winogrand. Quite famously, Garry Winogrand once stated, “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.” This became my mantra for my time with the camera — I photographed to find out what something will look like photographed with the Monochrom.

As a result, the goal for this article is not to shine a light upon my photographic “brilliance” (cough), but to instead illuminate the various attributes of the Monochrom, and how those attributes might appeal to a wide range of users. This is an article in which the pictures serve the story, rather than the story serving the pictures. Consequently, some of the images are trite; some are pedantic; but they exist to edify rather than entertain.

The sad result is that I can no longer write disparagingly of people who photograph walls when they write about cameras, as I’ve now joined their dubious ranks.

So without further ado, I invite all you photographic deviants to search this 3-part article for your various fetishes, beginning with the mechanical here in Part 1, and decide whether or not the Monochrom might be right for you.

Leather Fetishists

Let’s get the kinky fetish out of the way first — leather. Unlike the previous digital M’s, the Monochrom ships with a swanky leather strap. Sure, it looks nice dangling from your shoulder — but who carries their Leica like that? If you’re using your Monochrom for sport, rather than for show, you’re going to be wrapping that leather strap around your wrist, not draping it oh-so roguishly from your shoulder. I carry my Leica in-hand, where it’s ready to respond instantly to the dynamic world around me. Stiff leather does not conform to a bundle of twists about the wrist nearly as lithely as nylon. On more than one occasion, I felt the urge to open my toolbox, extract a hammer, and smite that strap into submission. On several other occasions, I fantasized about tossing the strap onto the middle of Vancouver’s Burrard Street bridge, where heavy vehicular traffic would pummel it into something approximating “pliable.” But, conscientious citizen that I am, I knew the next recipient of this demo camera would not appreciate receiving a strap that looked like week-old road kill, so I refrained. Ultimately, were I to own a Monochrom, I’d have to decide whether to cudgel the strap into something more supple, or simply purchase a nylon strap — thus leaving the supplied leather strap unscathed, and more enticing to whomever purchases the Monochrom from the estate sale that follows my demise.

The next topic in my leather litany is the camera’s synthetic leather body wrap. The Monochrom’s body “leather” is different than any other M-body I’ve owned, thus continuing Leica’s long tradition of changing covers with each new M-body release. It’s much more finely grained than my M9, meaning it’s much smoother. “Smooth” normally means “less grip,” which isn’t exactly a desirable trait for someone who carries their Leica in-hand. But looks can deceive — and while the Monochrom is definitely smoother than my delightfully pebbly M9 wrapping, I found it afforded an almost identical amount of grip when my hands were dry, and a surprisingly more reassuring grip when my hands were sweating. Sadly, none of my digital M’s have had wraps that grip nearly as well as my M6TTL which, in turn, isn’t nearly as grippy as the original vulcanite on my M2. I wish Leica could wrap these cameras in the same kind of materials used in the old days, but I suspect price and/or environmental issues prevent it.

Talking about leather may seem trivial, but when you spend all day, every day, carrying a camera, comfort and security are important.

Metal Fetishists

There are those who believe plastic — any plastic — on a camera is blasphemy. I’m happy to report that, like all the M’s before it, the Monochrom retains the highest metal percentage of any modern camera, and features the same die-cast magnesium alloy body and solid brass top deck and bottom plate as the previous models. This is a camera that will simply delight metal fetishists.

I’m somewhat less happy to report that the brass top deck is finished in black chrome, rather than black paint. The type of black finish is, not surprisingly, its own sub-fetish in the Leica world — with black paint fetishists occupying one dungeon and black chrome fetishists occupying another. Black chrome has a tendency to look a bit dull and weathered out of the box, but takes a pretty good beating without ever becoming duller or more weathered. The black chrome finish on my old M6TTL is virtually indistinguishable from the black chrome finish on the brand-new Monochrom — meaning either that the M6 looks “new” or the Monochrom looks “old,” depending on whether you’re a “glass is half empty” or “glass is half full” kind of person.

The powdery luster of a black paint body (like my M9) is, I believe, the “prettier” of the two black finishes. One of the main characteristics of black paint is that, over time, it wears away and the brass shows through. Some find this look “ugly,” while others (like me) think it’s beautiful. To me, a brassed camera is a loved camera. My M9 is just beginning to show the tiniest hint of brassing, and I couldn’t be happier — it’s like a badge of honor. Leica designed the Monochrom for maximum stealth, so one could argue that an old brassed camera becomes “flashier” and thus less “stealthy” than an old black chrome camera. But I think the older a camera looks, the more stealthy it becomes — simply because people tend to completely dismiss any photographer they see carrying what they perceive to be an old camera.

Ultimately, if you’re going to let the fact the camera is finished in black chrome rather than black paint influence your purchase decision, you’re not a fetishist — you’re just plain nuts.

Handling Fetishists

How does the camera handle? With photographers possessing a profusion of polarizing proclivities (how’s that for some impressive alliteration?!), it’s a question without a definitive answer. The Monochrom is, of course, a rangefinder. It features the same basic body and controls as the Leica M9 which, in turn, is ergonomically similar to every other M-series camera dating back to 1954. Whether or not you think this is a good thing depends on whether or not you like rangefinders. For my photography, there is no better form factor, and I’m absolutely delighted that such a bold and purposeful camera has arrived in rangefinder form. Those familiar with the M9 will find the button layout identical and the menus very similar to (though, obviously, not exactly the same as) Leica’s flagship color digital M9.

Operationally, the Monochrom handles identically to my M9. I had expected that the Monochrom would be even slower than the M9 at writing image files to the SD card, but I ran a series of tests in which I triggered both cameras simultaneously, and they took exactly the same amount of time — even when shooting a 4-shot burst in “continuous mode” (which, admittedly, is a feature I’ve never once used).

Unfortunately, I did experience one recurring issue with the Monochrom that I’d experienced only once in 3 years with my M9 — camera lock-up. Specifically, every few days, the Monochrom would completely lock-up when I pressed the shutter button. It wouldn’t take a photo, it would just die. The camera became completely unresponsive (as if it had no battery installed), which meant the buttons, LCD and power switch did nothing. To bring the camera back to life, I’d simply remove the battery, wait for a few seconds, then re-insert it. The camera and I would then continue on our merry way, though I’d be disappointed at having missed the photo I’d wanted to take. Not surprisingly, in total adherence to Murphy’s Law, it seemed like the lock-up ALWAYS occurred during the most intriguing photo opportunity of the day. Unfortunately, I was unable to identify the root cause. Lock ups would happen whether the battery was fully charged, half-charged, or nearly depleted. They’d happen if I tried to take a couple photos in quick succession, but they’d also happen if I hadn’t taken a photo in hours. They’d happen if the camera had fallen asleep, and they’d happen if the camera was still awake. I have since returned the camera to Leica and they’re investigating whether or not my problems are an isolated case or endemic of a wider problem.

Luxury Fetishists

Some people actually acquire Leica products because of their luxury status. Leica, itself, feeds this market with special edition versions of their products — versions that will sit in display cases as objects d’art rather than in the hands of hardworking documentary photographers. From my vantage point in a completely different universe, I simply can’t imagine the Monochrom having much (if any) appeal to the luxury crowd. It’s not covered in ostrich skin. It doesn’t gleam in the showcase. Shine a light on it, and it’ll suck it dark like a black hole. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say the Monochrom is, perhaps, the most austere, unadorned and restrained camera I’ve ever used. I quite like this about the Monochrom — but I suspect Luxury Fetishists will feel just the opposite.

The camera is flat black with nary a Leica logo in sight. The model name is barely discernible atop the right edge of the hotshoe, and there’s no engraving anywhere except on the back — save for a small serial number stamped atop the body, which makes the camera resemble a piece of bog-standard government issue more than an item of luxury.

Plain, unprepossessing and perhaps a touch “homely,” the Monochrom is designed to draw absolutely no attention to itself — making it essentially the opposite of a luxury camera. Save for the conceit of a leather strap, it is, pure and simple, a shooter’s camera.

So, in Part 2 of this article, I’ll discuss how the Monochrom lives up to its raison d’être — photo fidelity — and all the various image fetishes surrounding it. No more “fun and games.” We’re going to get our hands good and dirty…