[Leica] Re BW modes

[davison_m at msn.com (MARK DAVISON)]

>Mark and B.D. not trying to be obtuse here, but what advantage is there to 
>capture as BW?

The practical advantage is that the preview version of the shot that you see 
on the back of the camera is in black and white, and the workflow is easier 
if you want to take a lot of shots in B&W--the browser thumbnails are in B&W 
and the NEF (Nikon RAW) file is automatically converted to black and white 
whenever you perform a Save As from the Nikon editor.

If you made a B&W only camera there would be other advantages due to the 
removal of the Bayer color filter array--greater linear resolution and 
greater sensitivity to light. Imagine a B&W digital M which had quite 
tolerable noise at ISO 6400.

Mark Davison


>From: "G Hopkinson" <hoppyman@bigpond.net.au>
>Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
>To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>
>Subject: RE: [Leica] Re BW modes
>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:23:55 +1000
>
>Mark and B.D. not trying to be obtuse here, but what advantage is there to 
>capture as BW?
>
>Cheers
>Hoppy
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lug-bounces+hoppyman=bigpond.net.au@leica-users.org 
>[mailto:lug-bounces+hoppyman=bigpond.net.au@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
>MARK DAVISON
>Sent: Friday, 15 September 2006 12:24
>To: lug@leica-users.org
>Subject: [Leica] Re BW modes
>
>B.D. Colen wrote:
>
> >Any camera's BW mode is and has to be jpg-only, Chris - unless someone 
>has
> >a
>tiff bw mode I don't know about.
>
>
>The Nikon D200 will do BW mode with RAW.  The BW becomes a direction for 
>how
>the NEF (Nikon's RAW format) file is processed by the Nikon editor, and the
>embedded .jpg preview is black and white.
>
>Unfortunately other RAW converters do not honor the BW information in the
>NEF file, so this scheme only works with the Nikon software, and not with
>Adobe Bridge.
>
>Mark Davison
>
>
>
> >From: "B. D. Colen" <bd@bdcolenphoto.com>
> >Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
> >To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
> >Subject: Re: [Leica] Leica M8 hands on
> >Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:42:18 -0400
> >
> >RAW gives you what the sensor captures, no
> >more, no less - jpg gives you a combination of more and less, because it
> >gives you added sharpness, color adjustments, etc., but you lose some
> >dynamic range. As good as some built in bw modes are - and the one 
>Olympus
> >has in the E330 and E500 is terrific, and I have no reason to assume it
> >isn't just as good in the M - you're still much better off shooting raw 
>and
> >converting yourself. A tad slower in the end, but much more satisfying.
> >
> >B.D.
> >
> >
> >On 9/14/06 9:05 PM, "Christopher Williams" <leicachris@worldnet.att.net>
> >wrote:
> >
> > > Thanks for the review Tom. Is the BW mode for Jpeg only? I'm a RAW
> >shooter
> > > after getting my batch processing down.
> > >
> > > Chris
> > >
>
>
>
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