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Would you buy a B&W only micro four thirds camera?

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DonSantos

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Imagine it.

3x better iso performance.
3x pixel resolution and sharpness (no bayer)
no anti aliasing filter.
 
DonSantos said:
Imagine it.

3x better iso performance.
3x pixel resolution and sharpness (no bayer)
no anti aliasing filter.
Click to expand...
Sure. I'd still buy it if all the controls were manual dials and it didn't have a rear screen, forcing you to retrieve the pictures off the card to see them first.

Though, not if it was $7000... :P
 
Under $500, yes.
 
DonSantos said:
Imagine it.

3x better iso performance.
3x pixel resolution and sharpness (no bayer)
no anti aliasing filter.
Click to expand...
Good idea for a niche market but at less than 500$ body only !

No market for a price more than 500$ i think !

Same dials and control as the E-M5,
No buid in EVF (for a low price),

No stabilisation for lower the price again and faster speed due to better iso performance do it well too
Multi angle rear screen

Thats ok ?
 
No. Something that specialized would end up being stupidly expensive.

Black and white images still need color information in order to look good. Different films respond differently to different wavelengths. The sensor would still need some kind of filter over it, so the high ISO advantage would be less than you'd think. And even then, this solution would end up with you only having one look for your images. Like being stuck with one kind of film forever whenever you want to shoot with that camera.

Whereas you can have any black and white look that you want by converting color output to black and white.
--
http://www.photoklarno.com
 
No

when I travel to places, the thing that grabs me the most are the colors. Take that away and I have no story to tell.
 
I'm mostly a B&W shooter, but I wouldn't buy it even if cheap. A huge part of B&W processing is being able to manipulate the color channels independently. Not on ALL shots, but on many it's pretty critical. I wouldn't want to give that up even for better IQ. IQ is getting so good anyway these days. I know we didn't have this option in the film days but we didn't have a LOT of options in the film days, and I'm not going back anyhow.

And plus, I'm never sure of WHICH shots will look best in color until they're on my Mac, so I don't want to have to commit before I take the shot.

-Ray
-------------------------
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20889767@N05/collections/72157626204295198/
 
DonSantos said:
Imagine it.

3x better iso performance.
3x pixel resolution and sharpness (no bayer)
no anti aliasing filter.
Click to expand...
And returning to the use of front-filters in order to do any meaningful sort of processing? No thanks.

You will also obtain nothing like 3x better high ISO performance or resolution.

QE of current m4/3 sensors are above 50%. Losing the bayer filter will get you less than 1 stop improvement.

Resolution will be at best marginally improved over the current light AA m4/3 cameras.

--
MFBernstein

'Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.' - Ed Abbey
 
--

The greatest of mankind's criminals are those who delude themselves into thinking they have done 'the right thing.'
  • Rayna Butler
 
Klarno said:
The sensor would still need some kind of filter over it, so the high ISO advantage would be less than you'd think. And even then, this solution would end up with you only having one look for your images.
Click to expand...
Which leaves you with a box of various color filters - in various filter thread sizes! A serious PITA unless you will accept "grayscale" straight from the camera and live with it (hardly the mark of any quality B&W from the film era).
Klarno said:
Whereas you can have any black and white look that you want by converting color output to black and white.
Click to expand...
And what incredible freedom it is. At least as important to digital PP-ing as WB selection (on an image-per-image basis) is to RAW image processing.

--
-CW
 
Even though I convert many images to b&w, a b&w camera (or b&w film back from the days) are/were very limiting. You need a whole host of color filters and still won't be able to get the result you can get from converting to b&w in PP.
 
We have modes for black and white on all cameras, and if they not exist we always can do it on editing, besides like as been said here on a post, color information is useful to edit and convert to black and white as we like, example is to mimic the color filters used on black and white film

--
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

God always take the simplest way.
 
mfbernstein said:
DonSantos said:
Imagine it.

3x better iso performance.
3x pixel resolution and sharpness (no bayer)
no anti aliasing filter.
Click to expand...
And returning to the use of front-filters in order to do any meaningful sort of processing? No thanks.
Click to expand...
Bingo! We've already forgotten what a pain-in-the-butt optical filters used to be. Start using them again and all of those other "benefits" go out the window.
mfbernstein said:
You will also obtain nothing like 3x better high ISO performance or resolution.

QE of current m4/3 sensors are above 50%. Losing the bayer filter will get you less than 1 stop improvement.
Click to expand...
Good point
mfbernstein said:
Resolution will be at best marginally improved over the current light AA m4/3 cameras.
Click to expand...
To say nothing of the impact of any optical filters you're now compelled to use.
 
DonSantos said:
Imagine it.

3x better iso performance.
3x pixel resolution and sharpness (no bayer)
no anti aliasing filter.
Click to expand...
Sometimes I've shot for weeks in BW only. (So much so that I've bought a few glass B&W filters, as I feel they have a differing quality when applied previous to the image, rather than after). I like shooting in BW, it 'forces' the issue, there's no going back..no mamby pamby, no should I or shouldn't I. You get what you shoot. People tell a person, shoot in color and convert, and I've done that thousands of times, but going out with one intent is different. I think, if remembering there's only been one digital camera made for B&W (and quite a while back) ...it sure would be tempting and seemingly with many benefits. Actually though it's a narrow slot, in the scheme of things, and would only probably appeal to someone a bit "off" like myself. :-)
--
http://www.pbase.com/madlights
http://barriolson.aminus3.com/



Like the Joker said: Why so serious?
 
Ansel Adams and his ingenuity would had given his eye teeth (my opinion) to do what we can do in this era. B+W for the sake of the same does not do justice to the tools at hand, I feel sure that AA would have happily trekked with a light dig color camera, stitched a high res file together, and then done some magic in PP, paper choice and print. The light tight box, its controls and its media was always and remains the start of the process.
 
No. I like B+W but a camera limited to it doesn't work for me.
 
I get the other advantages, but why BW gives 3x high iso performance?

When many modern M43 cameras give sufficient (maybe not for pros) IQ and noise performance, I don't see why we want to limit our imagination to BW.

--
^ ^

Just Shoot !
 
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