@Andy, you just nailed the biggest problem with the M9m...

"The only other sensor that can give you that sort of sharpness is the new Foevon or a very high res (24mp+) sensor downsized."

Had they launched the dang thing two years ago, when the 24mp+ choices were very limited, the M9m would have been a game changer. But it's 2012, and 24mp+ sensors are everywhere. Nikon has probably already shipped more D800 in the last three months (despite how scarce they are, by Nikon shooter standards) than Leica has shipped M8 and M9 in five years. How many APS SLRs are currently in the field with the 24mp Sony? A million? Two million?

Nokia put a 40mp sensor, with only downsized output available, in a phone.

88SAL, I have four Leitz lenses and I am jealous!

RRJackson you are forgetting the lens.

You don't have to mount the most expensive lens made by Leica to use the camera. My personal preference would be the Zeiss 21mm f/4.5, which is $1100.

Those who 'want it' will no doubt be a great market for it. I shoot a D7000 and really can't see where that, with good glass and LR4 processing can't satisfy the needs of most. Certainly the D800 goes further yet.
Were my pockets extremely deep and the importance of my 'image' extremely high ...I might be tempted ..but then it would need "Leica" showing where the people I'd be trying to impress ...would see it.
jj

The comparable explanation is that current sensors can't capture color information. So the way people approximate that is by using a process similar to the old Technicolor 3-strip process. An 18-megapixel "color" camera takes 9 million green photos, 4 1/2 million blue photos and 4 1/2 million red photos for every exposure. And then an automated process combines those and approximates what the output might have looked like if 18 million full-color images had been captured. The difference or error is something we just live with. And then on top of that level of distortion some people like to do a subtractive conversion that removes even more information and they think this B&W end result is an acceptable substitute for a process that removes all of these variables from the process of capture. But it isn't.

It's not a question of "how sharp" it is in that, "Hey, this here lens is pretty sharp!" kind of way. Monochrome capture is a process that eliminates the Bayer array, so data interpolation is absent from the process. Now this may or may not appeal to you and the cost may drive you into some kind of frenzy, but it's a superior methodology to Bayer capture if a monochrome end result is your goal.

Now certainly you can bemoan the old Kodak CCD technology underlying the camera. I prefer CCDs in a lot of ways, but low light capture hasn't been their strong suit and it's been a point of contention. And you can bemoan the manual focus rangefinder design which is again a matter of personal taste.

At the end of the day all you can really say is that the way you capture monochrome images is good enough for you and you don't need superior dedicated monochrome capture equipment. And that's fine. It could never be asserted that this is a camera for the masses.

@rhlpetrus Actually, that's a terrible way to work, IMO. It's a subtractive process. What you're doing is dropping the levels on one of your color channels and essentially removing even more information from your photograph. It's much better to use an optical filter with a monochrome sensor the same way you did when you shot B&W film.

You fail to take into consideration one very important factor - the fact that some people much prefer to use rangefinder cameras. Myself included. Personally, I never even want to touch a DSLR again!

No, you did not understand at all, the range finder is in B&W you see B&W, and fuji X-pro is completely a diferent experience and you will have to use the live view mode. Fuji has no low pass filter but is not nearly the same thing...

Well maybe. But I don't see why it wold be so diferent. The demosaicing is to remove the pattern GRGBG pattern, and not to make the image smooth. By smooth I mean, not to be made of dot's, when you look it really close like 600%. The bayer filter may make the dot's more visible, since adjacent pixels could be contrasty.

That was my impression, but as whomever wrote the specs list didn't know this is a rangefinder, not a "rangefinder-type," I wanted confirmation. Sadly, you're probably right. The images as presented are useless. It seems to me that if DP Review wanted to show what the camera can do, it would show what the camera could do when used as it would be in the real world - with filtration.

If I would use any filter I would use a dark green or blue to get natural skintones. Skin is not supposed to be bright white, its supposed to be around middle grey if converted to b&w. And thats horribly hard to get with digital, even with filters and proper PP. Thats why I still shoot b&w film.

And that's another advantage of converting color image to b/w, you can use any filter in PP, and with b/w camera you have to put that piece of glass right on the lens, which is 1) inconvenience and 2) reduces the amount of light entering the lens.

I've heard of 'em, and I'm still curious to see if there is any noticeable difference.

I agree in that the sample pictures are uninspiring and don't showcase anything that this camera may be doing better (or worse) than other cameras.
However, I can absolutely see the appeal in this one and would trade my 5DII and all my lenses in a heartbeat for something like this. But even then there is still a hefty price gap and it's out of my reach at the moment. And ultimately I'd probably want both, a Leica system and DSLR/SLR system.
I see the "limitations" of the Leica rangefinders (and this one in particular) that would suit my priorities in photography. I like the size and sturdiness, the solid and excellent lenses, the use of metal instead of plastic, the absence of AF - in short the reduction to what I still consider the essence of photography. Half of the gizmos and settings on my DSLR are completely useless to me - sometimes they're even in the way.
Clearly, this is not for everyone - not just because of the hefty price tags on their stuff.

You will be able to tell the difference. Soon, reviews will launch testing A-B shots from various dSLRs that will show the benefits and need of such a sensor. And then you can always couple the camera with their new 50mm APO summicron, for the absolute best.

normally the leica argument does not hold. However forget this is even a leica for a second. It is a B+W camera, designed for massive dynamic range because of the lack of colour filter array (which causes light loss).

That is a good point Petka. The DR of normal cameras is already beyond what any print can reproduce. But the color cameras allow you to select and manipulate the bw transfer process at home, so you can emphasize green, red etc or even multiple colors at the same time. All this more practical advantages are lost using a BW-only camera.
Again, this looks as a retro vehicle for more-than-affluent baby-boomers.

fully agree. it is enough just to open eyes for Leica mirage to disappear.

@Petka I'm not sure you really understand how much detriment a Bayer array does to an image. In the name of capturing color about half the image is interpolated data. And of course you sprinkle clumps of chroma noise on top of that. You can oversample and get similar results, but that means you'd really need the 36 megapixels of the D800 to yield a "Leica-like" 18 megapixel B&W image.

Fake B&W through processing is fine for people who don't understand the process of monochrome capture, but it's certainly not a superior process. Any more than Instagram is superior to actually cross-processing film. It's faster and you can make changes that would be harder to make with chemistry, but the final result isn't going to fool a real photographer.

What does it matter to be able to fool a real photographer? Is there some rule how pictures must be taken? Do you add grain to your digital images to fool photographers to think film was used? Yes, you can use filters on a monochrome camera, film or digital, to manipulate the grayscale, but can you apply different filters in this Leica on different part of the image? Easily done in PS conversion. In the LL site they have come to a conclusion that 24 MPix color camera is enough to match this 18 Mpix Bayerless wonder. So, my understanding is that Bayer array has a 25% detrimental effect, not 50% you have come up with. So 5D3 matches Leica, and D800 beats it. And you have the color filter manipulation in post, to boot. And they take color pictures also, if somebody finds any use for them anymore. And they are cheap. I would even wager that my X-Pro1 matches this Leica in B&W!

Photos can be taken however you feel like taking them. B&W photos taken using a camera with a Bayer filter will show artifacts (defects, errors...whatever word works best for you) that betray the limitations of the process. Many professionals will recognize this limitation of your methodology, but that doesn't mean you can't use it. People have shot parts of feature films on Fisher-Price Pixelvision cameras.

As far as coming up with a percentage of detriment, the green pixels make up 50% of the pixels captured. That's the highest percentage of pixels captured by a single set of pixels, so in absolute terms a Bayer camera will be able to capture half as much resolution as a similar non-Bayer camera. But it isn't that simple because the Debayer algorithms have become very sophisticated at interpolation, so there appears to be more information on-hand than there actually is. So '25% detrimental' may be a good apparent conclusion.

I don't think you'll like the idea of not having debayering if the color filters on each photosite still exist. Either you'll get photos that have alternating solid primary colors, or you'll have black and white images with horrible gradients since different color channels will pick out different detail/tones.

Since the color filter array is mated to the actual photosites I doubt you could have a "switch" to actually remove it.

*maybe* you could do something like LCD panels where the colors can be twisted (TN) or enabled, but this may not be possible with any hope of sensor efficiency (native ISO's would likely drop a lot from what we're used to currently. a once ISO100 may end up being something like ISO10)

You are talking about theory, I am talking about reality, where a photographer can experiment with the filter sliders in post, and with light handed use nobody is going to notice any quality degradation.

Real Photographers like You certainly are able to lick a finger, stick it into air and pronounce: "for this shot I need a 2E and a dash of 23E to bring the autumn foliage in proper focus". We mere mortals have to experiment in Lightroom.

Like I said, if Instagram-style pretend-B&W images are your goal then you'll do just fine in Lightroom or PS. I mean, I do it sometimes, too. I have Alien Skins Exposure. I find it does a fairly good job of approximating the look of B&W film for the occasional shot where it seems apropos. But it's a subtractive process and it does degrade the image. Just like correcting for lens distortion degrades the image. In a web-sized image you won't notice it most of the time, but in a large print it will sometimes jump right out at you.

But yes, mediocre quality is good enough for most people most of the time.

ahahahahahahaha great joke, you really made my day :D

Never mind what all the bashers say. I have been shooting this camera ( a preproduction one) and I have the files on my macbook here. The only thing that keeps me from reaching for my credit card is the state of depletion it is in. Dammit, this is the most desirable camera to have appeared the last decade. Where is the nearest skimask store in Berlin? If you have an ounce of photographers blood in your veins and a modicum of cash, get it or you will never know what you are missing. And do not try to take film -copycat shots like the current current fad of convert-and-imitate shooters do. this is a whole new ball game which is waiting for real artists to define digital monochrome shooting.

so sorry that the "plebeians" (your term) are "hurt" by Leica products.

photography is definitely for everyone, very true.
anyone who wants to get from point A to B driving a Kia or a Hyundai will defintely get there, being "tactile & pragmatic". same with the one driving a Jaguar or AlfaRomeo. people have choices, whether tactile or pragmatic. so do the companies who produce the products, whatever they want to produce and sell. do one go to a Jaguar or Ferrari store and complain about the prices being too high?

have a nice day again.

Sorry whawha but I think Virgilio was ironic too ;)
And if it is possible to criticize Leica on many points, I do think that a Digital fullframe rangefinder is substance...

I think Virgilio knows what irony is, whawha, and responded exactly for that reason.
On the "plebeians" discussion, well, I think we're all mature enough to understand that money doesn't buy irony or love or emotions, but it does buy a Leica.
Which is, IMO, and in the opinion of a great lot of esteemed photographers in the world for many decades - not that I'm one of them, mind you! - a camera that produces wonderful, constant results, maintaining at the same time high economic value - however you look at those points.
And now I'll go back to my E-PL1, which is what I can afford, and what helps me express my emotions as I like.

These ain't haters. These are just people with no basic idea of what's going on (vide: Lightroom does better! D90 in B&W mode does better!) while probably will spend their lives not being allowed even to touch one of these monochrome Leicas.