I like black and white photography a lot, but at the same time I can’t give up on beautiful color either. So I often take in color and digitally convert it to black and white. Then I began to wonder why Leica made Monochrome digital body as you can have them both in digital world. Would it be worth purchasing it? After many days of pointless debate in my head(don’t get me wrong, I don’t hear voices.), I decided I would go for film camera.
If I put black and white film, then I can turn my Leica film camera Leica M7 into monochrome body. Yeah~ the problem solved.
Yeah! Just the way I like it. With fine grain, deep dark black and white contrast, the photo shines by itself.
At this point, I wondered if I could get the similar results via digital conversion from a color film.
I like Kodak Portra Color negative film. So if I can get the same look and feel of monochrome from digital conversion with a color film, I wouldn’t need monochrome film at all!
Well, it’s not fair comparison. But it seems like monochrome dedicated film have more clear black and white look and feel but the difference seems so subtle, so maybe I could be happy with color film digitally converted to black and white.
For your comparison, I took the same model in digital version. More clear and sharp. Of course I like them both(film and digital) but monochrome version looks more authentic when it has fine grain.
Here are more comparison photos.
So far, I really can’t tell the different between monochrome film vs digitally black and white converted color film! Maybe I should take more of TMAX 400 or other black and white film in various circumstances to find out the difference.
I might be curious about the difference between black and white film and digitally B&W converted color film for a while, but I am not curious about Leica Monochrome body anymore, which maybe good thing for me. (financially)
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