The Online Photographer

Oil the Tin Man

Albert Smith wrote: "Re 'It was forecast to rain all day, and I was unhappy...I'm very glad I went out': I keep reading that dog owners are often more healthy because they have an obligation that precludes a sedentary life...you got to get out there with your pet.

I feel the same way about my camera. Many is the time that I got my butt off the couch to go for a photo walk. In hot humid Florida, it's hard to justify sweating through your shirt 10 minutes after you leave the air conditioning, but when I return with a nice shot that I'd have never got if I just sat at home thinking about photography, I too am glad that I went out."

Great point. I'll only take it one little step further: when you go out to photograph, especially if you're in a car, take the first pictures as soon as possible. In my mind I call it "oiling the Tin Man." I always feel a sort of reluctance or hesitation, almost a kind of timidity or self-effacement, before I've started. Left to my natural impulses I'll pass one potential shot after another thinking, no, that's not quite worth trying—I need to find something better to break the ice. Well, wrong-O, Tin Man. You're frozen. Get moving. Shake the rust off. Take some pictures even if they're no good—once I'm into the mindset of shooting I stop thinking about it and just get into the flow. And where that's concerned, the sooner the better.

I remember a story Bill Jay told—the great Czech/French photographer Josef Koudelka was visiting Bill at his cabin, and, first thing in the morning, Koudelka would head outside with his camera and start shooting. Bill was perplexed, because the rural subject matter had nothing to do with Josef's known work. When asked about it, Koudelka said he had to shoot three rolls of film a day just to keep his eye in practice.

I believe Henri Cartier-Bresson once said he shot two rolls of film (72 clicks, for you film virgins) before breakfast every morning for the same reason. Even if there was no promising subject matter at hand.

When I interviewed him in New York City, Ralph Gibson said that every time he heads out with his camera he knows he'll find something. (His camera, by the way, was a Ralph Gibson special edition Leica. That's how you know you've made it, when Leica makes a special edition of your preferred camera and gives you one. Ralph had it on a woven red leather lanyard, and left the studio armed with only a 90mm lens.)

To Albert's point about dogs, I keep the dog food out in the barn. It gets us out of the house and into the weather and the blue light first thing every morning. The sooner you get outside, the better the day goes.

Thanks, Albert.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Fred Lyon, San Francisco Noir. "The version [of San Francisco] that Fred Lyon celebrates in his new book is a classic San Francisco full of smoky jazz clubs, neon lights in the fog and sharply dressed men and women stepping on and off of trolley cars. Made mostly during the 1950s and '60s, Lyon's images are big on atmosphere and style, and hit many parts of the city that visitors love." (PDN)

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ernest Zarate: "Absolutely, 100%, totally agree with getting that first shot out of the way. I never had a term for it. I just knew that the first shot was the hardest for the reason you stated: in my mind, it needed to be 'special.' But then I found out my mind would play all kinds of games with me—if I let it. So, now I’ll grab a shot (or more with digital), thumb my nose at my mind, and get on with my shoot. (I have other ways of keeping my mind at bay and out of the way through my activities—it can be a trickster and an obstacle otherwise.)

"As for getting outside, I have my two sons, 13 and 15. I get them up, fix them breakfast, make their lunches (I spoil them, I know), pile them in the auto voiture and take them to school. Then, being up and about (and retired!), I have a good chunk of the day to myself. (My wife, bless her soul, has a ways to go before retirement.) Bliss."

Stan B.: "On his very first assignment in a war zone, pj Stanley Greene kept passing on scene after scene as not potentially good enough—until his driver/fixer said, 'You’re a photographer, get out there and start taking pictures!'"

Adam Isler: "Here are some additional examples along the same lines. Thomas Mann is supposed to have written for three hours every morning. And I believe it was he (or was it Mark Twain, or is it apocryphal?) would simply copy from a book when they couldn't think of anything original—as long as they wrote for so many hours a day.

"My own practice here in NYC, where I don't own a car and drive anywhere, is to carry my camera in hand and turned on almost anytime I go out. I find that having the camera in my hand makes me look for photographs and the result has been that I'm much more sensitized to the graphic potential of my surroundings than I was before I started doing this."

Rainy Day

I didn't do much writing today, but I did a lot of photographing. It was forecast to rain all day, and I was unhappy about not being able to get out with the camera...so I figured that, just to get something, I'd go look for reflections on a wet road. The rain was coming down when I shot this. I had to shoot from inside the car, so I just looked for a place where I could park at the proper angle.

It ended up being a rather spectacular day—great swaths of mist clinging to the steep hillsides, and even a little sun when it got down under the clouds. As usual in the Finger Lakes, though, what we're missing is places to get an unobstructed view.

I found a guy fishing in the rain—man, did he ever know a lot about fish and fishing in the lake! And I ended up taking a lakescape I really like ("Sun After Rain"). See if you like it too. I'm very glad I went out. You can see a larger version of this picture on Flickr too. As well as the fisherman.

I am having a whole lot of fun.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Fred Lyon, San Francisco Noir. "The version [of San Francisco] that Fred Lyon celebrates in his new book is a classic San Francisco full of smoky jazz clubs, neon lights in the fog and sharply dressed men and women stepping on and off of trolley cars. Made mostly during the 1950s and '60s, Lyon's images are big on atmosphere and style, and hit many parts of the city that visitors love." (PDN)

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Stephen: "Hello Mike, The very first thing that came into my head the instant I saw the photo of the car on the road was, 'it's not straight!'

"Ruins it."

Mike replies: So then, you don't believe I got the photo the way I wanted it? Even though I've been deconstructing for days the lengths to which I'll go to do so?

You're you, and you're in charge of you, and you can do whatever you want to, but my standard advice to anyone who feels that way about pictures is: it would be best for you to get over that. I understand the straight-horizon compulsion, and I know it's common—I've seen it since my teaching years—but it's counterproductive. It will shut you off from an appreciation of an awful lot of photographs. Any such fastidious preoccupation will—and there are dozens if not hundreds of common ones, some of them opposites. ("Every B&W picture must have detail in the lightest highlights and the darkest shadows!" "Every B&W picture must have some pure black and some pure white!") In general, one either takes a given photographer at his or her word, or doesn't. If Garry Winogrand wants to shoot with the camera held at an angle, we just decide whether we think Garry has anything to say to us; if we think he does, we accept his pictures the way he wants them to be, even if it's not our own way for our own work. The bottom line is, I want this picture to be this way, and you should accept it. It's not your picture. That sounds like hubris, perhaps, but it's not, it's just the way the exchange between creator and viewer works.

(In the case in point, the problem is that if you get it exactly straight, the band of light in the sky is at too much of an angle, and then the picture looks more, not less, crooked. Plus, I like the way the slight angle in the reflections add to the "stance" of the car.)

If readers will indulge me and allow me to pursue the point further, take for example the photographer Guy Perkins pointed us to the other day, Ando Fuchs. Ando photographs in a style unlike my own; his techniques and strategies are not ones I would follow; he resorts to methods I would never use. But I can also tell immediately that he is doing what he wants to do; getting his art to look the way he wants it to; and it's clear after looking at merely 20 or 30 of his pictures that he has a lot to say. So I meet him where he is, accept his language, and surrender to his "world." Because I can see he's genuine, authentic, being true to himself. I take him at his word.

This is necessary. It really is. But not for our own work necessarily—for the work of others. How else can one appreciate Anders Petersen, and Uta Barth, and Andreas Gursky, and Philip Jones Griffiths, and Saul Leiter—and so on?

People can get over the "straight-horizon neurosis" and anything similar in other people's work if they work at it. I recommend it. But of course if you choose to dismiss me as a naïf who doesn't know what he's doing, I accept that too.

[By the way, I apologized to Stephen privately for appearing to lecture him. Of course my comments are actually aimed at whoever wants my advice. Those who don't are aware they don't.]

Kye Wood: "Damn Mike. These are some beautiful shots. I don't think it's the camera either. But if it inspires you to go out, when you could just stay in, then yes, it is the camera.  :-)  Isn't black and white such a graceful way to remember a moment? I know this won't make Featured Comments because it's too complimentary—and that's okay sir."

Maris Rusis: "That a horizon can be pictured out of level is a legitimate and valuable expressive device. Cinematographers have been doing it for nearly a hundred years. It's called a 'Dutch Tilt.'"

David Lee: "There is a beautiful Kertesz photograph with a very tilted sea horizon and I love it."

scott kirkpatrick: "The horizon is just one of the straight lines that can be part of a picture. Winogrand's famously tilted pictures often have some other straight line that magically turns out to parallel an edge of the frame. It just meant more than the horizon did, or maybe the tilted horizon trapped something important between it and the straight line at the border."

Decision Made

As of today, Adorama is having a big sale on the Sigma fp—only $1,759 for all three pieces I need, the camera, the lens, and the magnifying finder—that's $300 less than the best price yesterday. At some places it was $500 more. What a difference a day makes. I bought one this morning. So, decision made, for better or for worse.

Seeing for yourself
This is how it's going to be nice for the blog: before I send it off for conversion, I can compare the color and monochrome versions of the exact same camera.

Not only can I compare the monochrome-sensor fp to edits from the regular uncoverted color fp, but so can you—I can post large B&W files from the converted camera and large color files of the same scene from the unconverted camera. You can download the files, change the color files to mono, and compare them for yourself. So the question "which are better, files from a monochrome camera, or converted color files from a color camera?" is one you will have some evidence for on your own, with your own methods and preferences applied, which is usually the best way.

Sometimes a price drop is as good as a shove

Plus, Sigma has an in-camera monochrome DNG option, so I can report back on that, and perhaps compare that to the monochrome-sensor files as well.

'Interior'
Check out my latest, if you haven't seen it—I love playing around with this camera, so just for fun I wanted to see how close I could come to the "feel" of the light in my living room when it's sunny outside. "Interior" is a HDR merge in Photoshop (File > Automate > Merge to HDR Pro, then "Tone in ACR" to adjust as usual). I "fooled" Flickr by uploading a lighter image, but I couldn't defeat the sharpening or whatever is going on there. The lamp base has haloing around it that is not there in the real file.

This merging of several exposures is very easy to do, by the way. I like the way this one turned out.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Fred Lyon, San Francisco Noir. "The version [of San Francisco] that Fred Lyon celebrates in his new book is a classic San Francisco full of smoky jazz clubs, neon lights in the fog and sharply dressed men and women stepping on and off of trolley cars. Made mostly during the 1950s and '60s, Lyon's images are big on atmosphere and style, and hit many parts of the city that visitors love." (PDN)

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Robert Roaldi: "I have found that the best part about coming to a decision is that once the decision is made, you don't have to spend time thinking about it anymore, and you can get back to what you were doing."

KeithM: " I look forward to hearing more about this camera and the B&W conversion. I have toyed a few times with the possibilities or practicalities of using the Sigma fp or fp L as one would use a view camera—i.e. only a couple of primes and always on a tripod. It would be a step up in resolution and image quality from the Micro 4/3 cameras I usually use—when not shooting LF film (which is not often!). I think the tripod and restricted lens/focal length choices makes one think harder about image-making. Anyway, I look forward to hearing about, and seeing, the results of your new project.

"And, by the way, I also look forward to seeing more lovely images of your local environs—you are lucky to be able to live in such a beautiful spot."

Guy Perkins: "Not related to this post, but about B&W photography, I wonder if you have come across the work of Ando Fuchs. I'm sure you look at far more photography than me so the answer is probably yes. But I thought of his work in relation to your thoughts about B&W toning and style. His work might be overly dark in tone for your taste, but following him on Instagram I find his work of a very high standard, and his style is his own. Thank you for the blog."

Mike replies: There's always room for photography when we're talking about photography. Thanks for the good tip.

Sunday 'Open Mike': Decisions

I have just been having a high old time with Jason's loaner camera, the monochrome-converted fp. I love B&W and I am so happy being able to shoot it again in a free and unfettered way. I've been spending a lot of time out and about with the camera these past few days. This is just provisional for now, pending further investigation, but it seems that a converted sensor can give results that are as good, in most cases, or at least almost as good, as conventional color files converted in software.

Osprey Nest, edited to look as close as I can come
to Kodak Plus-X in D-76 1:1 with a yellow filter

I believe two things will be true: 1.) that I'll get better at editing these files as time goes by and I practice more, and 2.) that my taste will evolve to move a little closer to the way the files naturally want to look. It's not like there's ever been one invariant look to the B&W materials and processes I've used over my lifetime, up to and including edits into B&W of X-T1 files.

So I have a decision coming up.  Assuming the sensor conversion itself is a sunk cost, because I'm going to do it one way or the other, I need to decide: whether to follow my original plan and have my Sony A6600 APS-C camera converted; or to recreate Jason's camera for myself.

It makes the most sense to convert the A6600. I already own it; I don't believe I need the outstanding resolution of the FF sensor, nice as it is; the camera is smaller and easier to carry; and it has IBIS. I would need to buy a lens with an aperture ring for it, but there are candidates.

Unfortunately, you can't try these things before you buy. Ideally I'd convert the A6600 and then pit it in a comparison against the Sigma fp. But converting it would destroy some part of its resale value, which is about $1,100 right now; and if I resell it I will be out the $1,200 cost of conversion. This makes for a potentially disastrous mistake if it turns out to be the wrong choice. I'd have to unload a camera I have $2,400 invested in for maybe six or eight hundred dollars if I'm lucky. I've taken losses that bad before on my photography hobby, but ya hate to lead with your chin.

On the other hand, an fp like Jason's is an expensive proposition. Camera and lens are $1,900, the viewing magnifier $300, the grip $100. It's okay to dismiss the cost of the conversion because, as I say, that's a sunk cost presuming I get a camera of any kind converted. It's also okay to dismiss the resale proposition, because I like the camera a lot and I think I can commit to keeping it for the long haul—even if I don't use it much I still think I'd enjoy having it and using it occasionally. But it's $2,300 out of pocket not counting the conversion. I'd have to sell a bunch of stuff to rationalize the purchase.

The fp doesn't have IBIS. That is a serious drawback. (Friday's task was experimenting with low-light shooting with the fp.) but I like other aspects of the camera so much that I might be able to put up with that. Also, I still need to have a few prints made before I get too carried away.

The best outcome would be to convert the A6600 and have it be good enough to live with. The worse outcome would be to convert the A6600 and not be happy with it and still continue to want an fp.

Decisions, decisions...what I should probably do is simply keep shooting with the fp until Jason needs it back, and then decide. If you can't decide, delay.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Fred Lyon, San Francisco Noir. "The version [of San Francisco] that Fred Lyon celebrates in his new book is a classic San Francisco full of smoky jazz clubs, neon lights in the fog and sharply dressed men and women stepping on and off of trolley cars. Made mostly during the 1950s and '60s, Lyon's images are big on atmosphere and style, and hit many parts of the city that visitors love." (PDN)

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jeff: "I bought a mint used original Leica M(9) Monochrom, with new sensor/service and warranty, for $3,500 in 2017. I could sell it now if I wanted to for about $3,800. Regardless, I’ve received more than equivalent value and joy from the experience in the meantime, and the prints are reminders. Sometimes it costs less in the long term to make up your mind, pay more up front and enjoy the ride."

Severian: "You wrote 'If you can't decide, delay'—there is some real wisdom there, when applied properly. The pain of an unmade decision (ambivalence) is often overwhelming to some people so they resolve the tension too soon, often to a less than optimal answer.

"Over the years, reading what you've written about how much you value IBIS, I think you need to delay long enough to fully recall how much a non-IBIS camera is a major annoyance for you.

"I think no IBIS would be a constant burr under the saddle for you. Of course, you know 'you' better than your readers!"

Mike replies: I wonder if I do, though. My brother Scott, who knew me really well, used to say that I was much better at advising other people than I was at knowing what to do for myself.

David Aiken: "There are two ways to get a camera that shoots B&W only: you can obtain a camera with a monochrome sensor or you can restrict your own personal choice in shooting. You're the man who has proposed the one camera, one lens, one year challenge to readers on a couple of occasions. I'll propose a challenge to you. Pick a camera you have, set it up to show a B&W viewfinder and screen, and use it only for B&W for a period, six months to a year. If you want to shoot colour for a particular purpose, you have to use a different camera but you then can't convert anything taken with a different camera to B&W. That way you're faced with a binary choice when you go out to take photos, if you choose a particular camera then you have to shoot B&W or colour depending on the choice of camera; if you want to shoot in B&W or in colour you have to choose a specific camera.

"Those are the same choices you'll be faced with if you obtain a monochrome camera so just start doing it today with the cameras you have and see how it works for you. If in six months or a year, whatever time period you set yourself, you can't imagine working any other way, then get the monochrome camera. You'll have answered your questions about whether having a purely monochrome camera will work for you and whether you're prepared to deal with the cost issues without the reservations that currently seem to bedevil you."

Mike replies: Excellent, sage, sane advice. However, unfortunately, I've tried exactly what you're proposing on many different occasions already...with the NEX-6; with the Fuji X-T1 (I was very dogged that time, and stuck with it over hundreds if not a thousand+ images, but ultimately it was just too much of a struggle and not fun; with the "Big Dragoon" AKA D800, which I bought specifically hoping I would love it for B&W....

B&W with the Big Dragoon

It's all documented back there in the archives if you go looking for it. 

Rob Griffin: "Decisions, decisions, certainly a skill that is not my strong suit, but I think it would be a good idea to make some prints before you make a final decision. You and many others here on TOP have said that an image file is not really a photograph until it’s printed.

"Many people have commented on and don’t understand your 'mindset' issue. I have the same mindset issue you have spoken of when trying to shoot black-and-white images on a digital camera. I wish I didn’t, but I am not sure that any sort of mental training would help me overcome the issue. I am happy for the majority of readers of TOP that don’t have the same issue, but it is a real thing for some of us.

"I number of people have said seeing an image in black and white in the EVF or on the LCD is helpful to them when shooting black and white with a digital camera. I wish I felt that way. I feel mostly uncertain as to what I am seeing when viewing the image on what amounts to a black-and-white monitor. Mike, you wrote about when shooting black-and-white film in a film camera the image in an optical viewfinder or on the ground glass is in color. For me, having taken up black-and-white photography years before digital photography was invented, seeing color in the optical viewfinder but black and white in my mind’s eye feels natural, what I am used to. If possible, I think you should try a camera with an optical viewfinder converted to monochrome before you make a decision.

"Your pardner in a specific 'mindset.'"

Sigma FP M: Short Take and Personal Impressions

[TOP is off on Saturdays. Housework day, bills to pay, what can I say? How 'bout Sunday?]

This is not a review, for reasons I'll explain. Just some personal thoughts and reactions after using this for a few days. It's a modular camera, and I'm discussing it as the owner has it set up, with the I-Series 45mm kit lens, LVF-11 chimney finder, and SmallRig cage and grip. The "M" is for monochrome, in case you haven't been following along lately. However, almost everything in this particular post applies to the regular color FP too. Note that I'm using the original Sigma FP, not the more recent 61-MP Sigma FP-L.

It's on loan from a reader. I'm using it to see if mono-sensor camera pictures can look as good as B&W converted from color files in software. It was converted to monochrome-only by Daniel Morrison at Monochrome Imaging Services in Portland, Oregon, USA. I have no affiliation with his business. I'm using it for B&W stills, using basic controls—nothing fancy, and that is not what it was built for.

I like this a lot, but it's a very quirky rig, and not only because it has trouble taking color pictures. I described the setup of the camera a few days ago, and even compared it to chopsticks (for scale) for Mrs. Grahn.

It's said to be the smallest full-frame (24x36mm) digital camera ever made.

And as anyone knows, the bigger the better.

It's just a little brick with a large Leica L-mount on the front, a large fixed viewing screen on the back, no EVF, no mechanical shutter, no hot shoe, and no grip. But hey, it does have a grid of ventilation channels between the sensor and the viewing screen meant to keep the sensor cool during extended video takes.

It has been criticized on the Web for having too few buttons and dials.

And as anyone knows, the more buttons and dials the better.

It's meant to be the heart of a modular setup up to and including something like this:

I will not be using it that way.

The power switch is a large slider on the top left of the camera. Another sliding switch next to it chooses between Cine and Still. The viewfinder, which literally bolts on as far as I can see, is similar to the old "chimney" or "stovepipe" finders made for a number of old film medium-format cameras except it's horizontal rather than sticking up vertically.

I've only used it for a few days so far. It fit me like a glove right from the first, to my surprise.

So here's what I like and don't like about it so far:

Upsides

• The camera reminds me of old film medium-format cameras. The results remind me of film 4x5. We might have a print sale someday so you can see for yourself.
• I like the viewfinder. It's obviously a viewfinder, as it magnifies the dots of the viewing screen (and it's B&W!), but it's large and immediate, with a large eyepiece although not an extreme amount of eye relief. Eyeglasses wearers would not find it enough. I had to learn to go ahead and press my eye socket up against the rubber eyepiece surround, which blocks extraneous light and gives that nice, great big, and clear overall view of the finder. There's a lot to be said for a big viewfinder. There's an immediacy to your visual connection to your surroundings. I've taken to it.
• I like the menus. Obviously, shooting DNG only, B&W only, and stills only, a lot of the menu items become moot, because they control JPEGs, color, or video options. But what remains, what pertains to me, I like. I said the other day that "the menus feel like suddenly encountering a sensible adult after spending years surrounded by fractious five-year-olds," and let me double down on that—I feel like I can sense the intelligence and the sensibleness of the designers behind the menus, who are on my side for once.
• Love the info in the viewfinder too—pretty much only what I need to see and nothing else, very clean and no-nonsense. Except for one weird exception: there's an enigmatic little "9" in the extreme bottom right...I have no idea what that means. I'm going to assume it's a John Lennon reference.
• The "sideways chimney finder" puts my hand away from my face, making it more comfortable and convenient to hold the camera when shooting, and also to find the buttons I need by feel.
• Silent shutter release. The feedback is visual instead of audible—the finder blacks out for a split-second. You just have to rewire your brain a bit to expect a visual cue rather than a sound. I'm good with that.
• Love the setup—aperture on the lens, EC on the front dial. So easy and clean. Partly because that suits the way I've always preferred to control exposure, I will admit, but still.
• It's a simple camera. As I'm using it.
• Fits Sigma's I-Series L-Mount lenses. A plus, take my word.
• The level of clean detail you get without the Bayer mosaic is pretty astonishing, cf. our ongoing sample gallery. (I do feel like I'm in early days with adjusting to it, though. My brain is not quite calibrated. That's more due to the monochrome aspect of the sensor than the camera itself, though.)
• This is just me, but I like that it feels most comfortable when you're looking through it shooting. Lots of cameras are designed with other things prioritized, like how they look, how much they resemble some other camera, how comfortable they are to carry, how easy they are to sell, etc., etc. I like that this is all sort of an awkward bodge but that it all comes together and feels great when you're actually looking through it and pressing the shutter button. Kind of the opposite of cameras that look sleek and slick and design-y but aren't all that ergonomic when you go to take a picture.
• Exclusive! You won't find many other people shooting with one, that's for sure.  :-]

Downsides

• You have to peer through the finder to see settings.
• You're issued a dire warning to keep a cap on the eyepiece when you're not looking through it. That's awkward. And the cap doesn't attach to the camera.
• Smallest ever, maybe, but only sorta kinda. Not as configured here. The body module is the smallest ever. But as configured here it reminds me of carrying a Bronica medium-format rig around. Not that there was anything wrong with that.
• The camera is awkward to carry on the strap. It works, but the weird body-in-the-middle configuration means you're not going to forget it's there, and too much moving around on your part sets it to flopping around awkwardly. It's not really comfortable to carry on your shoulder. It might be better to shoot out of a small bag, perhaps with a wrist strap for security when you have the camera in your hands a lot.
• Thumb pad is too small, except when shooting. An immediate concern would be buying the proper grip or cage—there are a bunch of them available, and they're all different. Some of them put the grip father out from the camera body, and they include a larger space for your thumb.
• With the SmallRig cage Jason has on it, it's impossible for me to remove the SD card with my fingers! Oops. (It's in the battery compartment.) I have to use the pliers function of a wire stripper tool I have. Obviously this is also an aspect of the design of the grip you're going to put on the camera—some of them attach to the side of the camera and don't require an added bottom plate at all. Big caveat emptor on that.
• It's for a particular kind of shooting. It's not a fast action camera. No use parsing all the reasons why; that's just the wrong application for it, so look elsewhere. Think of it as a studio camera you can take into the field if you're the contemplative type...much like a medium format film SLR. Slow camera good.
• Turning it into a monochrome camera is hella expensive, and kinda makes no sense except when you consider all the rest of the crazy stuff you've ever spent money on for love or kicks.
• No IBIS.

'Better to be a nerd than one of the herd'
The very best thing about it? It's different. Genuinely different. Two reader comments:

Bear. wrote: "DP Review and many other reviews online plainly have an inherent bias in favour of 'do it all' cameras. Thus, for example, that a Leica M rangefinder does not autofocus is considered to be some sort of flaw, or negative; whereas in reality, of course, that the camera manually focusses only is the whole point. The same is true of many reviews of Sigma cameras. Sigma tends to produce quirky, targeted cameras which are very good at one or two things to the exclusion of almost everything else. Those exclusions are, I presume, deliberate. In any event, presumably purchasers wanting cameras that do anything otherwise than what they want will not buy one. But that is hardly a negative. Why buy a truck if you want it to drive like a sports car?"

Jim Arthur wrote: "I am always interested in the capabilities of custom tools that can’t be purchased at the corner big-box store. We have all read the reviews of the latest bleeding edge offering from the multinational camera companies and while their offerings are impressive…they tend to move as a pack and homogenize the tool."

Got that right. And this is a camera that goes its own way and doesn't go along with the crowd. Some will damn it on that account, others praise it, and thus it is and ever shall be.

Recommended?
I wouldn't go that far. How would I know? Because, as I've said, I'm using it for a.) stills, b.) raw, and c.) monochrome (B&W), whereas it's meant to be the heart of a video rig. You wouldn't want me reviewing video functions because I know nothing about that. Thirty years ago I worked for six months as a high-end audio salesman, and I exasperated the boss because I refused to learn anything about home theater. Not my medium. Here's what I know about video: in my lifetime I have watched some movies. There you go. I haven't owned a television since 2013, so you can see the level of my commitment there. I wouldn't review a video camera. You wouldn't want me to.

But it's not true what Ken said, that nobody has reviewed the Sigma FP positively. Kirk Tuck has. Steve Huff tried it and and had to buy it, proclaiming the LVF-11 "the best viewfinder experience for manual focus I have ever used." It is seductive, I'll agree.

Me? I love it. Not like. Love. I think it's a great one-shot-at-a-time stills camera. I'm not recommending it due to the fact that my needs and use-cases are so quirky and persnickular, and because it's not a "do it all" camera homogenized to go along with the pack. The best I can say is: don't overlook it just on account of it's so different—that's a feature, not a bug. And, unless and until you get your actual warm mitts on one yourself, weird sideways chimney finder included, don't judge.

Have a look.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Fred Lyon, San Francisco Noir. "The version [of San Francisco] that Fred Lyon celebrates in his new book is a classic San Francisco full of smoky jazz clubs, neon lights in the fog and sharply dressed men and women stepping on and off of trolley cars. Made mostly during the 1950s and '60s, Lyon's images are big on atmosphere and style, and hit many parts of the city that visitors love." (PDN)

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kirk: "After your nudge via your first tests with the FP I pulled mine back out and subbed it into my workflow for studio portraits instead of the Leica SL2. I'm photographing portraits with a big (6x6 foot) diffusion panel and good LED lights. So, continuous lighting.

"I did two portraits that way yesterday for corporate clients using the FP with the Sigma 90mm ƒ/2.8 I-Series (small, light, sharp, nice lens) using the face detect/eye detect AF in the camera. The results were just perfect. Lovely colors and skin tones. High resolution of details and perfect AF every single frame.

"I bought mine back in the Spring of 2020 just a month or two after the launch. I use it mostly for stills and mostly with the enormous finder hood. I love the camera. It's just great. And the best thing about it (besides the size) is the color science and overall tonality.

"The only change I'd make on your set up is to lose the SmallRig cage and grip which I found makes it harder to reach the shutter button. Sigma makes a nicely sized grip and baseplate called an HG-21 which also has attachment points for the big hood. It makes handling the camera much more comfortable. It's about $95 but it's very nicely made.

"The '9' in the bottom right corner of the screen is, if I have this right, the number of files remaining in the buffer.

"I think it's a wonderful camera and am currently looking around for a used copy of its big brother. Just for fun.

"Have a blast with your new loaner. It will continue to grow on you, I'm almost certain."

Grahn Johan: "Thanks Mike for your kind mention of Mrs. Grahn. She sends her greetings! I really appreciate that you picked up on my joke! That is a big reason why I like this 'place' on the internet. Not so dead serious about cameras, we can actually make jokes about them. Unfortunately I live far away from where you live and it's hard to think we will every meet. But I would love to sit down with you and have a chat about whatever...."

Bill barton: "I have been using an FP now for about a year and a half, set up the same way the one you are using. Except I am only using Leica M lenses on it. Works well. I can still focus with my eyes so all is well for right now. Yes it's a pain to carry around but once you put the finder up to your eyes it just works. Enjoy and have fun."

Explore Today

Flickr's "Explore," a brightly-lit shop window for selected high points from among their users' work, is all B&W today. (Google "Flickr Explore.")

Much of it is "B&W for special effects," and a lot of it exhibits what Oren trenchantly called that "characteristic low-key, gloomy-theatrical look." Actually he was talking about B&W from monochrome-converted sensors when he said that. But that's a good description of the palette, all right.

I've added four more shots to the Sigma FP samples on Flickr, too. I screwed up, though. You can read about it in the captions there.

"Farm Field," my picture that was featured on Explore, got 6,635 views! [UPDATE: 7,668 as of Saturday, and the big increases seem to have ended as the picture is no longer on the Explore page.]

Mike
(Thanks to ChrisC)

Book o' the Fortnight

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

KeithB: "In my photography class in college, we were to have one shot that illustrated depth of field. I had a young cousin pose in a field like yours with a fairly large aperture. So I used a field to illustrate depth of field!"

Mike replies: I heartily approve.

Michael Elenko: "Eliot Porter has been in my photography Pantheon for a long time. About five years ago, I was in my doctor's waiting room. His personal photographs of nature scenes on the wall are OK. In perusing the images, one popped out and I did a double take: it was an Eliot Porter original. When I got to see my doctor, he explained that he won it in a benefit auction and didn't know anything about Porter. I filled him in and offered to relieve him of the photograph if, when he retires, his home wall space becomes maxed out."

Sean: "Re 'T.S. Eliot said April is the cruellest month, but August is the saddest month.' And blue is the saddest colour, but you'll be golden if you remember that Keats said autumn is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."

Jack Mac: "I have In Wildness..., first printing, and the printing is as amazing as you say."

ChrisC: "I've never quite worked out what the criteria are for being featured on the Flickr Explore page (except perhaps for being a Pro account holder). At times I do find myself questioning why a photo may have been featured. However, that is probably due to the uncertainty in Flickr's purpose. Some people use it as a gallery, others simply for picture hosting with the display/discussion taking place on other sites, some people seem to treat it as an online backup and simply dump everything they shoot, and others still play the social media game of collecting followers/'likes.' As for the black-and-white featured images, I think John's earlier comment sums up a lot of thoughts about them—there are certainly several that fall into the 'Why B&W?' category, as well as several 'Why featured?' Despite this, I still find myself regularly browsing through the Explore page on a regular basis."

Mike replies: Well I'm glad you check it—I never knew it existed before now, and if you hadn't told me my picture was on it I probably never would have known. Thanks again.

Some Pictures Have to Be in Color

There are many photographs that have to be in color. They make no sense otherwise.

Actually, this was the argument made by one of the early pioneers of art photography in color in the U.S., Eliot Porter, who was given his first show in 1939 by Alfred Stieglitz, no less. Porter was a naturalist and also an avid bird photographer, and he argued that the colors of animals and many natural details were integral to their depiction. It's not hard to understand the argument that a black-and-white photograph of a Baltimore Oriole, for instance (I've seen only one of them in my years here, and was mighty impressed), makes no more sense than a black-and-white picture of this yellow melon.

Dat Bones*
Two tidbits about Porter: he had a longtime assistant with the colorful name of Jim Bones; and he threw a party to celebrate when his income from photography finally equaled the proceeds of his trust fund. Here's a tip: if you can find an original printing of Eliot's Porter's In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World—Sierra Club, 1962, hardcover only (I can't vouch for the softcover)—snap it up. The color reproductions, made by an arcane method that isn't even legal any more, are uniquely gorgeous. Stay away from the AMMO reprint of 2012; its repro is as bad as the original's are good in my opinion.

I know I'm always going on about how local produce is one of the best reasons to live here in Western New York State. It's an open secret in these parts that the guy who grows the best melons is a Mennonite farmer named Raymond, and I'm certainly not going to broadcast how to find him. But I will say that this very yellow watermelon was one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. Amazing.

T.S. Eliot said April is the cruelest month, but August is the saddest month. The earliness of sunset begins to accelerate, and produce is in full glory but won't be for long. At this time of year Raymond's melons of one kind or another are for breakfast every day, and it's a mournful rite of Fall once they go away again for another year.

Mike

*Here's the reference I'm playing off of there. If you've never heard it. I hear the word of the Lord.

Book o' the Fortnight

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark Sampson: "Eliot Porter was a master of color photography, at a time when the art world (where reputations are made) disdained it. Didn't stop him though, which is a very good thing. I saw some of his dye-transfer prints up close and personal, back in 1989, and they still rank as the most beautiful color prints I've ever seen. Paradoxically, I like the color in the 1960s Sierra Club books, his and others'. It tends to be quite effective while not being very accurate, although it is a color palette no one would use today. But I didn't realize that they used an arcane and illegal printing method; explain please?"

Mike replies: Sorry, I looked but I can't find it. (Fact checker fail.) Maybe Geoff knows. Something about the chemicals used in the process being environmentally harmful and no longer used now. It was quite an important book in its time; lavishly made, very expensive but sold well anyway, and helped establish both Porter and also the tradition and popularity of the coffee-table nature photography book.

Sample Album on Flickr

Getting tired of B&W yet? Wish I'd get back to writing about pool? It's funny, Kirk Tuck sometimes goes off topic, and I sometimes go off topic. But we're completely different...I go on about pool and he goes on about pools.

Anyway, this morning I've uploaded a small album of sample pictures taken with the Sigma FP Mono and Sigma 45mm ƒ/2.8 I-Series lens.

It's important to mention that these are just my very first trials with a monochrome camera; I've never tried one before. These are the results of the first two days spending a few hours each day trying out this camera. I consider myself very far down the learning curve and am only starting to feel my way toward knowing how to use the camera and edit these files. I'm very far from an expert. My purpose here is to see, eventually, if I think B&W from a monochrome sensor can compete with conversions from conventional color files, which I have more experience with, and with darkroom prints from film negatives.

I'll add more examples as I take more. The loaner Leica Monochrom and Leica 50mm Summilux ASPH arrived yesterday, courtesy of Chris, so the next journey is going to be to make some comparison photographs with the two FF monochrome cameras to see what we can see.

Thanks again to Chris and Jason for kindly loaning me their cameras to try.

Mike

UPDATE: Turns out Flickr has promoted one of my test pics on its "Explore" feature for the last couple of days. That has resulted in it getting 4,509 views (over twice as many as others in the set), seven comments, and 72 "Favorites."

Book o' the Week

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jim Arthur: "I have never been a B&W guy but these pictures are impressive. Jason’s converted camera produces files that remind me of what I see on Shorpy. I would love to see a print of one of these files. I bet it would also be impressive.

"Thanks for posting your findings, Mike. I am always interested in the capabilities of custom tools that can’t be purchased at the corner big-box store. We have all read the reviews of the latest bleeding edge offering from the multinational camera companies, and while their offerings are impressive…they tend to move as a pack and homogenize the tool. I feel the same way about cell phones. Their computational photography is impressive but if everyone on the planet uses the same algorithm to take a photo, all photos begin to look the same."

Don Cox: "I've been using an FP for a couple of years. I bought it mainly for use with my lenses from film SLRs, and it works very well. Converting a raw file to B&W on the computer works well, so I see no need for a physical conversion. If I want to use flash I use a different camera. Recommended for experienced photographers who want a well built practical tool. As you say, a bit like a classic Hasselblad, but much more reliable because there are no moving parts (except the control wheels). The cable release is particularly good. Try it with a 105mm Nikkor if you have one—adapter costs peanuts. DPReview doesn't like Sigma cameras, but there's a good Sigma forum on the DPReview site."

Mike Ferron (partial comment): "I am looking at your Sigma samples and they do look good. Personally I have decided to devote myself to B&W film. There is just something about the look. I also have my little darkroom up and running again, printing 6x6 medium-format images on fiber matte. I also picked up an 8x10" field camera for not too much money. At about $7 per shot I have decided to shoot one image a week with this rig and contact print. This aging guy has young enthusiasm for the project."

Chico Ruger (partial comment): "My two cents: The photos seem unremarkable. I’m not referring to the creative aspects of the shots, just the B&W visual attributes. I feel converted color files done with a modicum of skill would produce images of at least comparable impact...I don’t see significant output advantages that would lead me to a monochrome-only sensor."

robert e: "Whew. If my camera had that much resolution I would think about leaving the longer lens at home."

Richard Parkin: "The EXIF says 'Flash (on, fired)' on all I’ve looked at. Seems unlikely."

Mike replies: I can't figure out why it says that. Flash is "Off" in the menus. And there's no hot shoe and obviously I'm not using any flash. I also don't think there is anything connected to wherever an outboard flash would be connected. So I'm at a loss. Some kind of bug I guess.

Dave: "Is it me, or do the photos of your yard look like they've been sharpened? Either that or that lens is really, really sharp!

"Those clouds sure turned out nicely! Very good contrast with the yellow filter.

"Thanks for posting all those photos."

Mike replies: Yes, the yard pictures were sharpened, especially "Butters on Alert." I wasn't planning on posting them to Flickr when I processed them. I'm still not sure exactly how best to process files for posting on Flickr, but I assume I'll get there with practice...same as with the processing of these files in general: I know I'll get better at it if I keep working at it. You almost can't help it.

Five or six months ago I decided I was going to learn position play in pool. (I'm a good shooter and usually I enjoy just shooting my way out of trouble, without paying too much attention to pattern play.) I started working on it, and at first I was almost comically bad at it. Just didn't know where the cue ball was going to go. But I just settled in to keep trying, and gradually I've learned specific shots, done speed drills, watched for clues in professional matches on YouTube, and practiced, practiced, practiced. Now I'm actually getting kinda good at it. I'd say I still have a lot to learn, and partly my progress is blocked by deficiencies in motor skills and coordination—execution and consistency—but I'm doing way better than when I started.

You just have to keep after things if you want to get better. If I keep processing monochrome files I'll keep learning about how to do it.

Rob Campbell: "Basically, all such attempts to show or prove concepts such as the one we have here regarding mono or colour sensors, are meaningless online. Only if you can show a set of comparison prints of the very same subject, shot at the same time, can anything close to a valid judgement be pronounced. Sadly, even that inescapably reduces down to the capability of the person making the prints. For what it’s worth, I guess one’s better off having a camera that doesn't restrict your choices. Anyway, until Leica came along in its alternative universe spaceship, nobody ever shed a tear over the matter. Indeed, one of the best things about digital was precisely that you got all the choices wrapped up in the equivalent of a single roll of film. Not a lot has happened, really, to change that situation."

Kirk replies to Rob: "Re 'Anyway, until Leica came along in its alternative universe spaceship, nobody ever shed a tear over the matter.' This implies that Leica was the first to come to market with a monochrome camera which is not at all true. Kodak DCS 200 cameras were available in both monochrome versions and IR versions. There was a DCS420M version and also a six-megapixel APS-H DCS 760 monochrome version which was extremely well regarded. Over at Contax the original Contax N1 which was the first full frame six megapixel DSLR was reportedly available in very limited quantities in a monochrome configuration but the line was discontinued within a year of launch. The later Kodaks were coveted by photographers dedicated to black-and-white imaging and are still sought after today. Leica was third in line, at best, in the investigation of digital monochrome-only cameras. Just setting the record straight. And yes, a number of very expert practitioners shed tears about the discontinuation of both Contax and Kodak dedicated black-and-white models."

Parking Lot Picture (Monochrome Sample)

It's very difficult to make sure everyone everywhere will see this properly...and the blogging software does soften sharpness somewhat, unfortunately. But this sample from the Sigma FP-M (adding an "M" for monochrome seems to be the convention for converted cameras) looks extremely good and extremely clean on my monitor (NEC MultiSync PA272W). I have some nicer example pictures already, and will share some after I collect some more, but I just thought you might want a taste of what the camera with the converted sensor is capable of.

These detail crops should be at 100% after you click on them; hopefully the sharpness is not too compromised as you see it. (I'll find a different site to post samples on, so you can see them in all their glory.)

Again, I hope you can see this on your device, if not you'll have to take my word for it, but you can actually see shadow detail inside the wheel well of the pickup truck...the amount of detail this camera can capture seems well in excess of what I'm used to from 24-MP sensors.

Fine detail in the background is excellent. Part of this is the lens, which is exceptional—very sharp without being harsh.

Finally, check out the little dude "parked" on top of the streetlight! Best seat in the house. This detail looks haloed somewhat as presented here, and I'm not seeing that in Photoshop.

Finally, how's this (ISO 400) for a "shadow/sun" test? Put a textured white surface in direct sunlight and see if it still shows texture....  :-)

(You'll see it 100% after you click on it.) Of course these are edited to something near my taste in tonal values, so they may not be to everybody's liking...even if you could see them the way they're supposed to be. I know from experience that as I "exercise the muscle" I'll get better at correcting the files. I'm just kind of finding my way at the moment, learning what the available controls do and which works for what. For example, some strategies for raising shadow values seem to work better than others. I'm already using curves in ACR much more than I do with color pictures. More samples to come.

By the way, just as an aside, I'm having great fun shooting with this. It's very satisfying to me.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Rick Popham: "Are you shooting raw files and processing them with ACR? I was under the impression that removing the Bayer filter required a specialized raw processor, but I admit I haven't looked into it. I'm not likely to get a monochrome camera, but this is pretty interesting."

Mike replies: As recommended on the Monochrome Imaging website, I'm using the Monochrome2DNG converter app by FastRawViewer for the out-of-camera files so that demosaicking isn't applied. It's very simple to use. I just use it between the card and the destination file, so it doesn't even add a whole step the workflow...maybe half a step, because you have to set the filename and the destination folder. The files then open in Photoshop (or Lightroom, I presume) with the Monochrome profile already set.

Chris Kern (partial comment): "Re 'It's very difficult to make sure everyone everywhere will see this properly...and the blogging software does soften sharpness somewhat, unfortunately.' One option that might give you better control over image quality would be to use a link to an external public site for photographs."

Mike replies: I'm readying an album of photographs on Flickr that will show some of the B&W test shots that I've done with the Sigma FP so far. However I want to have at least a dozen files up to start with and I've found I can't work on the files in the daytime—the glare in my office makes it impossible to evaluate lights and darks on the screen. It's a little iffy because I'm new to converted sensor files and also to Flickr. And a little out of practice with B&W. But that's how you learn: do.

Becoming a Sigma Fan (Sigma FP)

[Note: I just charged the battery to this camera yesterday, shot with it yesterday afternoon, and wrote this this morning. So this is not a full review.

I shot with it some more this afternoon. I'll post some images soon. —Ed.]

-

Man, I'll tell you, I am becoming more and more a fan of Sigma.

You know how I always say you have to try it for yourself, in person, before you can pronounce an opinion about a camera? A reader named Jason sent me his camera to try. Here's Jason's camera:

It's a Sigma FP converted to monochrome by Monochrome Imaging Services. There are four bits in this rig: The original 24.6-MP FF Sigma FP, still available new even though it's been replaced joined by a much higher-resolution version, the FP-L [UPDATE: see Kirk's comments in the Comments Section. He says the original is still an ongoing current product. —Ed.]; an aftermarket cage with an integrated wooden handle, the SmallRig CCM 2518, which seems to be out of stock or backordered everywhere (and might be gone, who knows):

The normal lens, which comes bundled with the camera for only an extra $200 (it's normally $400 to $550 alone—the Leica L-mount version is on sale but the Sony E-mount version isn't); and a bolt-on hood:

Called the LVF-11, it's a stovepipe-style magnified (2.5X) finder for the LCD screen with a generously large eyepiece with diopter control. Sold as a $292 accessory.

Now, I know I have a tendency to get enamored of new cameras I try, like I did over the Panasonic GX8 and Sony A6600, but I also have plenty of cameras I try that are perfectly fine but don't grab me for one reason or another, like the Panasonic G9 and Sony A7 Mark III. So I am susceptible to being carried away, but at the same time I'm not undiscriminating.

Well, on paper, the Sigma FP seemed like the least promising camera I could possibly try...I just wanted to try a monochrom sensor. The camera is a tiny little box designed to be the heart of a video rig. It has a Sony-made 24x36mm sensor, no grip, no eyelevel finder, and no mechanical shutter. Couldn't possibly be for me, right?

Before we get to the camera, the lens is gorgeous. This is the first time I've seen one of the new Sigma I-Series lenses and it's really nice. It's all-metal, very well made, with a super-precise aperture ring, and ribbed metal rings for a great grip; even the lens hood is ribbed metal, with plastic for the interface so it engages with a soft thock. And yet it's light and just about right-sized. The look might not be classic, but that's because it's designed with feel and ergonomics prioritized. It exudes precision and attention to detail. It's a honey.

I even managed to dig a 55mm K2 (medium yellow) filter out of the piles of boxes in the barn. Interestingly, you see B&W in the viewfinder, because that's all the sensor can see, so of course you don't see the yellow of the filter either. I'll do a demonstration eventually of the effects of filters on the B&W image.

As for the camera, as configured here anyway, to my great surprise I really like this little thing. As you know I prefer to use aperture-priority and exposure compensation when I shoot, and having the aperture on the lens allows the front dial, which is right under your index finger, to be mapped to EC. The view of the LCD screen, although a little grainy by comparison with a real EVF, is generously huge and immediate. The always-on electronic shutter is as gentle and silent as a butterfly fart. The menus...let's see, how I can say this without being politically incorrect...the menus feel like suddenly encountering a sensible adult after spending years surrounded by fractious five-year-olds. The information on the finder is just what you need and no more.

It feels a lot like an old modular film medium-format camera, such as a Bronica or a Hasselblad, to use; a bit clunky, a bit slow, but you really engage with the world through it, and get to grips with it, and it imparts a sense of seriousness.

And you know how I've been going on about simplicity? Well, when set to stills, at least, this is a simple, purposeful camera.

I just wanted to try the sensor. I didn't expect to like the camera too. More about it in a future post, no doubt.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Chico Ruger: "Would love to see a photo of this rig being held or next to something like a coffee mug for some perspective of its size. I know you showed the rig with its dimensions, but (for me) that doesn’t help as much as the type of photo I am suggesting."

Mike replies: Sure. Here are some tries at that:

With tableware...

Next to Fuji X-H1 and 55–200mm lens...

With ordinary 12+ oz. drinking glass...

...And with a tennis ball and a pair of scissors. I have two pairs of scissors, one largish and one smallish, and this is the smallish pair.

Hope that helps!

Chico Ruger replies: "Thanks, Mike, for the additional photos! It is quite a bit smaller than it appeared to me in the photos in the original post."

Walter Smith: "You started this...."

Grahn Johan: "My wife is Japanese. We eat a lot of rice. How about comparing the camera to a pair of chopsticks? Thanks!"

Mike replies: I am nothing if not helpful:

Richard Parkin: "I’m not hugely surprised that you like it as Kirk Tuck has written frequently how much he’s surprised he likes his (non-mono) one, also with the clunky viewing hood."

Open Mike: The Perfect Day (OT)

["Open Mike" is the anything goes, off-topic Sunday Editorial page of TOP.]

Here's all I have to do each day and how much time I should spend doing it:

Sleeping: 9 hours

Personal hygiene, showering, shaving, etc.: 30 minutes

Prepping and cooking three meals and morning tea: 1 hour 20 minutes

Eating three meals: 30 minutes

Writing (TOP, New Yorker, book projects) and moderating comments: 6 hours

Research for writing: 1 hour

Reading: 1 hour

Housework, averaged: 30 minutes

Yardwork, averaged: 30 minutes

Feeding, playing with, and walking dog: 1 hour

Laundry (including bedding and folding, over one week, averaged out): 10 minutes

Shooting pool: 30 minutes

Shooting photographs: 30 minutes

Processing photographs and DAM: 1 hour

Exercise: 90 minutes*

TV: 0

Video games: 0

Diddling around on the computer with no good purpose: 2 hours

Shopping and errands: 30 minutes

Driving for shopping and errands: 40 minutes

Phone calls to friends or family, averaged: 40 minutes

Wasting time on the phone on hold or trying to get through to some necessary entity, averaged: 20 minutes

Dealing with mail, bills, shipping things, banking, home maintenance issues, doctors, or something I forgot to do and am now being threatened about: 30 minutes

AA meeting: 1 hour

Everything around an AA meeting, including driving, averaged: another hour

TOTAL: 29 hours 40 minutes

Nothing to it.

Next day: Do it all over again!

Mike

*This is Dr. Greger's recommendation. I haven't exercised for 90 minutes in one day since I was in my 50s. But this might not be an area to skimp on. He says "mild cognitive impairment" is marked by "those starting to forget things or regularly repeating themselves." I haven't exercised for 90 minutes in one day since I was in my 50s—did I already mention that? I forget.

Book o' the Week

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Here's our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Matters of Tone [Updated Friday]

As I've looked through samples here and there, it seems clear that there are treatments of tone and effects in B&W that are so prevalent now that they amount to new styles or fashions. They've become a sort of new normal. For example, consider the sample from the Q2M I linked to in the previous post (see it best on flickr):

Guy Ross-Clift, Rendezvous, King Street, Newtown, 2022

There's no right or wrong way for B&W to look. I respect photographers, so I assume that photographers are presenting their work the way they want it to look. So this isn't a criticism, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this. It's not my picture so it's not for me to say what it should look like.

Still, I don't believe that if I were standing there I wouldn't be able to see any detail in the fellow's shoe. It looks like the light is off. I like more of a sense of airiness and a sense of light in a picture, that's all. If it were up to me, I'd print it something more like this:

I'm just modifying the small JPEG I screenshotted from flickr, and I don't have the whole file to work with, so naturally this is only approximate, meant to give you the idea. (I'm fiddling with this with Guy's permission, by the way.)

It's not helpful to think of either one of these as "more filmlike," which is a comment I often see—after all, this is filmlike, and this is filmlike, and this is filmlike. B&W film had a very wide range of expressive potential just like digital B&W does. These are just two different interpretations of this scene. I'm not even entirely sure I like mine better; either one can look "wrong" after you look at the other one for a long time! If it were my picture and I had the original file I'd probably experiment some more. I might try darkening the interior of the car somewhat and see how that works, and I might try reducing the contrast in the folds of the man's dark clothing, because that seems to be calling too much attention to itself in my version. I don't think the woman's face needs undue emphasis, however—spotlighting—because it's clearly the center of interest of the picture and the eye is going to get there soon enough without being led.

In any event, one of the things I'm going to be looking at with these monochrome sensor cameras is whether there's enough information for me to get the files to look the way I want them to look. I'm not interested in whatever the current fashion might be. I'll be wanting my pictures to be my style. Just like I did with film, and just like any monochrome photographer should.

UPDATE Friday:

Richard Parkin mentioned that I actually can upload a bigger file, so I found that. Starting there, I took another run at this. I actually made a GIF of it, but I didn't care for seeing it that way; when we look at one version of something, it has the effect of "normalizing" that rendition, and it can skew your judgement. So you have to be careful what you look at when you're applying modifications. For instance, in darkroom printing, you always start with low contrast and move up on the right contrast; if you start out with two much contrast and progressively apply less, it's much more difficult to know when you've reached the optimum amount.

Here's my second, more serious take:

The biggest problem with the picture is that the woman is actually pretty far out of the depth of field, and there's not a lot of detail available in her face. That surprises me a bit; I would have thought ƒ/8 with a 28mm lens would be holding d-o-f better. And it would have, with grainy, less resolving film (the amount of "bokeh" depends on the resolution of the film/sensor; the greater the resolution, the more obvious it becomes what's in focus and what's not). The focus in the image is placed on the side mirror. It would have been preferable to place the focus right on the woman. But of course the scene was probably way too dynamic for that level of nicety—it was likely a fast, reactive shot. And that reactivity, don't forget, makes the picture—if Guy hadn't caught those clasped hands and that smile, he wouldn't have had this picture at all.

My Photoshop is a little maladroit, as well. I've been using Photoshop since 1994 but I still don't know much about it. What I was trying would probably be better accomplished with a layer mask, but I don't know how.

If this were my picture, this is the point at which I would make a guide print. A guide print is the first good attempt at a print; at that point you begin studying the print and letting that guide any future modifying of the file. There are times when, depending on your printing setup, you might have to make the file look a little worse in order to get what you want in the print; but the print takes over because that's the final, finished form of the work, and it's what matters.

One of my disadvantages in working on this image is that I don't actually know what the light was like, because I'm not the photographer. When I'm working on B&W, I'm often guided by the "feel" of the way the light actually was in the scene. I'm picturing sort of afternoon light on a city street where not a lot of sunlight is getting through. It's a defensible guess anyway. I think my lightening of the woman is fully believable because it's easy to assume there is light from the sky coming in through the raked windshield of the car.

Open this version and the original and place them side by side. There's actually way less contrast in my version, but it looks like the contrast is more vivid because the balance is better. The light on the man is much more realistic but his body is being de-emphasized like he is in the original (unlike my first try). And there's much more "directing," tonally, to the woman.

Mike
(Thanks to Guy)

P.S. Arnold was very proud of that picture of Bill Brandt, by the way, in the first "this is filmlike" example. He deliberately mimicked Brandt's own style, and successfully, too.

Book o' the Week

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

[Thursday comments start here, before the Update —Ed.]

Albert Smith: "I'd bet that any 10 random readers are seeing 10 different things when looking at the images. No two computers are exactly matched, not to mention tablets and phone screens. The true thing would be a print, and then how the print is illuminated comes into play. For what it's worth, and I'm sure it's not worth anything, I prefer the first image. I like contrast. At least on my screen."

Mike replies: It's true. In B&W, more so than in color, exact rendition of values is of heightened importance. The only way to really "fix" the intended look of the final treatment is with a stable print. Not for nothing does the photographer sign the print—it's a stamp of approval, of saying, "this looks the way I want it to look." Anything online is just a hopeful approximation.

Rob Campbell (partial comment): "Perhaps the most pervasive trend in black/white snaps today is encapsulated in those street pix where everything dark is turned into jet black, with only the highlights having any detail. I didn’t like that much at first, then I had a go at it myself. Now, I see it as just another gimmick, an attempt to introduce interest where none really exists. There are scenes where it works, but mostly it just reminds me of poor exposure techniques."

Geoff Wittig: "Black and white photography self-evidently is all about tone, specifically the relative distribution of tones across the available range from paper white to D-max. Other concerns like grain/sharpness and subtle color casts (intentional or otherwise) are secondary.

"That's precisely why I find black and white so much fun! there are endless possible permutations in how you decide to pitch the tonality, from dark and moody to light and airy, high contrast to low, and so forth. You get to decide how to spend your tonal range 'budget.' And this is why I'm a contrarian on the subject of dedicated monochrome sensors. I could be wrong, but it looks like you're stuck with the relatively arbitrary decision the manufacturer (or conversion shop) makes regarding the sensitivity of the sensor to red, blue or green light striking it. With a standard Bayer sensor (or Fuji's X-trans sensor for that matter) you can change this to your heart's content after capture using software, such as Photoshop's black and white conversion layer.

"Back in digital's pre-history, I made black and white prints on an inkjet printer after scanning in Kodak Ektar film negatives. I had been very dissatisfied with prints from B&W negative film, though admittedly this was developed by a commercial lab, as I never tried my hand at traditional darkroom work. Starting with a color negative I could play all I wanted with the tonal balance using color filtration.

"I could be wrong, but starting with a color sensor seems analogous."

aaron c greenman: "For years now, making Leica Monochrom prints with the Piezography Pro (and previous offerings) ink system has given me immense amounts of photographic joy and satisfaction—a true end-to-end digital B&W workflow. Printed on Canson Baryta Photographique has never disappointed. Mike, I would encourage you to engage with Jon Cone for a discussion/interview, I’m sure you would find it fascinating, as would he. Jon is a real innovator in the field. What a fantastic printing system. My dream TOP post 😉."

MikeR: "Rather than a monochrome sensor, top of my photography wish list is a monochrome printer. I've seen work done with a printer converted to a carbon inkset that just blew me away. You know a print is special if in a gallery show with lots of contenders, you keep coming back to one again and again."

[Friday comments start here, after the Update —Ed.]

robert e (partial comment): "These examples and discussion so far illustrate how different BW photography is from color photography, and how malleable a monochrome image is, paradoxically as a result of a substantial limitation. And I contend that this plasticity extends even beyond post-processing and presentation, to the act of looking at the final product. It may have to do with the tension of seeing the familiar in an 'unnatural' way, and how that encourages us to question or play with the act of seeing. That tension, which sometimes shades into wonder, is inherent to all photography, but take away color and it's amplified by an order of magnitude."

Jeff in Colorado: "Highlight recovery is tricky with monochrome sensors, because all channels clip simultaneously."

Mike replies: It's the biggest weakness of digital, in color or B&W. There's a very narrow range between those glaring electronic-looking empty featureless whites and too much undifferentiated dull tone that rob the results of sparkle. (The human eye is very sensitive to tonal variation in highlights and very poor at tonal variation in shadows (dark areas). This parallels the way B&W responds, but digital is naturally the opposite. I'm not sure about this, but I suspect that one of the biggest advantages of very high-MP sensors (say 45+) is that this problem—the visual effects anyway—are easier to overcome. Some of the best high-MP-sensor pictures have very good highlights, or seem to.

Sal Santamaura: "Re 'The focus in the image is placed on the side mirror. It would have been preferable to place the focus right on the woman. But of course the scene was probably way too dynamic for that level of nicety—it was likely a fast, reactive shot.' If I were shooting this with my D810, it would have been (as always) using Live View. Face Detect AF would have had no problem finding and focusing on the woman."

Mike replies: Great point; this scene would have been perfect for face- or eye-detect AF, wouldn't it? A textbook example. However, then he wouldn't have been shooting with a Q2M then, right? Aren't "bare" sensors limited to contrast-detect AF, and therefore can't do face- and eye-detect focus? I don't know for sure, because I don't know enough about how AF works.

Stephen S.: "Face- and eye-detect work perfectly well with contrast-detect autofocus, which is why it is a feature on so many fixed-lens compact 'point and shoot' digital cameras, and in fact first appeared on them."

David Bostedo: "Re '...either one can look "wrong" after you look at the other one for a long time!' That's something I run into often in software. I'll move this or that slider one way or the other, sometimes going to extremes, trying to decide where to place some tone or brightness. And they can often look right in different ways...so I usually wind up somewhere in the middle. Which always makes me wonder if I'm just finding some average, rather than the way I'll want it to look long-term."

Mike replies: It's a problem. As a friend used to say, "careful with those sliders, Eugene"—the reference, for those of you who are not old fogeys, is to Pink Floyd's song "Careful with that Axe, Eugene."

Carl Siracusa: "While I agree with you in general that the look of most B&W photos you see these days is too contrasty, I'd argue that a more important consideration is how well the tonal balance that's been created reinforces the message the photographer is trying to convey. And how convincing that balance is as a reflection of how light behaves. In your sample photo, for instance, I would place the most emphasis on the guy leaning over the car precariously, one foot one the sidewalk and another in the street, almost straining. You should be able to see the strain in the folds of his clothes. And unless there is some particular reason to make the woman's face clearly visible, I would make it only as visible as it needs to be to convey her happiness at seeing him. Otherwise it detracts too much from him and looks unnatural. She is inside a car, after all, and the light falling on her shouldn't be brighter than the light falling on him. I personally would combine the woman in version #1 with the guy in version #3. But obviously, the photographer may have had something else in mind entirely....

Mike replies: That's interesting, and surprises me, because I think the guy is definitely a supporting actor, a secondary character, and the woman is the point of the picture. But this makes it clear how important authorship is for photographs. If you had taken Guy's photograph it would have had a different meaning, and, accordingly, you would have presented it differently.

History of the Monochroms

I'm not an expert on Leicadom, but, if I've parsed the source* correctly and not missed anything, here's the history of the company's unique dedicated B&W models:

2012 (announced May 10): Leica M Monochrom (internal pre-production code name "Henri" in homage to H.C.-B.). 18-MP FF CCD sensor. Based on: Leica M9. Sample by -M&E-.

2015 (announced April 30): Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246). 24-MP FF CMOS sensor. Based on: beats me.) Sample by bob camera.

202o (announced January 17): Leica M10 Monochrom (current product). 40-MP FF CMOS sensor. Based on: Leica M10-P. Sample by Paolo Viviani. [UPDATE: See Jeff's Featured Comment below.]

2020 (announced November 10): Leica Q2 Monochrom (current product). 47-MP FF CMOS sensor, fixed 28mm ƒ/1.7 lens. Based on: Leica Q2. Sample by guy clift.

Presumably there will eventually be a Monochrom based on the M11, which was announced seven months ago.

Mike

*Based on the DPReview Product Database.

Book o' the Week

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jeff: "The original M Monochrom was based on the M9 sensor, sans Bayer filter. It was CCD. Likewise, the M Typ 246 was derived from the M240, which was CMOS. But the M10 Monochrom sensor, also CMOS, was not based on the M10 or M10-P sensors, which were 24 MP, even though the body and other features were based on the latter. Rather, the 40 MP sensor was derived from the Leica S3 sensor architecture, as was the M10-R, which has the same sensor with a Bayer filter. This was apparently a way for Leica to produce some economies of scale from the uniquely specified and expensive 30x45mm S3 sensor. The M10 Monochrom and M10-R therefore share its pixel pitch, but scaled down in size.

"There are also many other differences between the evolving Monochrom bodies. The M9 platform, for instance, has frame lines optimized for 1m, a .68x VF magnification, a very loud shutter re-cock mechanism, a RAW (DNG) based histogram (unique to this camera), etc. The M10 Monochrom has a much more robust body with better weather sealing, a quiet shutter, a larger VF diameter with .73x magnification with better eye relief, frame lines optimized for 2m, and is a much more modern body with tighter digital tolerances."

UPDATE on The Great Monochrome Safari

A followup on the progress of The Great Monochrome Safari, in which Don Quixote Mike stalks the veldt in a funny hat for "always-on" digital B&W and other big game not mandatory for the sustenance of Dawgs*:

—Daniel Morrison at MIS (Monochrome Imaging Services, one of the camera conversion businesses) doesn't have any loaners. Daniel has been kind and cordial, but I'm going to guess that, just maybe, he gets a little weary of having to wade into long hand-holding discussions with punters like me who aren't in the end going to open up their wallets for his services. So I'm going to try not to press him too heavily unless I actually decide to spend for his services. His is the most informative website as far as I can tell, so he's already put up a lot of information for everyone who cares to look.

—Haven't heard back from Roger Cicala, but no worries—I don't think he always sees emails right away. Plus it's vacation season.

—Reader Jason M. has a MIS-converted Sigma FP that he's willing to let me try. The Sigma FP, if you don't know it (I didn't), is a very small 24-MP camera (presumably intended for video?) that comes with a Bayer array rather than Sigma's proprietary variant of the Foveon sensor.

—Reader Chris H. is sending a loaner Leica M Monochrom. We will eventually parse the offerings in that lineage and sample the one he sends.

—Reader Steve R. referred me to an accomplished photographer, Norm Eder of Portland, Oregon, who uses MIS-converted camera(s) for his concert and music photography work. I've sent him an email.

Resources
A few resources which have surfaced, thanks to the Cloud-Mind of the Commentariat:

The new Pixii camera, which I was already planning to try at some point, has a real Mono mode in which the processor ignores the color information from the Bayer array. [Thanks to Frank Grygier and Richard Parkin for this.]

Here are some of Norm Eder's pictures, "most but not all" of which were shot with his MIS-converted Sony. [Thanks to Steve Rosenblum.]

Here's an interesting and carefully done comparison of converted raw files from a Leica Q2 compared to the Q2 Monochrom, then a similar comparison of color and mono M cameras, and finally a showdown between the two Monochrom cameras, Q2M and M10M. The color Q2 comports itself admirably, being almost indistinguishable from the Q2M at lower ISOs (putting paid to the supposed sharpness advantage of monochrome sensors, at least in this comparison), but the ISO insensitivity of the monochrome sensor wins out at higher ISOs: according to the tester, David Farkas, the mono sensor has a two-stop advantage over converted color files. Looking at "where the cameras hit their respective ideal maximum ISO values," by which he means "the highest ISO values achievable without a significant sacrifice of image quality," David's conclusion is that the color Q2 files, when converted to B&W in software, look very good up to ISO 6,400, and the Q2M's, to ISO 25,000. (The latter is the value as given in the camera's menu.) [Thanks to James for this.]

More parties heard from
I'm more than 100 comments behind in moderation, so there are lots more comments on the previous post coming up. New Featured Comments as well. Here are three common reactions:

• I understand where you're coming from.
• I don't understand where you're coming from.
• Is that really worth $1,200?

Mike

*An art school friend called fine-art students "art dawgs" so I started to call our little cohort in the Photo Dept. "photo-dawgs." Like most of my attempted coinages it did not catch on. Except with me.

Book o' the Week

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Bob G.: "Individual determined and focused artistic endeavors can and should be beyond critical reproach, as well as immune to any financial logic. History has shown time and time again that strong artistic ideas will prevail, regardless of the barriers thrown up against them. Persistence will make it so."

Jeff1000: "I think you’re tilting at windmills."

Same Old Problems! (More on Monochrome Sensor Cameras)

No surprise, I'm experiencing the same old problems as always in discussing this topic, the topic of the monochrome sensor.

Problems with explaining
First, it's not a question of output/results. Of course I can make B&W/monochrome files/pictures, and have done so a great many times in innumerable ways. It's an issue of mindset. (Thanks to Jeff for introducing that word in the comments.) It doesn't affect everyone, so not everyone gets it. This happens every time the topic comes up, and apparently, from what I find "out there" on the internet, it comes up everywhere else it's mentioned, too.

Secondly, what's needed isn't to see the B&W/monochrome image in the viewfinder or in the workflow. I have something like 90,000 B&W negatives that I shot mostly with SLRs with yellow filters on the lens—what you see in the viewfinder is a color image "stained" overall with yellow. I don't care what I see in the viewfinder. I have no problem visualizing the final results based on whatever materials I'm using. It's what the camera sees that counts, not what I see.

The problem is that I shoot with a different mindset when I'm shooting color. I take different pictures. I mentally translate the world differently. I look for different things. Do you see? And what happens with me is that I can't help looking for color pictures when I'm photographing if I know the camera is recording color. I'll always be looking at the world as if I'm looking for both B&W and color pictures. It's very unsatisfying.

...To me. I understand that if you don't experience this, then naturally you wouldn't see why it's a problem. But I'm telling you it's a problem for me, so it doesn't help if you simply say I shouldn't be having the problem.

It's not an inability, either. I actually did a project in art school for which I shot color negative film and made enlargements on Panalure B&W paper, to make B&W prints. It's just that I find that difficult to sustain over the long haul. If I know color is available, I gradually migrate into seeing color pictures again and making pictures that have to be in color. It's totally a mental thing. It's not a technical issue or a technical problem. It's about mindset.

Jeff wrote,

The reason my Leica Monochrom cameras (M9 Monochrom and M10 Monochrom) help with my black-and-white mindset is that I’m not distracted by looking for color pics, as I know the monochrome cameras can’t capture color [...]. I’ve found that it’s a different mindset than when I shoot with my color-based digital cameras, even when my intent is to take B&W pics. I didn’t think this would be the case before I actually bought a Monochrom, but I should have learned otherwise from my decades shooting B&W film.

There it is..."distracted by looking for color pics." When you look for B&W pictures you're looking for scenes that will render nicely with just luminances. When you look for color pictures you're often looking for colors that work together or against each other. It's a different mindset. I'm sure some people can simply "decide" they're shooting B&W, and only look for scenes that would render well as luminance-only, and God bless 'em. I find I can't do it. 

Aspect ratio
Stephen S. added,

"Re 'But what I've always found is that if the camera sees colors, then I'll see in color. Can't seem to help it. However the camera sees, that's how I'll look at the world.' I fully understand this, and how I relate may help others who can't figure out why you don't just set a colour camera to record B&W: I have many cameras where you can choose to photograph in a different aspect ratio than what the sensor physically is, but I can never bring myself to do it, as it seems like I'm just wasting potential. I want to use all of the sensor I've got. Why throw away perfectly pixels on the top and bottom of my frame, and perfectly good light from the lens, to crop a 4:3 or 3:2 sensor to 16:9? I know it's all in my head, but I have a hard time doing it. Using a sensor's full size and native aspect ratio just makes me feel better about it.

That's a good analogy. I've had different experiences with that. Once I tried to use a 28mm lens meaning to crop it down to a 35mm angle of view in post, and found I simply couldn't do it consistently—I found myself simply composing pictures with the entire 28mm field of view. (Duh, huh? It took all of one day to discover how dopey the idea was. Probably didn't even need to actually do that experiment.)

Oddly, when I once had the opposite problem, I had no trouble. I had an old medium-format SLR, 6x6cm, on which the viewfinder showed less than the negative would record. Worse, the overlap was offset:

And for some reason, in that case, I would often find myself calmly composing in the viewfinder with the top of the picture cut off! I knew the negative would get it, and I didn't worry about it.

And this is odd. With most square cameras, it doesn't matter if I mean to crop to a vertical or horizontal rectangle, I end up composing with the whole square. I just end up looking for square compositions and arranging to the square in the viewfinder. But in the case of that one camera with the offset viewfinder, from first to last I created vertical rectangles. It just felt natural, and that's the way I saw and that's what always worked.

Why was this? No idea. But it brings up a crucial point: you need to adjust to yourself. You're not seeing with a camera. You're not even seeing with your eyes, mostly. You're seeing with your brain. So you have to adjust to how your own brain likes to see things!

Problems with the product
People who are objecting that it makes no sense to pay a lot of money to cripple a perfectly good sensor sure got that right. People like me are trapped by the camera manufacturers. Apart from Leica, the cameramakers have no interest in making cameras with B&W-only sensors, I presume because they know the "take rate" would be minuscule and they'd make no money on the product. And they have no interest in giving random artists what the artists need—their purpose is to make money. Q.E.D.

But could they? If they wanted to? Of course they could. It would be easy as pie. If there were a market for it, the camera would be simpler to make and most likely cost less.

I honestly believed that once Leica did it, that some other more mainstream manufacturer would follow suit with a reasonably priced monochrome sensor camera. But no. Didn't happen. I'm sure the camera makers just don't see it as something that would be worth the hassle. It would be like a car maker building a sedan with a stick shift, manual windows, and no air conditioning.

So then I'm left with taking a $1,200 camera (what I paid for the A6600) and investing a further $1,200 in it, to make a camera that would have cost $900 if Sony offered it as a commercial product.

This would make sense two ways: 1.) if I wasn't price-sensitive about that extra $1,200 (I loved what Bruce Bordner said: "don't make a business decision on a toy"); 2.) if I knew I'd like it and would use it. But of course you can't try it before you buy it, so that makes the second proposition iffy. (You can't even find much about it online; there's doesn't appear to be a lot out there.) I don't really like the tonal rendition of the Leica Monochroms, for instance, so they're not really what I'd want. [UPDATE: I don't actually really know this...having not tried a Monochrom for myself. —MJ] What Sroyon said is very true: "What I'm wondering is, do you know for sure that you'll like the way the B&W-converted sensor renders colours? Because as you know, sensors have a spectral sensitivity curve, just like film. With a product like Tri-X, decades of research have gone into producing a curve which 'translates' colours to B&W in a pleasing way, both natively and with the typical filters." Richard Parkin seconded this, writing, "Why do you think the B&W from a converted camera will be the 'good' B&W you desire?" The answer is that I don't know if it will be.

Anyway, I've asked Daniel at Monochrome Imaging if he has a converted camera he'd be willing to let me try for a couple of weeks for the purposes of writing about it. We'll see what he says.

Maybe I could ask Roger Cicala if he has any interest in adding a few converted monochrome-sensor cameras to the rental fleet at LensRentals, just so people could try them out. He might not be, as they already rent Leica Monochroms. But I'll ask.

Thanks for all the comments! Very engaging, at least for me. I love B&W, and miss it a lot.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Chromes is an edit of more than 5,000 Kodachromes and Ektachromes taken from 10 chronologically ordered binders found in a safe in the Eggleston Artistic Trust. This archive was once used by John Szarkowski, who selected the 48 images printed in Eggleston’s seminal book William Eggleston’s Guide, while the rest of the archive has remained almost entirely unpublished. Three volumes, slipcased.

These book links are your portal to Amazon. Please use our links; they help support the site.

Go to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Clyde Rogers: "I'm primarily a black and white photographer, a Pt/Pd printer, and have a Leica M10 Monochrom. It's easily the best camera I've ever owned, and I love the results I get from it. The primary technical advantage is not just absolute higher ISO capability, but how much better the noise looks is as it creeps in at middle ISOs—smooth and stochastic, never chunky or patterned.

"That said, the black and white camera hasn't changed my photos in any way I can notice. I get that better middle and high ISO, but won't carry a second camera, so lose color. I was hoping for but haven't noted any mindset advantage. Having used both extensively, I think an excellent black and white EVF is a more useful tool for me than the monochrome sensor. The ability to do filter effects after the fact is also worth more than the noise/ISO advantages. Is the monochrome sensor worth it? As the owner of a beautiful monochrome camera, I have to be honest and say not for me."

John Cornelius: "$2,400.00 would buy a lot of Tri-X; just saying. I still shoot it, develop it myself, scan it and print digitally. Silly, but I love it. With any luck the next house will have room for a darkroom and I can be even sillier. It is my hobby, I can be as silly as I want."

Pierre Charbonneau: "Mike, About your dislike of the Leica Monochrom’s tonal rendition, I would point out that the natives files coming out of the camera are on the flat side, without any pop. On the other hand, these are very rich (shadow details) and malleable, so you can play with it a lot, to your liking. After years of using the first and also the latest iteration of the Monochrom, I do not have yet any preset to apply universally to the files. Each picture that I spring for asks for a specific process, even if moderate, like for the curve, exposure, highlight and shadow and even graininess. In the end, it is less work than shooting and processing Tri-X, and the work is cleaner and safer than the chemical way. I still use a film Leica here and then, to reset my appreciation of film. I enjoy using the old non-automatic, manual winding and the beauty of the camera and even the distinctive click of the shutter. But the road to satisfying results is more complicated."

William Cook: "Depending on the day, it may or may not be natural to ‘see’ in B&W for me, but I fully understand what you’re getting at. I too yearned for a simpler camera and I also was a happy B&W film shooter, mostly in medium format. I get easily overwhelmed and the dearth of controls on current digital cameras is the opposite of what I want, well, except for IBIS, that’s mandatory! All that, coupled with the infinite ways to enhance a photo in Photoshop, was overwhelming—and not fun. Granted, most other photographers feel exactly the opposite that I do. I yearned for a simple B&W experience again. When the Leica Q2M was released, that was the answer to my dreams. I don’t even want to get into the angst over the price, but I bought one anyway. Instead of thinking of how I can fiddle the color sliders to produce a ‘filtered’ monochrome image, I do it the old fashioned way, with glass filters on the lens. In Photoshop, I adjust exposure, maybe some dodging and burning, add a touch of sharpening, and that’s about it. Rather than endless options, I love the constraints and discipline. The process now makes me think more when I’m behind the camera and I enjoy the entire photographic process again. I suppose those younger would consider me a dinosaur, but there should be room in the tent for all of us!"

Kirk W.: "C’mon Mike, just hurry up and do it. Then within a few months, I’ll be able to order one of those trick new Fuji X100Ms!"

Henning: "I get what you say, because I'm the same way. I started shooting mostly B&W film. In later years colour became more important. They definitely required a different mindset. I photographed professionally for 40+ years, and in the early years B&W was requested more than colour. By the 90s B&W had largely disappeared as a preference. In the transition decades I was often asked to shoot both B&W and colour, and I always asked the client which was more important, as I had to know going in. With large format in particular, it was easy enough to shoot both; just put in a different film holder, but my vision was right for one but not the other. I couldn't readily do both to my highest standard on the same job on the same day; it was either/or. If a client was particularly discerning I would suggest that I go on two different days (I did architectural photography) and use one medium the first day and the other on the next day. I probably did that about once a year.

"Now I have colour cameras, and I have an M10 Monochrom. I don't take both on the same day."

Frank Gorga: "Although I am,for much of my work, a black and white junkie, I doubt that I will ever buy a monochrome-only digital camera. The reason...flexibility. The control one has in converting colors to gray tones using modern software is much too important to me. The color channels sliders allow me to dial in exactly the right strength or a particular color 'filter' rather than having to rely on one or two strengths of a physical filter. Additionally, one can easily 'stack' virtual filters something that is not recommended and difficult to do with physical filters. Lastly, using layers and masks, one can apply different color filters to different parts of an image. This is not something I do often, but it is impossible to do with physical filters. To me, a monochrome digital camera is a big step backwards."

Inkphot: "Another analogy to think about. I have recently returned to shooting (now digital) with single focal length lenses, something I almost always did when using film (I haven't shot film since 2003). I find I select a focal length to use depending on a whim. A 35mm-e one day, 28mm-e another or an 85mm-e the next. It doesn't matter what the focal length of the lens is, after a few practice compositions I find I can now see and compose in my head the view the camera will record. Using a zoom lens these day throws me off balance. I feel very discombobulated. On the other hand I find the ability to show a black and white image (grey actually) in the EVF and on the LCD to be very useful for me to 'see' in B+W. Also I have a camera converted to infrared and the same thing happens when I am out shooting with it, I find I quickly adjust to seeing in IR (obviously not literally). So Mike I totally get where you're coming from on this."

V.I. Voltz (partial comment): "I don’t think you’d be happy with the tones from the Monochroms. They look like APX 100 in Rodinal—they lower the midtones and produce quite closed shadows. And, most of all, the tones are more resistant than you might imagine to opening them up—it is harder to do and image quality suffers more than I thought it would. In 2012 when I got the first Monochrom I noticed this markedly, thought about it a while and just decided to live with it and shift my look. Until then I used a lot of Plus-X in Xtol with a yellow filter. I thought about continuing with film as my main medium, but, as you put it, I’ve done enough of that work. These days when I use film I use Adox CHS 100 II to match the tones of my Monochrom."

Frank: "Re 'I love B&W, and miss it a lot.' I think you are missing black and white photographs that have been beautifully exposed and developed in the darkroom on fine paper. Digital monochrome photography is quite different, and is often very ugly. I have not yet seen a single beautiful black and white photo from digital that was beautifully printed. For that you need a 6-greys printer, another investment."

Jens Hauser: "I have more or less the same issue because I want to try a monochrome Sony before I decide to buy one, so renting one would be super. I have loved monochrome for a long time and edit many of my photos to B&W."

Bill Tyler: "I have to admit that a full monochrome camera has a strong but irrational appeal for me, even though I would likely not use it very much. What's stopping me is the price."

Joe Holmes: "The mindset is powerful. More than once I've lifted the camera to my eye and felt a kind of reeling vertigo as I discover that my mind's lens, with which I'd been I scanning the world, is not the lens I've got on my camera."

Josh Hawkins: "It is all mindset. I shoot my mirrorless camera in the B&W setting but with raw files. I’m seeing the image on the LCD as B&W. I’m composing for B&W. But I’ve got all the color data. I almost never use the image in color though. It looks wrong. Off. I just can’t. It’s a B&W image, in my mind. Thanks for the read. As always."

The Pinchpenny's Dilemma

Thanks for all the good camera talk on Friday and yesterday. I always enjoy that, as superfluous as it may be. I enjoy cameras and talking about gear.

What I've decided to do is enlist the help of Monochrome Imaging Services (MIS) and have a Sony camera converted to B&W-only. (I actually started talking to them about this briefly right before the pandemic, but let it drop amid the concern of those early days.)

I have several candidates to be the donor camera. And I have three E-mount lenses hanging around the camera closet: a Sony 16mm, the Sigma 30mm Contemporary, and an older Sigma DN 60mm ƒ/2.8. (Actually for some reason I have two of those. Not sure why.) That's enough to play with. If I like the camera, I'll eventually need a lens with an aperture ring, but there are several possibilities for that: the Viltrox 23mm (also available in a cosmetically slightly differentiated mount as a Tokina for those who feel an urge to pay more), the Sony FE 24mm ƒ/2.8, or the Sigma I-series 24mm ƒ/3.5. Both the latter are FF lenses but will work on APS-C Sonys.

What to do, what to do
The only problem is that I have to raise $1,200 for the conversion. The camera budget is dry as a bone at the moment. Have to figure out some way to raise a bit o' cash.

Looming behind that problem is a pinchpenny's dilemma: I can have either my old Sony NEX-6 or my new Sony A6600 converted. The conversion costs $1,200, which is a significant investment. So do I invest in the older, less valuable camera, with its smaller (16-MP) sensor? Or do I convert the sleek new 24-MP A6600, which I like better and is much newer...and has that great big battery that lasts forever...but which will presumably be worth much less on the resale market after conversion? NEX-6's go for less than $250 these days. But minty A6600's go for $1,100–$1,300. It's like if you want to hot-rod a car, which do you choose: do you invest more than the car is worth in an old clunker, or do you void the warranty and hurt the resale on a perfectly good late-model vehicle? Which is more cost-effective? Which is less risk? Thinking about this is prob'ly gonna make my brain hurt tonight.  :-) 

Home at last
I hope my "cheap gene" doesn't derail the project. I really do want to experience a camera that shoots only B&W again. I had a lot of experience shooting B&W, and I have no trouble seeing in B&W if that's how the camera sees. But what I've always found is that if the camera sees colors, then I'll see in color. Can't seem to help it. However the camera sees, that's how I'll look at the world. (Not everyone is like that.) I think it will be very interesting to be "forced" to see in B&W again. I'm working on an article for the big mag about B&W right now, so at the very least, it'll be grist for the mill.

From what I can see, the process has a lot of advantages. First of all, the camera becomes about one stop more sensitive because of the removal of the CFA (color filter array). You don't actually lose the ability to affect the image with color filters—you just have to do it the old-fashioned way, with color filters on the lens! That won't be a drawback to me. Furthermore, there's very little difference between ISOs...for instance, ISO 100 and ISO 3200. Even though you can see a slight difference when you pixel-peep at 100%, the higher ISO image is still very clean and quite pleasing. Finally, the image from the converted camera is markedly sharper than a color image converted in software. All this is discussed on Monochrome Imaging's website.

A small detail from the above. This will be 100% after you click on it. TOP's blog software softens images slightly.

I downloaded the above sample image (made with a converted a7R II) from MIS's website and worked on it in Photoshop. Raw files from converted cameras do need to be run through specialized raw converters (this one's just the JPEG, not the raw file), so that the standard demosaicing that would be done on color files isn't applied. After that, though, the images open as monochrome files in Photoshop and are easy and natural to work on. I fiddled with this one a bit, which was fun.

A converted Sony might be a "poor man's" Q2M, but I have a good feeling about this. I do know most people don't understand—you don't have to tell me yet again—however, I've always wanted a B&W digital camera. I just can't pay Leica's prices, is all.

More to come in this topic, I'm sure. (Unless I lose momentum. That sometimes happens. We'll see.)

Mike

Book o' the Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

These book links are a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Gordon Lewis: "Re '...what I've always found is that if the camera sees colors, then I'll see in color.'

"I'm sorry, but this makes no sense, either in logic or fact. All cameras with optical viewfinders, including film cameras, display color. This means you are and have always been fully capable of imagining an image in B&W even though you are seeing color through the viewfinder. The only difference in the film days was that you had to commit to a full roll or sheet of B&W film.

"Mirrorless cameras or DSLRs with 'live view' however, are capable of displaying live images in B&W if you set the camera to B&W JPEG or RAW+JPEG. You don't have to 'see in B&W' because the camera can do it for you. Some would see this as a simple, cost-effective way to achieve your goal. Apparently you do not.

"I'm sure you're well aware of these facts, as are your readers. Whether or not you choose to take advantage of this feature is entirely your prerogative, but if you're trying to build a case for the merits of spending $1,200 to convert one of your Sonys to a monochrome sensor, this is one of your least convincing bits of evidence."

Mike replies: Hi Gordon. (For those who don't know, Gordon and I are friends and have been fellow photo-writers since the early '90s; he's been a houseguest here at TOP Rural World HQ.)

I can easily believe that it makes no sense to you (in logic or in fact), because you would not be that way, and indeed most people are not that way, but my visual brain works the way it works and I have to work with that. I get a pretty acute sense of how any camera is "seeing" and then, when I'm using that camera, I find I can "previsualize" (to use Ansel's term) the way the camera is going to translate any given scene. It's that way for me with all cameras. I had no difficulty at all seeing color in SLR viewfinders and previsualizing the look of Tri-X or HP-5 Plus or whatever I had loaded in the camera. (The viewfinder image of SLRs was yellow for me, actually, because of the K2 filters on my lenses.) In fact, seeing "bad" B&W in a digital viewfinder is a hindrance, not a help, when I'm visualizing my own B&W conversion which would be much different. I have yet to find a "B&W mode" in any digital camera that's halfway decent as B&W. Most of it simply looks like color desaturated—a look a colleague, John McIntosh, once called "student grays"—which is very different from good B&W. There's not one "B&W." There are many.

I have the look of the result in mind when I shoot. I was actually a little surprised when I first learned that most people don't. I suppose this the reason, or part of the reason, why I was a good B&W photographer.

And I am certainly not rationalizing a purchase! I have felt this way about B&W since I gave up film around 2000, and I have struggled with it since then. Have I not been complaining about the lack of dedicated B&W digital cameras since that time? The record will show that I have been. For example, this post from 11 years ago. It is not the only one—I wrote about the issue on the old Blogspot blog, and in my column in Black & White Photography magazine, and on The Luminous-Landscape. Or this from 2020. Here's another one from when the Leica Monochrom came out, which began with the words "Regular readers will know that I've been calling for a monochrome digital camera since forever...." And that was ten years ago.

If I get a camera converted, it will be only the last in a long series of tries. I bought the "Big Dragoon" (Nikon D800) meaning to use it for B&W. (Note the illustrations at that link.) I tried a Sigma DP2 with the same intentions. I tried firmly resolving to convert everything from the X-T1 in Silver Efex 2 (result? Fail, because I kept seeing in color because the camera sees in color). I tried going back to film several times, unsuccessfully because it's so much more work and so expensive. Why? To get back to B&W. The logical question is probably not whether I ought to try a converted camera so much as why I've waited so long to try a converted camera....

Moose (partial comment): Re 'I have a good feeling about this': Petty sure I've heard this before, likely more than once, about an enthusiasm that has fallen by the wayside. (I have those, too.)"

Mike replies: Yeah, that's why I'll probably resist this in the end. Because I'd have $2,400 invested in a camera that would be worth almost nothing and my enthusiasm would inevitably ebb, leaving me with naught but a big loss and a rueful feeling. It's why I've never had a camera converted.

I would sure love to "demystify" it, though. You never really know about something until you try it for yourself.

Thomas Rink: "Assuming that 1.) you bought the A6600 for making photographs, and not for reselling it, and 2.) your thing is B&W photography, I think the conclusion is simple: just have the camera converted! Then use it until it is worn down beyond repair, and you don't have to worry about resale value."

Bruce Bordner: "Why should you worry about resale value? Pick the one that feels better—the body and controls aren't going to change. Your value lies in how much you will enjoy it. Don't make a business decision on a toy."

Kye Wood (partial comment): "OK. I'm very late to this party. But—Mike. Buddy. You're no spring chicken. I think you should jump on this idea, ASAP."

Bill Bresler: "Ye Gods, man! It sounds like a really good idea, but I just can't get past the $1,200 price."

Roger: "That NEX-6 is likely approaching its 'recycle by' date—look for its recycle symbol. It probably has a 10 in the center. That’s 10 years of expected life. Not much point in paying to convert a camera whose lead-free solder could turn on it at any moment.

"I own a Typ 246 Monochrom and an A7III. I get what you’re saying about how the camera in use affects how you see. It’s a different experience."

Mike replies: The NEX-6 recycle symbol does say 10. However, according to the information I found about this, the number refers to the type of polycarbonate plastic the camera is made of, and isn't a prediction of longevity in years. However, the camera is 9 1/2 years old.

Roger replies: "Well we’re both wrong. That symbol with the 10 in it is a RoHS compliance symbol. The plastic recycle symbol tops out at 7.

"At 9 1/2 years old I’d be very leery of that camera’s lead-free solder causing a short circuit."

Mark Sampson: "If Leica (of all manufacturers) can't make a B&W camera with tonality you like, what are the odds that some conversion company will? It's your business to understand these things and then write about them—modifying a camera is just part of the cost of doing business. Convert the older camera, you'll get your answer, at a lower cost."

Extra Credit Question

A camera should make you happy. So I have a brief question. If you've been reading me for a long time and know my tastes, what camera would you recommend for me? I'm being serious, although I know some people will be tempted to make a joke of this.  :-)  It's okay, I won't hold it against you.

And you don't have to take budget into account.

Just curious,

Mike

Book o' the Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

These book links are a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kirk: "The best of all possible worlds. A Leica SL2-S (insanely good high ISO, beautiful files/color at all ISOs) with its simple and elegantly designed menus and operational interface combined with Sigma's i-Series 35mm ƒ/2 lens—which looks perfect on that camera and delivers great, sharp photographs. Even at full retail you could be back on the streets shooting beautiful monochrome images (and superb color images) for comfortably less than $6,000 and never again have to wonder if the Leicas are really all that great. If you are feeling flush with Patreon cash you could go ahead and spring for the 35mm Summicron but I think it's too big and heavy for the kind of work you might want to do. I tend to stick to the Sigmas. The SL series is radically under-appreciated. Or...well...nothing else. Because why settle for less?"

Niels: "I think you need a film camera. One cannot love a digital camera. That’s a fact."

Thomas Walsh: "I don't believe (given what I have read from this blog) that you will be content with a particular camera. For a while you will enjoy it; but eventually something else will appeal to you. Your tastes vary, your interests vary and you are curious about many things. My opinion is that you would be best served to abandon writing about gear and focus on other aspects of photography: techniques, photographers, genres. You know a great deal about those things and a great many more. I am always educated and intrigued to read about what you have devoted your career to learning. Your recent New Yorker piece is a case in point. Anyway, that's my two cents."

Rob Campbell: "Nothing. The best part of GAS, even imaginary GAS, is anticipation and uncertainty. Why spoil that delectable state of suspended climax by actually owning anything? Nobody needs to make photographs; today, one talks about them. Making them is so, well, pedestrian: tradesman’s entrance kind of thing. Be happy; free yourself of having to prove anything, even to yourself."

Stephen S.: "There are technicians who will scrape the Bayer filter off a sensor to turn any camera into a monochrome version, so that's a possibility.

"I bought a Leica T a while back because I wanted to experience the 'single block of aluminum' build of it. I expected to hate using the camera, and I do: image review can't actually be turned off, it has no IBIS, no peaking and the dials can't be assigned logically so manual focus lenses are a pain, the EVF is ridiculous, and other issues...and yet, I absolutely love the results I get from it, especially the B&W profiles, which do something I can't figure out how to recreate on other cameras. The limitations and minimalism actually make it a refreshing change from my other do-everything cameras. It pairs well with the Sigma ƒ/1.4 primes of 16mm, 30mm, and 56mm, or the 18–50mm zoom. The TL2 would solve many of my complaints, but is out of my price range."

Frank Figlozzi: "Leica M Monchrom (Type 246)."

Mark Rouleau: "Ricoh GRIIIx. It's the most fun I've had with a camera, ever. You'd love the lens, which is amazingly flare- and chromatic-abberation-resistant, the image-stabilization for the 'yips' as I believe you call them, and the pocketability. No viewfinder, but does have a hotshoe, which many pocketable cameras no longer have."

Christer Almqvist: "Only if I can also recommend the lens that has to go with it."

Mike replies: You may.

Peter: "Show me six of your best photos and tell at what size they get displayed and I'll point you to a suitable camera."

Mike replies: I don't know about "best," because very little of my film work is digitized and my digital work isn't organized, but you can see three of my pictures in my recent newyorker.com article that are fairly characteristic.

"A Family Chair" (titles are by the editors) was taken with a Leica M6 and 50mm Summicron, and "Xander at 14" and "A Birthday Moment" were both taken with the Konica-Minolta 7D and a Tamron zoom. Most of what I consider my "real" work is B&W.

Here's an example of digital B&W:

Taken with the Fuji X-T1 and XF 23mm ƒ/1.4 and converted with Nik Silver Efex 2.

In the darkroom I had three standard sizes for 35mm prints, although I occasionally departed from those when needed. They were 7x10.5" for most pictures, 5x7.5" for pictures that wanted to be smaller, and 13" wide by whatever it is for prints that wanted to be bigger, all on 11x14 paper. I started printing 7x10.5" because I had a box of 500 sheets of 8.5x11" RC paper once and got to like the slightly larger than 8x10 size.

Roger Bradbury: "I suggest a Leica with a 40mm lens on it, and a couple more lenses; a 28mm and a 90mm. It'll have to be a late model digital one and not a film camera, as you've been led astray by the miracle of pixels.  :-]  Thinking about it, what you'd really like is a sort of digital Minolta/Leica CL...."

Brandon: "Either a Fuji XS-10 or a Ricoh GRIIIx. The Fuji because it’s the right size, it has IBIS, and you already have/enjoy the lenses you’d need. Biggest drawback is that the screen flips out instead of tilting. The Ricoh because it is quite small for having an APS-C sensor and because the fixed lens is 40mm-e. It doesn’t meet the exact specifications of the DMD, but it is in that spirit for sure."

Bear.: "Leica Q2. I passed on the Monochrom as too limiting for a go-to, take-everywhere camera, and also because I’ve become lazy and used to being able to avoid physical filters by just converting colour files when I do want B&W work.

"It took me a long time to work myself up to spending the serious coin it costs and I had doubts about 28mm, since I mostly shoot in the 35mm range. But I’ve both adapted to the wider angle and use the 'digital zoom,' which shooting raw really amounts to no more than automated frame lines for a 35mm FOV. Apart from making sure that always have it on a strap over my neck when carrying or using it, I’ve made no concessions to its cost.

"Probably because I’ve already spent the money, I have convinced myself of its value—it really is such a joy to hold and use as a tool that I often prefer to adapt my images to the tool rather than carry different gear. I think if a Q3 were released with the 60-MP sensor from the M11, I would probably go for it—the extra resolution would give the 50mm 'zoom' enough resolution for it to be a useful tool. And if Leica manages to fit in IBIS or a higher resolution EVF or both, I would definitely be a buyer—I might have to sell the car though!"

Jim Couch: "Simple—Micro 4/3 Olympus OM-1 with the PRO M.Zuiko 20mm ƒ/1.4. Nuff said."

jens: "Contax G2 and free film and development."

Mike replies: If I ever get rich, I'll go back to film and have somebody else do all the work. I spent enough of my life doing that work, frankly.

HVJ: "Long-time reader here. Jettison it all for a Q2. Joyous."

Bruce Polin: "Honestly, whenever you describe your ultimate camera you come very darn close to describing the Hasselblad 907X but, for some reason, you seem to avoid it, which could mean you really might have a crush in it. Have you asked her out yet?"

The Camera for Me

I've always loved photographs, and visual art more generally. I got to visit the East Wing of the National Gallery when I was visiting Maryland with my son and his girlfriend, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it and by how many artists I recognized on sight. But I've also always loved cameras and lenses. For many years I considered this a separate hobby.

Looking back, there were many times that I've been disappointed by developments in cameras, and I thought I would discuss a few of these this morning. These disappointments were usually caused by expectations, or assumptions. Not for nothing is "Don't make assumptions" the third of the famous "Four Agreements" of don Miguel Ruiz. 

The first time it happened was the Nikon N8008 of 1988. It was very cutting edge at the time, collating some of Nikon's then-recent advancements—I think it was their second consumer AF camera, and it had the futuristic Matrix Metering from the FA. I really liked that camera, but there were several things about it that I thought should be changed. It's been so long that I can no longer recall what they were, not that it matters to the story. But when the updated N8008s came out, in, what was it, 1991 or so, the company had made changes I had utterly no desire for, and had not addressed in the slightest several things that I considered blatantly obvious shortcomings. I was frankly amazed by this—I had allowed myself to sincerely believe that the improvements I desired would be widely shared and would be crystal clear to anyone who was familiar with the original camera, and thus, clear to Nikon. Not the case.

That came on top of an issue I'd had with my previous Contaxes—I had wanted a particular lens that I was certain Zeiss would eventually deliver. Yet new lens after new lens arrived and they were all things I didn't want. My "obvious" addition to the lineup (a 35mm ƒ/2) never materialized.

The huge disappointment (for me) of the N8008s, on top of those frustrations with Zeiss, was when I formulated a personal rule: never put any stock in vaporware. That is, always buy cameras and lenses based only on what actually exists now, and don't assume that what you happen to want will ever be produced in the future...no matter how obvious it seems to you, or how logical it seems to be based on trends.

I only wish I had been able to follow that principle more firmly over the years!

Digital days
The next disappointment was the further development of the Sony F707, which was one of my favorite digital cameras. The sensor was alarmingly bad by today's standards—noise was overpowering over ISO 400, and the red channel clipped easily. But that camera was one of the most fun to use of anything I've ever tried. It was a constant pleasure, and I just loved it. The early years of digital were a delight, because camera designers were initially unleashed to be creative in dynamic ways, and many early designs were extremely inventive. It was a lot of fun, and it was both perplexing and hugely disappointing to me when digital cameras eventually settled down to be nothing more than digital versions of what had previously existed in film: standard point-and-shoots and standard SLRs. All the promise of the innovative early years of digital turned out to be only a phase that passed.

Again, I can't recall any more the specifics of my disappointment with the development of the Sony F[xxx] line—of which the F828 was the last hurrah—but it doesn't matter now. I mourned when the line came to an end.

In the 2000s I was shaken by the demise of three of my favorite marques. Contax and Bronica both ended camera production in 2005 (I never owned a Bronica, but I rented one whenever I had a job that needed medium format), and Konica, which had previously merged with Minolta (which itself had never recovered from the Honeywell lawsuit), followed in 2007. My first DSLR, the Konica-Minolta 7D, was another of my all-time favorite cameras, and probably the digital camera I liked best of all. The color was second to none, although the highlights lacked headroom. My particular camera went wonky—something in its electronics went haywire, and it stopped being reliable. If that hadn't happened, I wonder how long I would have used it—probably as long as I possibly could have. I bought mine used in 2006, right before the company that produced it called it quits. You can understand that I mildly entertained the superstition at the time that I had become some sort of Jonah!

Corporatethink
The last time I got fooled by my tendency to make assumptions was, as you probably know if you've been reading TOP awhile, the Panasonic GX8 of the summer of 2015. I really liked that camera, and actually bought it twice. It was perfectly reasonable to believe that it would receive a "Mark II" iteration, which it needed in my opinion—that's the way most camera models renewed themselves in the years around the mid-2010s. Little did I know that Panasonic was already no doubt internally strategizing its launch into FF mirrorless (FFM) and, in its planning (I almost said "thinking," but corporations aren't sentient entities and don't think, of course), had effectively left Micro 4/3 behind.

I don't think I've ever been less settled in my cameras than I am now. Not since my very first Contax that I bought for art school. I just don't feel like I have what I want or know what I want. I actually dreamed last night of photographing—I had found an ideal camera, but for some reason I never had it with me. I kept coming across great scenes, then leaving to go find the camera, and returning to find the scene had vanished. Strange, frustrating dream.

The great shift to FFM of 2018–19 is of course the biggest development in dedicated ILC manufacture in recent years, and I haven't yet gotten with the program. I'm still soldiering on with my Fujis and my sentimental one-off sortie back to Sony. Once again, I've been marching to the beat of a different drummer, out of step with the rest of the troop—I still believe smaller-than-24x36 sensors are such an obvious advantage of digital that I can't see the sense in leaving them behind.

I don't like to think of what will be the next big camera marque to fail, but I have always doubted that there is enough energy in FFM to sustain four companies (Sony, Nikon, Canon, and Panasonic) pouring their resources into the format, with another (Leica) tagging along with one model.

What to get?
I've been thinking recently that the ideal camera for me is...

The Leica Q2 Monochrom*. Small, basic, uncluttered, well made, and B&W only.

There's only one little trouble with it...it costs about four times more than it should because it's a fashion brand. I would need Sony, Fuji, or Panasonic to make it, not Leica. $1,550 would be a perfectly reasonable price for what it is and what it offers.

Always some Achilles' heel, eh? Some "flaw in the ointment," as my brother Scott used to say. You know what they say: Oh well!

Mike

*However, it's possible that it is only the perfect camera for the old Mike. I've noticed that I have a tendency to achieve things after the time for them in my life has passed. Years ago I bought a wonderful loft in West Chicagoland, a really beautiful and stylish place, but eventually I realized that the loft was the perfect place for me to have lived as a single guy in my 20s, an era which by then had already passed—I was a parent in my 30s by then. The loft wasn't the perfect place to raise a kid. (I did adjust successfully, though.) I think I have a tendency to want things that are perfect for a "past self" rather than my present self. Still less my future self. I wonder if many of us don't do this to some extent. The Q2M is ideal for an older version of myself, a guy who was ambitious to create art, carried a camera everywhere, liked moderate-wide primes, was devoted to B&W, and printed. Not really "me" any more, alas.

Book o' the Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

These book links are a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

ADDENDUM (Blog Note)

(Just wanted to mention: it occurred to me this morning as I lay in bed before getting up that the real reason I write OT diet posts is probably that they inspire me. Every time I write one it makes me enthusiastic about redoubling my efforts to cook and eat healthily, and I get strength to resist my bad habits. Because the reason I'm so preoccupied with this stuff is that I naturally have bad food instincts, so I have to make up for that with knowledge and conscious effort.

So thank you for putting up with me. Because I need the kick in the butt.)

Mike

Book o' the Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

These book links are a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

How to Review a Camera (Ryan Mense on The Canon R7)

First, I hasten to say that I have not a clue what kind of person Ryan Mense might be. For all I know, he could be a passionate backer of Alex Jones for President and go around on the street surreptitiously tripping little old ladies. We're not acquainted. And I don't often read PetaPixel, which sorta I consider to be the site that superseded TOP...it just does everything I once aspired for TOP to do, but better. So, naturally, I hate them. Just kidding. Sort of. Well, yes, kidding.

However, I was impressed with Ryan Mense's trenchant review of the Canon EOS R7 ($1,500), the higher-spec'ed of the two new Canon APS-C mirrorless models. It's called "Canon EOS R7 Review: One of the Best Cameras Canon Makes." He tells us what the camera is like to hold, what the camera is like to control, and how he likes the results, with, thank you, some conclusiveness at the end, which I've always believed people like. The review mentions competitor models and makes specific appraisals of value. It downplays features, only mentioning them where it's appropriate to make a point about operability (I've always said reviews shouldn't repeat everything you can get from the manufacturer's brochures-slash-data-sheets unless it's commenting on those things). And it doesn't go on and on...he gets in, does his thing, and gets out again. Plus, the illustrations don't have the look-'n'-feel to me of "test pictures," a genre I have to say I am thoroughly sick of—no criticism implied, we all have to make 'em. Being a trifle distractable about bokeh, I especially like the picture of the black-headed bird. And all of this from someone who is evidently familiar with Canon and other Canons. It all ends up as pretty much a model of how I believe camera reviews ought to be. 

From the look of him, I might have been writing camera reviews for longer than he's been alive. My first one was in 1987. As for Canons, Canon gave me a lot of assistance and inside scoop when I wrote one of the first big articles about the then-new EOS system in 1991, "The EOS Revolution," an article the company reprinted and distributed for several years thereafter. But I'm not familiar with Canon now, having not owned one since the very interesting EOS RT of 1989, which I knew a great deal about at the time, mainly from those same people who helped me with the EOS article, Dave Metz, and Chuck Westfall and a couple of others. That's been, ahem, a tad too long to claim anything like familiarity.

I've always tried not to use negative examples here, in the same way that on a personal level I'm striving these days to not complain. But I see a lot of bad bad bad reviews hither and yon online, in print and as maundering, turgid videos (which as you know I love not), some of which make me roll my eyes. Or reviewers who get one big thing wrong. And then there's sometimes professional jealousy to contend with, too, if I'm honest, which shortens the list of the Good Guys further (I'm thinking of one particular dude I shall not name who probably makes ten times what I do. You know him). It's not my business to tell anyone what to do, and I don't like the idea of ever holding anyone up to ridicule.

So it's always nice to mention a review or a reviewer I happen to run across that I like. For instance, the unfortunately late David Thorpe, who made charming little videos (yes) about Micro 4/3. David's passing was a loss for our pastime.

Subject to further review, no pun intended, I think Ryan Mense should be added to the short list. His R7 review is excellent. I feel like I know what's up with the R7 now, which was more than I could say before I happened across the review. Check it out and see what you think. And notice I'm not piggybacking on him by including an affiliate link the R7 in this post. (I never charged Canon for that reprint, either, although they offered me $1,000 I sorely needed—$2,175 in today's money. I felt it was a conflict of interest.)

Here's Ryan's author page at Petapixel and his personal website.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

These book links are a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Grant: "David Thorpe's videos were gems. Informative and presented in a very relaxed manner. Another video blogger that I find informative is Maarten Heilbron. Disclaimer: Maarten's son and one of my sons have been good friends for many years. I found Maarten's videos gave me a good grounding in the menu features and the resulting outcomes when I started using Micro 4/3. Mike, you might find Maarten's featured video, 'Are Phones Better Than Cameras? (in a canoe)' of interest."

robert e: "Thank you for this. I'm not shopping, but I like to sort of keep up. Unfortunately there are probably many dozen reviews of this camera out there, let alone the current lineup, and it's not worth the time and energy to even vet them just to 'sort of keep up.' So it's nice to be pointed to one that concentrates on the fundamentals, and with great economy. His critique of the UI cuts straight to the chase, e.g., and lets us know about a quirk common across the brand. I agree about the pictures. From reading a few of Mense's articles, I gather that they reflect his actual photographic work and passion, and as a result I think they tell me more about a camera's capabilities than would more typical disinterested 'test shots.' I'm not sure what bokeh tells us about a camera body, unless it, too, speaks to broader capabilities? Perhaps of the system as a whole? Mense seems to share your apathy to video, Mike, but I'm glad he at least mentioned the top spec. If I were shopping, I'd look for another review that goes into that. Finally, I too appreciate conclusiveness."

Mike replies: I just liked the picture is all—I didn't mean to imply that the bokeh tells us anything about the camera. It's just a nice shot.