Monochrome and digital cameras

ShinySideUp said:
further investigation shows the name is owned by Ricoh it would seem..
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Shows how out of touch with things I am - I thought they were Samsung owned!
 
Nod said:
Shows how out of touch with things I am - I thought they were Samsung owned!
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Hoya owned Pentax before Ricoh, I don’t think Samsung ever had any involvement.
 
sphexx said:
Hoya owned Pentax before Ricoh, I don’t think Samsung ever had any involvement.
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The link appears to be a co-development deal that resulted in a number of of shared designs...
In 2005, Pentax Corporation partnered with Samsung to share work on camera technology and recapture market ground from Nikon and Canon. Pentax and Samsung subsequently released new DSLR siblings from this agreement. The Pentax *ist DS and *istDL2 also appeared as the Samsung GX-1S and GX-1L, while the jointly developed (90% Pentax and 10% Samsung) Pentax K10D and K20D gave birth to the Samsung GX-10 and GX-20 respectively. Some Pentax lenses are also rebranded and sold as Samsung Schneider Kreuznach D-Xenon and D-Xenogon lenses for Samsung DSLRs. However, both brands are completely compatible with Pentax and Samsung DSLRs. In 2017, Samsung announced its departure of the camera market.
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...
en.wikipedia.org

Pentax - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
It's all very subjective regarding IQ, i've been studying these images from the Leica Q2 monochrom and I can't see any advantage over a decent colour mirrorless from other manufacturers if the mono conversion is done well in post. I like the RNI film sims as they don't touch your sliders at all in lightroom so you retain full control over editing.

www.flickr.com

Leica Q2 Monochrom Picture Sharing

This group is for sharing photographs taken with the Leica Q2 Monochrome. No other image source or color allowed.
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
 
ShinySideUp said:
So what is the point of having the ability to shoot in monochrome when I can turn a colour picture into B&W any time I like?
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Seeing the picture in Monochrome helps with is this photo going to work in mono chrome , I find shooting in colour and then covering later you realize that it just doesn't work quite often, With all my cameras if I shoot in B&W that all I get .
 
sphexx said:
I suspect, but can’t prove, that the reason monochrome photos were so widely accepted so quickly and for so long was because people were unconsciously experienced at seeing in mono.

I’m not argue about any colour aspects of photography/cameras as I’m red-green colour blind which may also be a factor in my generally preferring mono!
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Do you mean B&W was accepted as colour film was not available.
In fact if colour film had been created in the 1850's would black white film have existed into the 20th century?
 
alfbranch said:
Do you mean B&W was accepted as colour film was not available.
In fact if colour film had been created in the 1850's would black white film have existed into the 20th century?
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‘No, I didn’t mean that, more that people accepted as an interpretation of the world. Doesnt colour photography go back almost to 1850.
 
lindsay said:
Reading the info about the new Pentax K3-iii Monochrome that is being launched (expected price circa £2199 I believe), it suggested that the removal of the colour capability in the sensor improved the capture of luminescence of now-B&W only pixels, this reducing noise and getting better sharpness, although it did go on to suggest that the changed pixel performance created a more grainy feel. Not sure I understand any of that, but it did get me interested, at 1/4 the price of the Leica M11 Mono.
I have old Leica iiia and g models, and totally agree about the film loading and viewfinders! Lovely engineering though (although I prefer Contax in general for build and functionality).
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The color filter array (Bayer CFA) over the color image sensor is an absorptive filter. E.g. the red filter is red because it absorbs all other color wavelengths. And therefore those wavelengths are not available for exposure of that photosite/pixel.
That doesn't happen with a monochrome sensor... and because the monochrome sensor is only recording luminance it doesn't require demosaicing... fuzzy math to determine true colors/luminance. The lack of demosaicing is a potential benefit (fuzzy math isn't entirely accurate) and it is also a potential negative (harsher/"unedited").
 
alfbranch said:
Do you mean B&W was accepted as colour film was not available.
In fact if colour film had been created in the 1850's would black white film have existed into the 20th century?
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‘No, I didn’t mean that, more that people accepted as an interpretation of the world. Doesnt colour photography go back almost to 1850.
 
sphexx said:
‘No, I didn’t mean that, more that people accepted as an interpretation of the world. Doesnt colour photography go back almost to 1850.
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It wasn't until the 1960s that general use of colour film became common. In the 1970s, penetration of the high speed integrated film processing and printing machines into the high street, made it popular with the casual user.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
It wasn't until the 1960s that general use of colour film became common. In the 1970s, penetration of the high speed integrated film processing and printing machines into the high street, made it popular with the casual user.
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That’s more or less my point. That people (ie the public, not necessarily photographers) easily accepted B&W as a representation.
 
If it helps I am happy to set up a GoFundme for the M11 Monochrom and report back when I have it?

Otherwise, I have a custom setting on my Em1 M kII for monochrome and set it for RAW+jpg so I get the benefit of both.

These day, I tend to shoot 99% of my film as B&W so it has become natural to try and see a potential image as B&W.

Post 1000 by the way - a long way off some of you but a milestone none the less.
 
For the more ancient amongst us, you may remember Ted Lowe commentating a on a snooker match in the 1970's:

"And for those watching in black and white, the pink is behind the green."
 
ShinySideUp said:
For the more ancient amongst us, you may remember Ted Lowe commentating a on a snooker match in the 1970's:

"And for those watching in black and white, the pink is behind the green."
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Actually that’s sort of relevant to this topic for me. Back then I had a colour tv but also a very good Bang & Olafson B&W TV. I always watched old B&W movies on the B&O as the rendition was so much better — I was going to say “the colours were so much better” :LOL:
 
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sphexx said:
Hoya owned Pentax before Ricoh, I don’t think Samsung ever had any involvement.
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Hoya still own Pentax, in a way. They wanted Pentax Corporation (which evolved out of Asahi Optical Co.Ltd) for the medical devices section which was the main money earner for PC; the imaging division like Saab cars in the old Saab-Scania company (1968-1995) was a loss-making niche division. Not long after the Hoya takeover, the imaging division was divested to Ricoh and most of the old Pentax Corp remained with Hoya.
 
sphexx said:
Slightly different view on the advantages of a mono camera — long but the early part refers:
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Most of that is vague opinion at best... the part about shadow detail/noise is due to the lack of a CFA and the photosites getting more light. But to say it's going to be better than any other camera, no matter the technology/generation, is a huge stretch at best. The lack of a CFA is about 1 stop benefit... i.e. the first stop.
 
sk66 said:
Most of that is vague opinion at best... the part about shadow detail/noise is due to the lack of a CFA and the photosites getting more light. But to say it's going to be better than any other camera, no matter the technology/generation, is a huge stretch at best. The lack of a CFA is about 1 stop benefit... i.e. the first stop.
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I agree with your general points but I think that even if he is mistaken (which I don’t say he is) it’s an account of his experience with the Q2 and so valid for him at least. I thought it an interesting and different argument from some of the others I’ve read and an illustration why some may buy a mono camera. I’m sure there are various reasons, some may even buy them for the novelty and so on. Maybe some may just feel more comfortable with a mono camera as a carpenter may have a favourite hammer and so on.

If it sells more cameras everyone benefits.
 
sphexx said:
it’s an account of his experience with the Q2 and so valid for him at least.
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That's generous of you... I didn't get that at all.

In terms of comparing the Q2 vs Q2M there is a little over a one stop benefit. But there is about zero benefit compared to a similar resolution color camera like the Nikon Z7 (in terms of DR/shadow information/noise).

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sk66 said:
That's generous of you... I didn't get that at all.

In terms of comparing the Q2 vs Q2M there is a little over a one stop benefit. But there is about zero benefit compared to a similar resolution color camera like the Nikon Z7 (in terms of DR/shadow information/noise).

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We’ll just have to agree to differ! ;)
 
Regardless of the technical argument (and I am persuaded by it myself anyway), if it gets more people buying Pentax DSLR's it's a good thing. Ricoh developed this because Pentaxians asked for it, so it's nice to see that their response to the fanbase is rewarded.
 
lindsay said:
Regardless of the technical argument (and I am persuaded by it myself anyway), if it gets more people buying Pentax DSLR's it's a good thing. Ricoh developed this because Pentaxians asked for it, so it's nice to see that their response to the fanbase is rewarded.
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I think it should be applauded, i for one am also convinced and have placed a pre order fingers crossed the release date stays the same and iam included in the first batch of their deliveries.
 
todders said:
I think it should be applauded, i for one am also convinced and have placed a pre order fingers crossed the release date stays the same and iam included in the first batch of their deliveries.
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I've pre-ordered too. Fingers crossed it isn't delayed. I just bought a lens from MPB to use with it (Tamron 10-20) but will test it on my MZ5 film camera first.
 
lindsay said:
I've pre-ordered too. Fingers crossed it isn't delayed. I just bought a lens from MPB to use with it (Tamron 10-20) but will test it on my MZ5 film camera first.
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That lens will be a good wide angle length on the K3 III, i have a 20-40 limited but it is in silver. I will see what it looks like when the camera arrives :) I have had my eye on the 31 limited they have in stock. It never ends.
 
Why a mono sensor rather than a colour one shot in b&w mode is the question.
SK66 was correct in what he said but I'll try and expand on that. Of course I'm no more qualified than anyone else but here we go.
In a sense all digital cameras have a monochrome sensor. They are all descendants of b&w cctv camera sensors. To make a colour image you have to do one of two things.
First option is to take the image three times with a red, blue and then green filter o er the lens. In this way some early colour photo processes were created. It is also how early digital camera backs for medium format cameras worked. Quite clunky and often storing images on an hp ipak (?) Pda.
This was fine for still life in the studio and OK for landscapes but not good for anything else (of course this three shot approach has come back for HDR and pixel shift hi res tricks). Three filters can also be found in some high end "three chip" video cameras.

Option two is to use something like a Bayer filter in front of the sensor. I n one form or another this is what we use today regardless of camera brand. As SK66 points out these filters block light. So you have say 24mp of which 12 only see green and 6 each red and blue (more green as the eye sees more green than other colours). So a blue sky that covers half the frame is 12mp of the photo but only 3mp in the half capture blue so half the sky is interpolated. Same with red and a bit better for green areas. This leads in turn to other issues such as aliasing. You either live with it in exchange for max sharpness or live with slightly reduced sharpness and less aliasing with an anti aliasing filter. So now you have your b&w sensor with 25-60% of the pixels "blinded" by a colour filter and then softened with an AA filter. That's a lot of stuff between the light Ray and the pixel and a lot of lost pixels as well

OR

Have a monochrome sensor where every pixel site captures luminance data, there is no aliasing and so no AA filter and you get a far more detailed image, in black and white!

Of course you could take your monochrome canera and take the same image three times through....
 
Apparently................

A color sensor has an RGB filter above it and splits the image into red,green and blue; so a 60mp color sensor showing a B&W image is only around 20 megapixel where as the monochrom version uses a full 60MP as there is no filter array.
 
ilikebowens said:
So you have say 24mp of which 12 only see green and 6 each red and blue (more green as the eye sees more green than other colours). So a blue sky that covers half the frame is 12mp of the photo but only 3mp in the half capture blue so half the sky is interpolated. Same with red and a bit better for green areas.
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Jammy Dodger said:
Apparently................

A color sensor has an RGB filter above it and splits the image into red,green and blue; so a 60mp color sensor showing a B&W image is only around 20 megapixel where as the monochrom version uses a full 60MP as there is no filter array.
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It's more complicated than that... it's an oversimplification to say the photosites see/receive R/G/B. What exactly would be "red" anyway? The filters/photosites act more like the cones in the human eye... with sensitivities biased towards long/medium/short wavelengths; and quite a bit of overlap.

This is pretty typical response curves for a CMOS sensor with a Bayer filter... even the long (red) filtered photosites respond some to short (blue) wavelengths. And short (blue) responds to quite a bit of the medium (green) wavelengths (but almost nothing of the long end).


nex.jpg

Net result is that the typical CFA costs about 50% of the available light (when the light is full spectrum). Which is why the Leica Q2 mono has ~ 1 stop more DR capability than the Q2 does in controlled testing.

And that is a real/potential benefit; I choose to use a FF sensor partly for the same kind of 1stop potential benefit over APS... but it would be silly for me to choose a FF camera like the D3 over an APS like the D500; thinking it provides the same benefit when in fact it does not (the D500 actually exceeds the D3's potential).

Similarly you cannot say that all Mono sensors are going to perform better in low light compared to any/all other color cameras. Particularly these days where we have dual gain sensors with a second low gain mode for even higher light sensitivity (a second/higher "base" ISO). The only thing you can arbitrarily say is that it will perform better than the same sensor with a color filter in terms of light reception/response.

Don't get me wrong... if you want a camera for only recording B&W images, then there's really no reason not to choose a mono sensor.

Edit to add:
And consider a situation like red stage lighting during a performance, a mono sensor could have a much bigger advantage in that limited scenario... and that also tends to be a great situation/subject for a B&W image (IMO).
 
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At a quick glance, I thought that was Lacock Abbey from the other side!
 
Very similar., I agree
 
If bluddy only!! @Plain Nev
Anyway, it's a Buddhist centre, so such material considerations are anathema to me (actually I'm not a good Buddhist, so that's a lie)
 
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