Just Posted: Leica M-Monochrom hands-on preview with image samples

The RAW file from this camera will be the new benchmark for B&W digital photography contests...

Hoping there will be other brands coming out with a B&W sensor, as the contestants may be limited to a few (initially)...

Leica lenses are great and their cameras timeless. The photos look fabulous. Some may want to whine about this... but it is the truth. Again... the photos look GREAT!

To avoid becoming irrelevant, a tool of art creation needs to be accessible to a sizeable number of the practitioners of that art. And irrelevant Leica remains with this camera by snatching it out of the good photographers’ hands and politely presenting it to the wealthy photographers.

The wealthy photographers are very happy to pay too. They are instantly transformed into genius artists, Leica style. They love buying the kudos and walking out of the Leica boutiques.

It is ‘like-a’……..joke to most photographers.

I personally do not see Leica being a major force in the digital camera market in the future. The Leica management and product development teams are headed in the wrong direction in my opinion. Prices of cameras are going down and cameras are becoming smaller with increasing quality that will eventually surpass DSLR and like cameras currently in the market. Leica is charging ridiculous prices for a digital camera that will be obsolete in two years. People with money are not stupid !

I will say it once again. The only really interesting point is if good photographers gets this unique camera and makes outstanding photographs. Thats it really. If this camera only is bought by rich people that cannot make images, then its no fun at all.

The big drawback of this B&W camera, compared to film, is DR. Some B&W films had unbelieving DR. For color images, huge DR is hard to utilize as the images become strange if you do too much HDR work. But for B&W, there is nothing called too much. Its total freedom when doing manipulation.

I remember at the last exhibit I had the number of people who showed up with Leicas hanging from their necks with B&W film in them. Now this was in March at night and without a flash so I am not sure what exactly they were going to photograph. It is these same people who will buy this camera. Don't try to make sense of it because it never will. Their thinking does not operate on 1+1=2 so do not try to apply logic to it you will just get frustrated. No matter how powerful your argument Leicas will always be better just because. Yes I have owned Leicas.

Hmm, a black and white only camera costing 8,000 usd.

This isn't about "authenticity" its about photography snobbery, and parting those with more cash than brains from their money.

For everyone else you'll find a black and white option in your camera's menu.

I look forward to Leica launching a gold plated diamond studded Leica, only for the Russian, Chinese and Middle Eastern markets. Doubtless that too will be luanched in the name of "authenticity", as in "authentically rich".

What is the point of this camera. It is nice as experimental equipment in a minute niche market, but from my perspective I see very little practical value.

Seems like Leica is losing it!!

I would even think this version makes more sense than the M9. Think that the M9 is way behind to modern cameras even a few years ago. It is slower, bad ISO performance, bad JPEGs, and expensive compared to competition.
With this version, Leica has produced a camera that is truly a niche producing very good IQ which is one of Leica's attributes and there's no competition.
There's no other way to make most of the optics than they did here.

Poor BW images, to me, is better than color images that are poor( incorrect WB, bad colors, poor DR). Get a Canikon for color imagery.

I think the reason this is priced higher is probably due to an upcoming M10 so they can price it even higher.

Imagine if Leica - in 1955 - had come out with a film camera that wouldn't accept color print or slide film... It would have seemed an absurdity. I realise that the analogy breaks down a little bit because Leica have optimised the Monochrom for B/W but will the results really justify this astronomical price? I would have thought a Pentax medium format digital SLR would still end up giving better results than the Leica - and of course the Pentax can take color if and when desired. The cost would end up the same....

Problem with shooting in b&w is that you can no longer correct for lens chromatic aberrations in post processing.

Instead of being able to re-align image planes for each colour separately - you'll just get additional blur at the periphery. Oh well.

Pretty nice sample images. A couple of them would be nice in color....oh, wait. Oh, well. At least the camera doesn't cost too much. Oh, wait...

I honestly don't see the point. Anyone with enough money (and photo education) to be able to spend $7k on a monochrome camera could easily replicate these pictures using photoshop

Now, to get the best possible photos from this, one can just take three photos, one each with a green, red and blue filter and combine into a colour photo which can then be turned into a black and white photo again with a proper channel mix. A bit of a hassle, I know, but it would make for killer landscape photos.

If I'd have been a recent lottery winner, perhaps I would have bought one of these - just for fun. The sample photos remind me of some of mine from the days when I used to own a Leica M6 with the old 50mm Summicron: A bit bland, but with plenty of potential.

I'd underexpose and push in post for a slightly more contrasty look without burnt-out highlights.

Time was, I used Leicas, all the time. I had a 50mm f1.4 on an M3 and a 35mm f1.4 on an M2. They did not cost what now they do: the 35mm f1.4 was a fortune in those days-mid 70s. But it was still only £350 brand new. A 28mm f2.0 Nikkor cost less new. The bodies cost around £200 each in very good secondhand condition.
They did not cost £6200 odd. And they used reels of Tri-X or HP4 or HP5 or COLOUR.

These are the first and only monochrome Leicas. And they should be grey. The quality from the jpegs on show here has good detail-very- but they are flat and dead. They lack Chutspa, impact, and/or Pazzazz, man.

And as they are simpler machines than are M9s they should be cheaper, and not black, or silver, but grey.

I do not believe they will generate images that will one day have value. To do that an artifact has to be of it's time.

The world they picture isn't at all like the one we live in. May the designers dream in monochrome until they catch on.......

Hmmm well apparently Leica wasn't originally at the top of the table when it came to premium expensive gear. Their cameras were good quality but essentially made popular by pros like Cartier Bresson, triggering a wave of demand for their well made but affordable products. Now pros will find it difficult to justify the ridiculous price tag which is not, IMHO, directly commensurate with what Leica cameras can offer. There just isn't the competition in this segment of the market.

LEICA!
You're CHEATING on US and your OWN! Loosing photographic heritage, engineering knowledge and proud. ( M-Monochrom for $7,950?! )
Does EVERYTHING need to be: FOR SALE?!
Even if you have the (financial, engineering etc.) potential to create something truly valuable?
What is happening to our once beloved World?! There are people suffering OUT THERE! Does the word ARROGANCE ring a bell?
LEICA! GOOD LUCK FOR SELLING THESE PRODUCTS! I'M SURE YOU WILL

The sample images look more Kodak Technical Pan than Tri-X to me - great potential for excellent results, but extra care in exposure required.

I would have committed unspeakable acts for Tech Pan at ISO 10000 though, back in the day!

In my view this is the wrong way to approach B&W. The right way is to start with a color picture and convert it to B&W. It's so much more flexible that way, and therefore increase the artistic potential of the image.

With a color image one can convert to LAB and extracts the vision-wise sensible luminance channel. But one can do much more than that. Often a subject, say red, will stand out in color against the back ground, say greenery. But they may have similar luminance and therefore the subject will not stand out in B&W. This is clearly visible in many of the posted examples: they lack "separation" between various parts of the image (example sky against sea for the image of the Seattle needdle - fine image though in this case). It's easy to go around this issue when starting with a color image by mixing channels. The artistic possibilities are way beyond what a B&W camera can offer.
Or use filters with the B&W camera (no more noise benefit). IMO sorely missing in these images.

As photographers, we tend to have very strong views concerning the tools of our craft.

But consider the following: in the music profession, you could buy a Yamaha digital piano for $2,000 that can stunningly recreate the sound of the most expensive grand piano -- and over 1000 additional instruments as well. It is a technological wonder in every sense of the word. On the other hand, a Steinway grand piano costs $100,000. It only plays a single sound (piano). The technology is basically unchanged from the way they were built 100 years ago. It is tempermental and unlike the Yamaha, must be meticulously tuned and maintained.

Both have their place. The existence of one does not detract from the excellence of the other or the artists who choose either.

Whether it's photography or other artistic fields, all of us have a wonderful array of personal creative choices in terms of how we practice our craft. That's a reality worth embracing and not attacking each other over.

Just yesterday I saw a friend's samples from an M9 and Noctilux. Simply stunning to see that degree of isolation and gorgeous bokeh in a shot taken meters away from the subject. To pair such a marvel with the purest of image sensors, stripped of AA filters and now even the bayer array seems like a project worth embarking on.

Do I like the price? No, but as I see it, it could well lead to a Micro 4/3 (or other) equivalent. It's no secret that the small, finely crafted primes appearing for mirrorless cameras have Leica as their ultimate inspiration and I don't believe they have to reach that level of perfection to be relevant and, more to the point, offer a much more attractive option than either a compact or intimidatingly bulky DSLR.

I have to say a big thank you to Leica for focusing on image perfection rather than the more common-place capture speed, as at the end lof the day it's the beautiful image that counts, not how you got it.

Why are Leica so expensive? Easy........economies of scale in manufacturing. Anyone who has had a business card printed knows this, ie, make/print 100 = cost per card expensive, make/print 100,000 = cost per card cheap.

I bet Nikon/Canon make more profit per unit on their base models than Leica do on the M9.........in the words of a Russian meer cat speaking English (!?!)....simples!

That's why Leica have and need to make additional niche products such as this one and the Hermes version to cover the development costs, ie, 90% of their content is based around the M9.

It is clear from this comments thread that there is a tremendous amount of Leica envy. The real issue is not Leica's prices, but the lack of imagination on the part of Canon and Nikon. Though Fuji and Sony are stumbling a bit (where are the wides for the NEX system,) they, with Olympus, Panasonic and other brands are where the future of photography is. Leica is a tiny company compared to the others, and can afford to be imperious. In fact, I would guess Leica needs to be exclusive in order to survive, and we all want them to continue, right?

Garn! It's an April fools joke. Mis-timed. Gotta be.

I don't undestand the real spirit of many comments, most based on a rather "religious" consideration of the item: I am a Leica owner since 1956 but nevertheless I consider a camera (Leica or other) simply for the pictures produced.
To be sincere, I find the sample images we can see here quite disappointing: no black, no white but a sad uniform and rather foggy gray.
If I consider the pedigree and the price of the camera, then I am not only disappointed but...
My advice would be to try examining images without considering the camera: do I like them or not? is this camera right for my purposes? can it help me to perform easier my job (if any)?
Apart from these basic questions, all the rest is a simple question of "voluptas possidendi", for those that have no problem of budget.
Be happy.

Too much hate and envy here. If you don't like the cameras why do you feel the need to comment anyway? Just move on. When photographers love their Leica, so be it. They can spend their money for whatever they want and it's none of your business. This "rich guys and dentists" camera is completely ridicoulos and wrong. I know a few of them and they are penny-pinching. They buy a Coolpix at Amazon, cause it's way cheaper to buy from there. All Leica owners I know are photographers. They just love they way a Leica is to handle and most of them own much more expencive photogear than a Leica, like Phase Ones, Leafs, Hassy's etc. My D3X was 8000 bucks and my new D4 almost 6000, so what? It is paid after a few gigs. If I need something to do the job, I buy it and I don't care if people at DPreview or other places tell me it's too much money, old technology, no value, whatever. So I don't care what people say when I buy my Leica. It's my money. Period.

for all you critics wondering why anyone would buy this sort of camera, have you ever used a Leica?? I agree Leica's are a bit overpriced, but they are great cameras to use! you might think that a camera with a million features and buttons gives you better value. A Leica is minimalist in design, but it works. There is wisdom in that good design does not age easily. Look at a Porsche 911, and see how subtly the design has changed over so many years. Look at a Japanese car over the same period and they are unrecognisable. So don't criticise something just because it's expensive, how about criticising all the countless cheap nasty cameras that have been made in the last 1o years that will never be remembered because they were awful to use and ugly in design!

Too bad Canikon don't put this type sensor into a 5D or D800. It would be much less expensive and it wouldn't be a rangefinder. I want to stick with "Single-Lens Reflex" style cameras because that was what I was weaned on. Even so, this would be one sweet camera for those decisive moments. Think of images with a sensor of this quality made with Leica glass ( 35mm summicron/50 summilux!!). In that kind of a setup the weakest link would definitely be the photographer. Bokeh beautiful Black and white. mmm $10,000 for a one lens setup. To each his own.

Back in the days of film (and I know it isn't dead yet) a camera company could charge a premium because the mechanical quality of the camera and lenses were top shelf; the film was just the film.

But a digital camera is much more than a box to hold film. The sensor and all the related technology packed into the camera is what counts the most. Nikon, Canon and Pentax all have much better camera technology than Leica (which still makes great lenses but not for the price they charge!).

I'm surprised that people are still sold on Leica being superior when it is clear they can't match the technological chops of even Pentax.

This camera's images is like a Porsche 911 doing 0-60mph in 11.49 seconds.

This camera's 230,000 dot LCD screen is like a BMW 7 series with wind up windows.

Ansell Adams used large format cameras despite their size, weight, setup time and film cost because of the high resolution and sharpness he was able to gain from his images. Hence if he was alive today I'm pretty sure he'd be using the latest and best photographic tool money can buy.

This camera is certainly not one of them.

Leica now is non for photographers, bur for collectionists.....

Why would Leica feel the need to offer Silver Effects 2 with this new camera? Is like saying if you don't like the results straight-out-of-camera you can fix them with software?!? From a camera specifically designed to produce outstanding quality B&W shots?

I await the day when Leica goes further back into time and make an orthochromatic B&W digital camera. Then we can get pin sharp photos without the need to focus and everyone will look like they have a permanent suntan unless they apply blue makeup.

To me this is just another variation of their novelty cameras like their Titanium, Gold, lizard skin etc, limited editions. This one just a little different so not to be too repetitious.