I've had three different Leica monochrome (Monochrom) cameras in my shopping carts in the last week. Thought I really wanted one. But then I looked back at stuff I converted and wondered what I was looking for in the first place...

 

My friend Will. 

I started out photographing back in the mid-1970s and the combination of the times and my budget helped push me into beginning my tenure in photography shooting and printing with black and white film. It was actually about four years into my time experiencing photography as a hobby that I finally felt comfortable trying color film. Color film, for me, was tricky back in the late 1970s. The color negative stuff was dreck and getting a good color print from a lab back then was damn pricey. Exposure with slide film was tricky --- at best. And mixed lighting was... a problem.  

I could make mistakes with black and white because I was buying Tri-X film in bulk and loading it into reusable film cartridges. My cost per roll was about fifty cents per. And my print cost was whatever the cost of a sheet of 8x10 inch paper was at the time. Keep in mind that this time period was before the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the market for silver. Once they did their market cornering stunt silver commodity prices soared by a factor of 5X. Kodak used the moment to increase the price of their printing paper and their film and, funny thing. even when silver came back down in price Kodak's retail prices never dropped. Again. Ever. 

For the first ten years in which I worked commercially as a photographer I would shoot either black and white or color film at the direction of my clients. If they wanted color that was great. If they wanted black and white I had a darkroom and could do that as well. And happily.  But all during those years (with a few exceptions for family vacations) if I was shooting personal work it was almost always with Tri-X. And from 1978 until 1996 if a client wanted black and white prints I did them myself, by hand, in my own darkroom. I never sent out B&W negatives to a printer. I'm certain that I put in more than those "ten thousand hours" that some people think lead to mastery of a process. I lived in the darkroom --- figuratively not actually. 

But when I transitioned to digital imaging in 1998 my biggest single hurdle was getting black and white tones in printed output that were at all satisfactory. Nearly everything I tried had color casts, milky looking mid-tones, plastic-y flesh tones and blown highlights. Around 2010 I finally got my color to black and white digital conversions sorted out. If I was careful I could get close to the tonalities that would have been a piece of cake in a traditional darkroom. By 2015 I think I got the process well nailed down. But I'd been snake bit by the long and winding (and bumpy) road to get there. Gun shy? Not so confident? Pretty much.

Part of the issue is that none of the later black and white work was driven by clients and I stayed so busy right up until March of 2020. With less practice and less time in personal post production than when I was immersing myself into the process at the beginning of my career. I just didn't have the endless hours to commit to trial and error that didn't pay off for work.

So now that I've made a conscious decision to step back a little bit from the relentless hustle I'm more or less picking up where I left off so many years ago. Back to a passion; or at least a greater interest, in all things black and white. Or, as they say on the tonier blogs: Monochrome.

Since I started photographing with various Leica and Panasonic cameras, and since post processing software has improved so much, I've been mostly very pleased with my results from a routine of shooting images using a high contrast, in camera, profile and then tweaking Jpeg files in Lightroom or PhotoShop. But my early failures nearly twenty years ago haunt my subconscious which, lately, tells me that there must be a reason so many people sing the praises of fully monochrome cameras. And most of those cameras on the market consist of four Leica models. There is the Leica M which was based on the Leica M9 (color with CCD sensor) body, the Leica M246 which was based on the 24 megapixel, CMOS sensor Leica M240, The Leica M10 M based on..... and the monochrome version of the Leica Q2 (called, The Q2M). All of these cameras are set up with sensors that have had the Bayer filter arrays stripped away. They also have firmware that writes the files to the camera memory as .DNG files so no intermediary programs are needed to get the B&W files into my favorite Adobe processing apps. No conversions in third party software needed. 

The marketing around all of these cameras points to a higher level of image quality in two major areas. First, since there is no Bayer pattern filter or interpolated color assignment scheme for the various pixels, the cameras are capable of higher sharpness. That's cool. I get that. And secondly, the cameras without filters in front of the sensors get more light to each pixel which yields a better performance at higher ISOs. Most of the monochrome cameras were on equal footing with their color counterparts at the usual, lower ISO settings but as the ISOs went up the spread in noise quality between the two increased as the ISO increased. A monochrome version might equal the look and overall noise of its cousins at settings up to 400 or 800 or even 1600 but a move to 3200 revealed the B&W camera to have a one stop noise advantage. But the clean performance is not linear. As the ISOs went up the spread between the color and B&W cameras increased by 1.5 than 2.0 stops and more.

So, the advantages are really threefold. 

One advantage is enhanced sharpness. The second is the improvement in low light/high ISO use which works well in conjunction with modern post processing apps. One can shoot at lower levels (think half to one stop underexposed) and then use shadow recovery to bring back shadow detail with much less noise while preserving highlight integrity. Finally, one bypasses the need to shift hues in post production to get a "look" as the look is baked in at the time of shooting. One can add traditional color filters (green, yellow, red, orange, blue) to the taking lenses to shift color tonalities at the time of exposure. By not having to make post processing decisions about color conversions there is less that needs to be done to get the images to final fruition. 

Some of my nagging doubts about using conventional color cameras and converting in post came from some less than excellent B&W files I kept getting when shooting with monochrome profiles in the stock Nikon, Canon and Sony cameras I tried. And that would go a ways to explaining my frustration and my resulting churn through camera systems in years past. Most of the systems were just fine in color but were never that convincing when shooting B&W files in camera; as Jpegs. 

If I wanted something out of those systems that matched my needs for a final image in monochrome I had to shoot in color, in a raw file, and then spend a lot of time working with contrast curves and HSL menus to get exactly the kinds of tones I wanted. Not an optimal solution for someone who never wants to spend hours working on one image. Not by a long shot. 

When I switched to Panasonic cameras I found a profile called L.Monochrome.D and it got me very close, right out of camera, to the kinds of tones I was looking for. I still had to add contrast to most of the images and still worked a lot to make that contrast fall in the mid-tones instead of globally through the frame. But when I switched to Leica cameras and started using their monochrome settings in the color cameras (with added contrast from a menu setting) I was mostly able to nail the tones I wanted. 

Leica, it seems, has added appropriate mid-tone contrast much in the same way that a yellow or orange filter would back from the B&W film days. So, since late fall of 2020 I've been working in black and white by shooting Jpegs with the appropriate profile + contrast tweaks with Leica cameras and I've been satisfied. But for those on tighter budgets I will say that the Panasonic S system cameras are very close in quality and style.  

One under-reported benefit of the Monochrome only Leicas is that they generate a .DNG file which can be pulled directly into PhotoShop via Adobe Raw and which gives one a huge range of tweak-ability in post. 

But in the back of my mind I kept thinking that there must be some advantage to the dedicated black and white versions of the Leica cameras, The Monochroms, otherwise why would people shell out the extra cash to buy and use a much more limited and niche camera? Surely if I researched the subject and was as dedicated to black and white imaging as I thought I was I would be able to suss out enough advantages to justify adding an Monochrom M camera to my dangerously expanding Leica inventory.

To that end I picked up four different M mount lenses. I read up on as much as I could find and watched every influencer video about monochrome photography with monochrom cameras I could source. And that's when I started putting M-M cameras in my shopping carts...

But uncharacteristically I kept hesitating. I'd go back the next day and the prize would have been snatched from my cart by a quicker and more determined buyer. Because nothing is ever yours until you push the "buy" button. 

Of the cameras out in the wild there are really only two that I'm interested in. One is the Leica Q2M but it's holding its pricing quite well. Still commanding over $6K for an excellent condition used one. Partly because the supply is so tight. If you want one you'll just have to pay for what's on offer... But also because Leica has been, until recently, the sole supplier of high quality B&W cameras. A limited supply for a market that seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. Driven also by a recent interest in black and white only photography by talented influencers like Alan Schaller. 

The other one would be the Leica M246 which is a model that arrived in 2012, around the same time as the Leica SL mirrorless camera. Those seem more plentiful but the idea of spending $3500 to $4000 for a ten year old camera just didn't sit right. If I was going to commit then I might as well try one of the Leica M10 M rangefinder versions instead. Mostly available for around $6K and up. 

I'm like that. Impressionable. Looking for technical solutions to what are, essentially, artistic problems. 

But then I had one of those moments in which the universe steps in and gives you unexpected guidance. My wonderful and reliable computer started crashing its finder and then started crashing when using anything from Lightroom to Mail. A computer that has been flawless since late 2017. 

I got on the phone with Apple Support and, after lots of diagnostics, figured out that I had an external disk that was dying and, since all the HDs are on a shared bus it was taking the system down with it. I pulled the disk, checked the file catalog and made sure that I had back-ups on other drives. I duplicated the disk again from a different HD onto a new drive. Plugged that new one into the system and breathed a sigh of relief. The old disk went into recycling. 

But in the process I decided to clean up my internal 2TB SSD to make sure it has at least 50% free space on it. And in that process I came across tons of black and white images that I'd been taking. And more and more of them. And I liked all of them. Which is to say that I like the tonality, the contrast range, the preservation of highlights and the overall look of them. Not just a little bit but very much. And I started to calm down about the "urgency" of getting one of those fine Leica Monochrom cameras to play with. 

I found several taken with a "lowly" Panasonic S5 (which apparently has the same sensor as the much more expensive Leica SL2-S) that were shot at 16,000 ISO and still looked just fine. I looked at images from a wide range of cameras. The Leica CL, the SL2, the SL and the Q2. All were slotted right into the range I think of as "optimal black and white." 

I'm fortunate. I could afford getting a stand alone camera from Leica for monochrome shooting if I really wanted it. But would I actually use it enough to justify the expenditure? The scale in my brain, after being exposed again to my current black and white work, tipped over, resoundingly, into the "no" column. I know myself in some regards. I know that a new (to me) Mono camera would get a lot of attention in the short run. My poor readers would get blasted with a plethora of blog posts extolling the virtues of it. But in short order I would remember how much I like color as well and I'd start reaching over the Mono camera to grab a more "well rounded" color model and head out to shoot clouds and mannequins, and buildings at sunset, that are drenched in color.  Understanding all the while that I now know how to make color files look great in "grayscale.". 

I'd like to get an M Leica. But not a monochrome one. I'm interested in finding a really nice silver M240. For no other reason than to play around once again with a rangefinder camera that outputs at a high enough resolution to be usable for any type of project. But cheap enough to not worry about. 

One benefit of the older M240 model is that the top and bottom plates are made of brass. Just like the first M camera I owned; an M3. A bit heavier, sure, but ...... "brassing." That's sublime. 

Computer is back to normal. No funds have left the vast VSL H.Q. to fund a monochrome camera. No therapy required to be comfortable shooting B&W and at the same time knowing that the camera can also shoot color. Happy to have been through the process of wanting, researching and ultimately passing on yet another camera. 

Waiting with much interest to hear JC's experience with the new Monochrome Pentax. Hope to hear about it soon!!!

CL

S1

S5

CL

Snapshot gallery. June 30, 2023. From Martin Luther King BLVD to 29th Street and back. Shooting with a Sigma fp and a Carl Zeiss 28mm f2.8 ZM Biogon. Midday.

 

A break from swimming posts to revisit the classics of modern life. (updated 5pm same day...)

There is life beyond photography. And one enjoyable part of that life is the highly curative and effectively focusing elixir we have come to call...coffee. During my long and near endless pursuit of  great coffee I have tried every imaginable brewing method, backed by everything from French presses to enormous, belching Swiss coffee making machines. But, in my opinion the best coffee (for me) comes from the simplest brewing methodology: the pour over. 

One thing that makes coffee enjoyable, and life itself manageable, is having predictable routines. To that end I've sampled hundreds of different coffee beans (roasted and ground) and have decided that one particular bean works best for me. It's an organically grown, Columbian Supremo, custom roasted at Trianon Coffee here in Austin to yield the perfect "medium" roast cup of coffee. Once I honed in on this particular variety/combination I have not wavered in years. And each morning every cup I brew is as close to perfect as I can imagine. Where coffee is concerned...I have become satisfied.

I was soaking in the aroma of the brewing coffee when I decided to commemorate one of my favorite pillars of consistency in life by making a portrait of the process. I grabbed an SL2 camera from the dining room table, set the Voigtlander 50mm APO lens to f2.0 and shot a few frames at the closest focusing distance. Ah. As blurry in the photo as my vision is pre-coffee... But the leading edge is in focus.

I know a few people who do not drink coffee...at all. I find that, subconsciously, I can't bring myself to fully trust them. They seem somehow suspect. As though they are shy about embracing life...  The same sort of people who profess to not liking to read fiction. The idea of never reading good novels is to me the same as saying "I am allergic to empathy and pleasure." (I make allowances for people trained from birth to "enjoy" tea...).

This photo of my Nikon F is included because I am thrilled to have found it. Again. I keep film cameras in an expansive file cabinet drawer along with old tear sheets and sample brochures from past projects. I was showing some direct mail pieces to a photographer a month or so ago and inadvertently covered up the free ranging F camera with some paper samples. Apparently I did a really good job burying the camera. 

When I went to find it to see if the modern Voigtlander F mount lenses worked on the oldest F body (they do...) I could't find it. That was two weeks ago. I tore the studio apart trying to locate it but was stymied at every turn. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what happened to that darned camera. Was I losing my mind? Had I passed it along to someone and then purged the memory of the event? Was this a symptom of some sort of mental decline? 

Today, as I was swimming a set of 15 x 100 yard swims, in the hot pool, during practice this morning, I was presented, halfway through a flip turn, with a clear and instant memory of my left hand moving a small stack of brochures over to one side in the drawer. And then (turn completed)  I had a clear vision, in the moment, of the camera ending up at the bottom of the messy stack of papers. When I came home I went straight to the filling cabinet, moved the stack aside and found the missing Nikon F. I was overjoyed for several reasons. Mostly the return of the camera and also the revitalization of a memory.

With that in mind I pulled it out of the drawer, blew off the dust with a bulb blower,  dressed it up with a similar vintage 50mm f1.4 lens (which is remarkably good, still) and photographed it to celebrate. Again, I pressed the SL2 and the APO lens into service. 

The camera sits surrounded by the ephemerata of my daily photo life. I am happy to have it back in the fold. 

I end most week days by watching the News Hour on  PBS. It's a pre-dinner habit of long standing. But lately (last five or six years) the news content has been mostly disheartening. My spirits are generally buoyed by my one other consistent, early evening habit; a glass of red wine before our evening meal. I sit on the couch, wine glass balanced on stacked books on the rough hewn coffee table and watch the last rays of sun waft through the first set of French doors into the living room and flow across the old, wood floor. I nearly always notice how well the backlighting outlines the shape of the glass. And I always consider popping a little bit of focused backlight through the wine in the glass to brighten it up. But at this point in the day I am usually too lazy to go back to the studio, grab the right light and modifiers and interrupt the newscast, trying to get just the right effect in the wine glass without changing anything about the good feel of the background. 

The news is on here from six till seven p.m. Dinner is usually at 8. Sometimes B. cooks and sometimes I cook. And sometimes we give up and retreat to our favorite neighborhood bistro where we almost always order our same favorites. Mine is a salad Nicoise with fresh Ahi tuna. 

And now that we've seen all the episodes of "Ted Lasso" on Disney and "The Diplomat" on Netflix we usually settle in with good books for hours beyond dinner. 

By habit, from our pst full-on work days, we are homebodies during the "work week" and tend to save our socializing for the weekends. It's more convenient for everyone. 

about photography. I had convinced myself recently that I wanted to pick up a Leica monochrom M series camera to play with. There are some relative bargains out there... But lately, with the heat curtailing or delaying my ability to wander around and make photographs of anything I think I've talked myself out of the idea. 

A day or two without adult supervision though might just shift the desire back to center stage. I'll keep you posted. 

Now sitting in a folding lawn chair next to the mailbox. A sun blocking umbrella in one hand and a sweating glass of iced tea in the other. Waiting (im)patiently for the arrival of the mail....

Passport delivered around lunch time. VSL Supreme CEO now happy. Thanks State Dept.

 

Testing out cameras and lenses (and word processors) in anticipation of a month long celebration of swimming here on the blog!!! Inspired by a reader and frequent commenter who, I believe, just can't get enough writing and photos about swimming. Oh boy!

One could approach the topic of swimming from the popular stereotype of the sports photographer in which case I'd be auditioning fast as fast can be cameras like the Sony Alpha One or the Nikon Z9. In that case I'd also have a bunch of fast 100-600mm f2.8 sports lenses to try out --- even though, to my knowledge, no one even makes such a beast. I could take a page from David Burnett and try shooting moving athletes with a Speed Graphic or something like that. Or I could channel my inner Annie Leibovitz and set up a bunch of lighting at the pool with which to make black and white portraits of swimmers (while praying no one gets electrocuted....) but I think I'll stick to the way I like to shoot and just be.....leisurely about it. 

After a total immersion year of nothing but Leica, Leica, Leica I'm suddenly interested in a much more basic and unwieldy camera; the Sigma fp. Which I have coupled with some of those Zeiss ZM lenses I picked up a few weeks ago, along with some of those Voigtlander lenses I bought more recently. The camera is slow to use, slow to focus and I have the choice between Scylla and Charybdis of either using the back screen in dirty baby diaper hold or using the huge and ungainly optical loupe that Sigma makes for the camera. Haven't decided just yet. 

There are many detractions to using the fp. I'd start with fruit fly level battery life. Then go to sloooow AF. Segue to a boxy and uncomfortable set of haptics when not using a bunch of add-on prosthetics and finish up with eccentric menus. But on the plus side the camera is painfully cute, has wonderful, amazing colors and one of the lowest noise sensors I've ever played with. So, not all bad. Not at all.

I've owned one since they were introduced and for the life of me I can't seem to get rid of it or sell it or just leave it in a sock drawer. It's an addictive package. And an antithetical choice for a month of swim articles which is probably why I am so interested in using it for that. 

Male model above holding the Sigma fp complete with an ancient Canon 50mm f1.8 FD manual focus lens. Might just be the perfect lens for an artistic project comprised of swimmers and swimming pools. Expanded, maybe, to even include lakes.

Translation for the the nuance deprived: Not really going to do a month of swim articles. Just annoyed in the moment. It'll pass.

I have been overwhelmed lately by blog readers demanding more swim content. And images of my favorite pools. And details of our workouts. And, if possible, these posts should also be larded with camera information of some sort. Okay! I hear you!!!

 

this is Deep Eddy Pool. It was built by the Work Projects Administration back 

in the 1930s. It's situated about fifty feet from Lady Bird Lake but it 

does not use lake water. All the water in the pool is spring fed from

deep wells. No chlorine. No salt. No itchy skin...

I've been on a roll lately with my swimming. Today is the 12th day in a row I've been in the pool swimming either a workout with my team or (today) doing my own thing in the Deep Eddy pool. This morning is a Monday. Our competition pool  near my house is closed on Mondays so I've taken to getting up in time to be at the gates of Deep Eddy Pool when it opens for lap swimming at 9 a.m. 

It was one of those mornings where sleep was elusive so I started the day with some yoga and chased those routine pretzel poses with a nice cup of good coffee. Grabbed the swim bag and headed over to Eiler's Park to join the queue. The first batch of swimmers through the gates numbered about a dozen. Followed in quick order by a dozen more five-minute-latecomers. All I brought with me today was a kick board and a pair of goggles. And a swim suit, of course. 

I kicked off my shorts and t-shirt, pulled on my goggles and slid into the chilly water in the deep end, grabbing the lane at the furthest east part of the lap pool. As you'll see in photos below the pool is divided into a large lap pool and an even larger recreational pool. The rec pool starts shallow and gently slants down to about four feet of depth. The lap pool is walkable on the west side and 12-15 feet at my side (far left, above, and below). 

I flutter kicked for a mile and was thrilled to not have to wear my goggles the whole time. I was there to enjoy the 70° water more than anything else but I'm one of those horrible people who likes to stay compulsively busy/productive so I just had to get the kicking in.... I had the lane to myself because on that side of the pool there are three ladders spaced along the wall and it's a tight fit. Adding more people makes the lane tight and some people have trouble avoiding either the ladders on one side or their fellow swimmers on the other. There is something so soothing about having 33.3 yards of clean, fresh, cold water in front of you that's just wonderfully motivating. 

Why all the kicking? I've been spending too much time on the top half of my stroke and wanted some balance. Also, I was at the gym yesterday and did a long, long strength training workout that was mostly upper body. My arm, chest, shoulder, back and ab muscles took a beating and I'm a bit sore today. Nice sore. Happy sore. But all the same I thought I'd give those muscles a break and work the kick for fun.

the view from the bathhouse. That was my lane, over on the left...

the pool has evolved over the years. It used to be a free for all but now there are nods to 

the serious swimmers. One is that the entire pool is designated "lap swimming only" from 

opening till 11 a.m. No kids, no floats, no games, no silliness. 

Today, at the opening, the pool manager stood next to the person who either accepts payment for entrance or checks pass cards and asked each person he didn't already know if they were aware that the pool was open strictly for lap swimming. No other use of the pool until 11. Such a refreshing clarity about

the highest and best use of a pool. At least from a lap swimmer's perspective...

I only hit Deep Eddy Pool once a week. I'm flexible though, I guess I could come more often.

But Monday's are the only day of the week we don't have a coached, competitive swim practice 

at my primary pool. I'd almost always choose a coached and well attended practice 

over "self-paced" even if the water is cooler at the "Monday" pool...

But that's just me. I have swim passes for both..

Photographer needing out trying to capture the "feel" of the cold, clear water.

I generally love having "the rules" all spelled out. This is the one 

pool I know of that brooks no nonsense. From portioning lanes and the principles 

of sharing lanes to what you can and can't do in each lane. Love it. 

No gray space...

Looking across the concrete bulkhead from the rec pool on the right to the 

lap pool on the left. We might have some blisteringly hot weather on tap but

the pool temperature never varies much from 68-74° and that's a prime comfort zone...

if you keep moving.  Too chilly for leisure floating...

Standing on the west end looking east over the rec pool to the lap pool. 

Sweet water today!

Interestingly, during lap swimming here and swim practice at the other pool

I feel totally comfortable leaving my clothes, pocket clutter and random stuff in the changing room 

without having to lock everything up. Everyone who comes to actually swim 

is serious and focused. And not inclined to larceny. 

The long stairs down are part of the show. Swim hard and the long flight back to the upper level

sneaks up on you....

The VSL high performance studio car got the best space 

this morning. At least where proximity was concerned. 

But I guess the real winners were the ones who got shade....

I'm sure this was exciting and fun for you to read and look at. Now for the photo part. 

As I think you are aware it's rare for me to ever leave the house or the studio without a camera in hand. I try to bring the camera with me when I leave the car but that's not always possible. Today I brought along the Leica Q2. I had a thought that the clear skies, and rumors of a newly cleaned and filled pool, might presage some good images and I knew I'd want a wide angle perspective for most of the shots. 

No one bothers to dry off with towels in Texas these days. Exit the pool and the heat will dry you off by the time you hit the top of the stairs. I pulled on my tattered, khaki shorts and my gray t-shirt and tromped out to the car in my all terrain Birkenstocks ("chick magnet shoes, for sure..."), grabbed the Q2 from the passenger's seat of the car and headed back into the pool facility to snap away. Since I saw little need for selective focus I stuck the aperture at f11 and shot in .DNG. The camera, as usual, was flawless. The operator --- less so. But still. I got what I thought I wanted. Tweaked them up a bit in Lightroom and here were are. 

After having used this camera for six+ months now I have to say that I fully embrace it and understand the advantages of having a really good, all-in-one photo machine. I have to say that I'm not going to cancel that pre-order for a Q3 but I wish I had a crystal ball. I'd love to buy a "Reporter" version if they are planning to come out with one... But any version will do nicely. Well....maybe not the 007 version. Or the Seal version. But how cool would it be if they made a chrome version? A black one for Winter months and silver one for Summer. 

Stay tuned. I have a feeling we're going to have an exciting swim practice tomorrow and I might take along a different camera. So much excitement at one blog. 

By the way, Thanks for all the travel suggestions. I'm working on a plan as I wait for confirmation of a delivery date (this week) for the much sought after passport. Please remember as you make suggestions that I am not a landscape/nature/wildlife photographer --- and I don't need a famous blogger to tell me that. So, if you are suggesting a destination because of the natural beauty and majestic landscapes I'm not sure those will make the cut. Love urban life. Love compact cities. And, no. I won't be sleeping in a tent. 

Hope your Summer is fun and safe. But not too safe or no one would have stories to tell......

Swimming. How could you be unhappy if you can swim every day?