This review is based on my personal observations of using the Leica M246 Monochrom since I have had an opportunity to use one for the past 3 months or so. I am by no means a camera reviewer; there are many more professional reviewers out there on the internet who will provide a much more comprehensive technical review of the Leica M246 Monochrom, which has been on the market for over 10 years now.
Back in 2012, when Leica first announced a Monochrome version of its colour digital Leica M camera, I thought it was an interesting idea and I would very much like to try one. There are not many monochrome-only digital cameras on the market these days; Pentax has its K-3 Mark III; otherwise, they are a fairly rare camera; some might question the wisdom of buying and using a camera like this, given that the Leica is so expensive. Plus, many will find it much simpler to just convert a digital colour file to black and white and have the option of playing around with colour sliders to mimic using colour filters, like in the days of shooting black and white film, to darken a blue sky, for example.
First thing I noticed with the Leica M246 Monochrom is that the dynamic range is not as good as some other digital cameras, but it's still pretty good. I think my Nikon D850 has better dynamic range, even when converting to grayscale, and from what I have read, it's partly because there are three colour channels (RGB) when overexposure occurs in highlight areas. With the grayscale sensor, there is only one channel.
So consequently, when using the Leica M246 Monochrom camera, it's very easy to overexpose or clip the highlight areas of a photo. When using the Monochrom, I often find myself exposing for the highlight areas, especially if they are a significant part of the photograph. When reviewing the pictures on the screen on the back of the Leica Monochrom camera or importing the DNG files onto the computer, the resulting photos can look quite dark, and honestly, sometimes they can look awful. It takes some post-processing work, using your favorite editing program, either Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw (which is what I use), and then Photoshop, to make the pictures look good.
So don’t review the pictures on the screen on the back of the camera and expect to be blown away by an amazing black and white image; you might be disappointed. I like to review my pictures of the M246 with the histogram option selected, so I can get a better idea of how much highlight clipping is occurring in a particular photo. Sometimes in high contrast situations, it's hard to avoid having some highlight clipping. I try to look for photo possibilities that have a moderate amount of contrast, something that fits the unique characteristics of the gray-scale sensor in the M246.
One thing I found about this whole black and white process while using this camera is that, out in the field, I find myself imagining and thinking more in “black and white” mode and how potential subjects might fit the unique characteristics of how this camera “sees”. I find that it can be a lot of fun and helps me visualize more. When I do find the right subject matter, I have made what I think are some good images. Sometimes I will try using coloured filters over the lens; they do have some effect with the M246, but I think not as dramatically as with using filters with black and white film.
Years ago, when I shot a lot of film, one of the joys of shooting black and white film was scouting around and finding a particular scene, whether it be a landscape, still life, or portrait of a person, and following through the whole process to make a wonderful black and white print. There is a “Thing” about black and white photographs which makes it endearing to use; it engages my mind to look beyond the obvious and to find patterns, shapes, and relationships between shades of gray that are usually not seen in the colour world.
All the pictures posted with this article were taken with the M246 Monochrom; lenses used are from the 1950s and 1970s: the Leitz Elmar 50mm ƒ3.5, Leitz Summilux 35mm ƒ1.4, and the Leitz Tele-Emarit 90mm ƒ2.8. The top photo of the M246 with the 50mm Elmar was taken with my Nikon D850 and 50mm Nikkor ƒ1.8 lens.
