The Leica M Monochrom is a full-frame digital

rangefinder camera A rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder, typically a split-image rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus. Most va ...

Leica Camera AG Leica Camera AG () is a German company that manufactures cameras, optical lenses, photographic lenses, binoculars, rifle scopes and microscopes. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869 (Ernst Leitz Wetzlar), in Wetzlar, Germany. I ...

, and features a

monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, monochro ...

sensor A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...

. The camera was announced on May 10, 2012. Delivery started September 2012 in black finish only. A Leica M Monochrom in Silver was announced May 22, 2014. The camera was succeeded by the Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246) in 2015.

Details

The nickname for the camera through design and development at Leica Camera AG was "Henri" as a tribute to

Henri Cartier-Bresson Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as c ...

but at introduction, Leica Camera AG decided on the name Leica M Monochrom. The camera is based on the same Kodak CCD sensor as the Leica M9 but without the

color filter array In digital imaging, a color filter array (CFA), or color filter mosaic (CFM), is a mosaic of tiny color filters placed over the pixel sensors of an image sensor to capture color information. The term is also used in reference to e paper devices ...

. This makes the sensor one stop faster and the base ISO of the sensor is 320 ISO instead of the 160 ISO of the Leica M9. The body of the Leica M Monochrom is likewise based on the Leica M9 with few changes of the metals, leather and paint used. Leica claim that the camera delivers 100% sharper images than monochrome images derived from a camera with a color sensor (of comparable megapixels). The camera is able to alter the captured image to apply three toning effects (called sepia, cold, and selenium). The achieved sharpness is due to the lack of a color filter array, thus avoiding the process of

demosaicing A demosaicing (also de-mosaicing, demosaicking or debayering) algorithm is a digital image process used to reconstruct a full color image from the incomplete color samples output from an image sensor overlaid with a color filter array (CFA). It is ...

by capturing the true luminance value of each

photosensor Photodetectors, also called photosensors, are sensors of light or other electromagnetic radiation. There is a wide variety of photodetectors which may be classified by mechanism of detection, such as photoelectric or photochemical effects, or by ...

. The removal of the color filter array also means that no incoming light is filtered, making the sensor more light sensitive, which explains the high native ISO of 320.

References

External links

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Thorsten Overgaard Thorsten (Thorstein, Torstein, Torsten) is a Scandinavian given name. The Old Norse name was ''Þórsteinn''. It is a compound of the theonym ''Þór'' ('' Thor'') and ''steinn'' "stone", which became ''Thor'' and ''sten'' in Old Danish and Old Swe ...

review, user report, interviews, sample photos and manual

* * Leica M-mount cameras, M Monochrom Digital rangefinder cameras Cameras introduced in 2012 {{Camera-stub