Would yo buy a B&W only 16 BIT M9 ?

Would yo buy a B&W only 16 BIT M9 ?

  • Yes, absolutely.

    Votes: 71 14.4%

  • Yes, but only if it performs like B&W film.

    Votes: 58 11.7%

  • Yes, but only if it costs 15-20% less than the standard M9.

    Votes: 60 12.1%

  • No.

    Votes: 305 61.7%
  • Total voters
    494
Brian Sweeney said:
Maybe I should post the question "If Kodak and Ilford discontinue Black and White Film, would you buy a Monochrome M9".

For Infrared Photography, the better IR films are gone and Digital Infrared is the answer. Enough users where they either convert cameras to IR or have the conversion done. No one makes a color Infrared camera that is "affordable", ie without making an M9 look cheap.
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I'd buy Adox or Fuji B+W film :p

There's so many IFs creeping into this discussion I think we've reached the realms of fantasy. Leica aren't about to create a B+W camera anytime soon.

Now when Nano technology has reached the point where we can have sensors with enough pixels which can be dynamically set to record different wavelengths then maybe we get a perfect digital camera which can be set to b+w or colour mode.without compromiise.
 
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If I was going to spend that much, I would expect it to take color as well. Purely as a matter of principal you understand.
 
I certainly wouldn't, although I'm not in the market for a regular M9 either. It would be a huge amount of money for a very limited camera, plus I like colour for many subjects.
 
Stooooooooooooooooooooopid. Kodak made such a digital SLR back in the 90's. I forgot the model designation.
 
I have only recently seen, that Phase One has made an achromatic digital back, and having read this review, it actually does not seem to be such a huge advantage over a standard one, unless you are into the invisible spectrum photography. What I was hoping for, was more than the resolution increase, the speed and bit depth increase, but this still seems to be missing.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/achromatic.shtml
 
Why?
Can a BW modified image be "That" much better than converting to BW?
Really, not Pixel Peeking differences.. but, real-life I can really see differences at normal viewing distances differences!
 
I own one of those full-spectrum monochrome Kodak cameras, and paid Kodak an extra $4,000 to make it full-spectrum.

It was obviously worth it. For scientific imaging, getting rid of the mosaic filters gets rid of a lot of artifacts introduced by aliasing. For near-IR work, getting rid of the cut-off filter is essential. I ended up buying an EP2 modified for full-spectrum, but still has a Mosaic filter. Above 800nm or so, the RGB dye used in the Mosaic filters is ineffectual and the aliasing problems go away. So at least for IR, it is not as important.
 
At photokina I specifically asked Stefan face-to-face about this. He was completely dismissive because of the cost of the chip. I said that I knew someone who believed it would be affordable and he assured me it would not.

Personally, I don't know enough to argue either way.

Cheers,

R.
 
Must of missed this one the first time around.

A B&W M9 would make no difference to me - I still could not afford it, but if the option were available in a camera I could afford, I would buy one. For example when I shot Nikon dslr's I would have bought a dedicated B&W model, with the same ease an infrared afficionado would have a digital camera converted to shoot what they shoot.

To be honest, I'm surprised that not more of the bigger camera companies (or even the big sensor manufacturers) don't do so, if only to hold up as a badge of honour/ show what is possible. I suppose it's easier to spend the bucks on research into superfast lenses, than to do similarly exotic things with other aspects in the camera chain..
 
The easiest way to do a Monochrome CCD and leave the sensor geometry the same would be to fabricate it with the Mosaic layer and leave the color dye out of it. Essentially, remains in the optical path but does not absorb light coming through it. Think of it like a Mirror lens that takes rear mount filters: one must be left in place. When you convert a Digital camera to IR, you remove the IR absorbing glass and put clear glass in its place. Kodak makes the sensor, and they would know the cost. Leica's cost would be to do some mods to the firmware, mostly "bypass" color processing. The main cost would be in Test and Validation of the new camera with modified firmware. That is not trivial. On the Kodak camera, it was trivial for ME to write the software to convert RAW images from the camera. Kodak did not have to write new firmware, it only worked with Raw.
 
What an odd question.

Errrrrrrrrrrrr lets see.

"Would you buy a Ferrari that has a speed governor that will only allow it to drive at speeds of 55mph?" Kinda like this don't you think?

Most digital shooters do not use in camera black and white anyway. Its much more functional to shoot in color and convert to mono after. That happens to be one of the fantastic advantages of digital. So who would want to deliberately castrate a camera to do less.
 
If the monochromatic M9 would be priced not much higher than a standard one, I would consider it, if:

The acuity advantage is as dramatic, as going from an AA filtered sensor to the AA less sensor of the digital M.

It is a no brainer for me. When I use my Leica film cameras, I am fully aware, that everything, I shoot with them will end up in BW, as I only use BW film in them.

Most (about 95%) of my M8.2 files end up, being BW.
It is not about buying a technically limited different M9, which doesn't allow color photography, but buying a more specific M9, which has other advantages over the standard model.

I would be in - sure.
 
I could get my '72 Mustang up to 135mph on the roads in North Georgia. 302 with a few Mods in it. Not that fast compared with other cars, but it was fun to see the Speedometer needle going past 120 and point to the little horse that indicated you had your Brights on. "Horsey Speed". My Sister drove a '69 Mustang with a 351 in Italy ~1970. She would get passed by the Lamborghini's. But she did drive it as Max speed and made one of her passengers wet himself with her driving. The Italian parking lot attendants that knew her referred to the car as "El Bruto".

As far as a Monochrome M9- image quality goes up for Monochrome work. Among other things, you pick up a full F-Stop of sensitivity for Visible light, and the ability of using filters designed for B&W work. And of course it makes the workflow easier when you want B&W images, which is a time saver.
 
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Brian Sweeney said:
My Sister drove a '69 Mustang with a 351 in Italy ~1970. She would get passed by the Lamborghini's. But she did drive it as Max speed and made one of her passengers wet himself with her driving.
Click to expand...

Your sister sounds like a gal I would've liked to meet, back in the day :dance:
 
Nope. I see no need to have a B&W-only M, when any photo I take with the M9 can be turned into a B&W photo if I want.

I don't see the point in restricting myself re the camera. The world sees mainly in color these days, and many times I see a photo that looks great in color--would be too bad if I had a B&W-only camera at the time. I would prefer having the full range of options, re my pictures...
 
No.

No.

B&W = film

Colour = film/digital


Digital B&W is no close to film, the look has not been replicated yet.
Until then, I have no interest.
 
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