It’s been a few days, but apart from a new legal fiasco and getting shit done, I’ve been wasting away from trying to get my brain around my discovery of one of the most redundant pieces of digital photography technology imaginable. This is the reason why I prefer, always, to shoot on film with cameras that, you know, shoot on film.
Ladies and gentleman, I present to you begrudgingly … the Leica M Monochrom.
It’s a digital camera that can only snap black and white photos.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Leica, known for its absurdly priced yet high-end line of rangefinder cameras, has out of the possibly millions of dollars in revenue decided to dump money into, manufacture, and market a camera that can only shoot black and white. As opposed to any other full-framed digital camera that can produce the same images in colour that can later be changed to black-and-white by even the most simple of digital imaging or manipulation software.
You know how sometimes people ignorant of technology, photography and common sense, would ask you whether your camera takes black-and-white or colour photos? Because of the overwhelming myth that old cameras took only black-and-white film, thus they assumed that it was the camera and not the film that determined the colour of the image produced? I bet that this was designed by one of them. Someone with too much money and no clue about photographic history or how photographic film works probably came up with this because he thought, somehow, people want to take black-and-white photos with their digital cameras yet somehow just can’t do it. This also reinforces people’s delusions about digital technology. FOR SHAME!
Worst of all, this is one of those stupid cameras that, for some reason, has the combination of a digital screen with a rangefinder viewfinder. Now why the fuck can’t just use the digital screen, and not bother with adding a viewfinder?
Perhaps this of life’s little mysteries conjured by out-of-touch businessmen who are collectors, not artists. You want a full-frame black-and-white camera? Get a real camera, preferably a 35mm film SLR camera, a roll black-and-white 35mm film, and learn how to use it!
Leica M Monochrom: for only the super-rich hipster too pretentious to know how photography works.
mikailus photography 