What advantages does a pure black and white camera have over colour cameras?

Question

Now that Leica has released a pure black and white camera, the Leica M-Monochrome, I started to think about the advantages a pure black and white camera has compared to a colour camera.

I guess you could remove the Bayer filter, but would this give you higher resolution, better contrast?

I assume there is advantages with a pure black and white camera, since Leica has made one, but what are they?

Asked by Håkon K. Olafsen

Answer

The biggest advantage is that you get 3X more light sensitivity.

With a bayer filter, every photosite gets 1/3 of the light that falls on it because the filter blocks 2/3 of incoming light to filter for one primary color. So the sensor becomes more sensitive to light. That means that less amplification of the read-out signal to get the same ISO as with a conventional sensor. The end-result is that you get lower noise at each ISO sensitivity.

There is no need for an Anti-Aliasing filter, so you get better sharpness and micro-contrast. As Nikon proved it though, this is not necessary for Bayer-based cameras but is usually the case. When a camera uses an AA filter, it blurs the light before it reaches the sensor to avoid the occurrence of an artifact called moire. Any time you blur something, you reduce contrast because you spread light over multiple pixels. Without an AA filter, the blurring does not happen and you get better contrast.

B&W sensors also obviously do not need Bayer-interpolation. This means that the readout is the image data and there is no question of softness introduced by interpolation (or the AA filter that is not there) and no need to sharpen at the capture level, although you may sharpen when processing for your output medium (print, screen or other).

Answered by Itai

Check more discussion of this question.

Why does a Leica camera cost so much?

Question

I was amazed that a Leica camera costs about the same as a new Mazda does ($30K).

Why? :) The best lenses?

Asked by garik

Answer

It's not only a special edition of the camera (the M9 body is ordinarily around $6-7K) and the lens; the lens is a special edition of the Noctilux, which is just a hair faster than f/1. Not f/1 point something; f/1. The "normal" Noctilux is rated at f/0.95, is actually sharp wide open, and is understandably expensive (at $11-12K). So the special edition doesn't carry that much of a premium over the black-finished version.

Now, Leicas are really, really nice cameras. (That applies in particular to the S2 medium-format-in-a-DSLR-form-factor camera—I could see myself doing something particularly immoral for one of those should the subject ever come up, even with its ISO speed limitations.) And the Leica lenses are certainly among the best lenses made. There is, in both the build quality and the performance, a good reason for some of the premium pricing attached.

But there's also the undeniable fact that there's a certain cachet associated with the brand, particularly in the M series of rangefinders (both digital and film), that began with the quality and took on a life of its own. For every photographer who wants the action/feel of a rangefinder, the per-pixel detail of a sensor without an optical low-pass (antialiasing) filter, and the legendary optical performance of the lens system, there is at least one other who wants to be seen carrying photographic jewelry with its name in a red disk and has the money to get it. That means both that Leicas tend to be artificially scarce (collectors snap them up like Bleeding Gums Murphy after Fabergé eggs) and that it's hard for the company to find a price at which people would stop buying them.

(Incidentally, they nearly blew the whole brand image going forward with the M8, which not only had an APS-C sensor that didn't fit the rangefinder well, but used an older CCD-type sensor with poor low-light performance and an insufficiently strong IR filter.)

Answered by Stan Rogers

Check more discussion of this question.

What performance-related factors make a Leica camera so expensive?

Question

I just saw a Leica M9 priced at 6995 USD, and a Leica M8 at 6295 USD. This is similar to the price for a high-end Nikon D3X or a Canon 1D Mark IV. So, I am trying to compare the specs, but can't get some useful information (at least in my eyes as a beginner).

What would make me prefer an M8 or M9 over a D3x or 1D? Performance-wise that is, not because Leica is more compact or it has a tougher frame — or because it just is Leica.

Answer

Leica is a luxury brand with much smaller production runs than the big players in the camera industry.

Low volumes lead to high prices, especially since research and development costs have to be covered. In addition, there's more manual labor involved in manufacturing Leica cameras and lenses. This labor is German, which means higher wages and thus higher prices.

The luxury part translates into exclusivity. A large part of the draw of Leica is that not everyone can afford one. So even if Leica could lower their prices, it would not necessarily translate to lower prices.

Why would you prefer a Leica? The lenses are unique, in for far as no other manufacturer makes a rangefinder camera system. There's no DSLR equivalent to the Summilux-M 21mm f/1.4, for example, or the Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95. However, you will have to pay many times more than the body to get one of these lenses.

Some people prefer the rangefinder for focusing and composing. The camera can be more unobtrusive, but this is less true now when it costs as much as a used car.

For a more detailed look at the differences between rangefinders and (D)SLRs, see this question and answer.

I would say that if you're a long-time Leica shooter, you'd prefer a digital M over a DSLR simply because you can use your existing lenses. If you're starting out, it's a lot of money to pay for some pretty intangible benefits.

Check more discussion of this question.