Seal Cove Post Office: Leica Monochrom Trial

[Andrea B.]

The first generation Leica Monochrom has surprisingly good UV capability. But it has no Live View. So it is a bit of a pain to use for UV. And of course rangefinder focusing is a bit different from pressing that nifty AF button on those other kinds of cameras.

 

There are 10 post offices on this island. About half of them are quite small and are only open part-time. I thought it might make for an interesting photo journey to go around the island and photograph each of them in UV/IR. But I needed first a trial shoot to see if this was do-able with the Mono and the Summicron 50/1.2.

 

The results are mixed. I didn't quite achieve lift-off in this first trial. Dust, heat, passing cars, mosquitoes, sweat rolling into my eyes -- I couldn't see the LCD well for reviewing shots while trying to set focus compensation in UV. So the UV photo is back focused.

 

Gear: Leica Monochrom + Summicron 50/2.0 + Sunlight

Visible: Whatever internal filter this camera has.

UV: Baader UV/IR-Cut filter

EDIT: Now why did I make that stupid error? Of course I meant to write that I used the BaaderU UV-Pass filter for the UV photo. You've heard me say this before: I simply cannot edit myself!

 

 

Seal Cove Post Office in Visible Light

Seal Cove, Maine

15 July 2019

f/11 for 1/1500" @ ISO-400

 

 

Seal Cove Post Office in Ultraviolet Light

Seal Cove, Maine

15 July 2019

f/11 for 1/4" @ ISO-400

[Andrea B.]

Just to remind you of the Monochrom's UV capability, here is a photo of the black and white Spectralon standards through 6 mm of UV-pass.

 

 

Gear: Leica Monochrom + Summicron 50/2.0 + Sunlight

UV: UG-340 x 4.00 mm + S8612 x 2.00 mm = 6.00 mm total thickness

f/11 for 1" @ ISO-400.

I was practicing Vis-UV focus compensation and needed targets. This photo is unedited (and unsharpened). It pretty much tells me that the Mono + Summi is seeing the UV-reflectivity properly through the 6 mm of filter glass. I can't get too excited about the Summicron though because I think it might be a bit hotspotty.

[Andrea B.]

P.S. I did *not* use the correct converter for those photos which would understand that it is not converting a Bayer-arrayed camera. I need to look for one that does. I've lost the recommendations I had for that. But my trial was simply to see what happened when I tried a serious shot in UV and to discover what I needed to work out.

 

P.S. #2 It is a complete historical accident that I even have that Summicron 50/2.0. I just looked at the prices for a new one on B&H. Goodness gracious!!!

 

 

EDIT: corrected 1.2 --> 2.0.

[Andy Perrin]

Ooh, neat idea! Why are you using such thick filters, though?

[Cadmium]

Sweet little post office!

 

Yeah that 4mm + 2mm stack is about OD7. The 4mm + 2mm stack is cutting the UV transmission, amplitude and bandwidth both, and OD 7 is not needed.

You could probably be doing hand held UV easy with that Bayer-less converted camera if you use U-340 2mm (or 1.5mm) + S8612 2mm, and still have OD 5 Red/IR suppression.

Alternately, you could drop the S8612 to 1mm thick instead.

 

You will get the deepest UV transmission from the U-340 4mm + S8612 1mm stack, which can only be taken advantage of using your deep UV transmitting UV-Nikkor lens, with a peak transmission at about 340nm+.

 

Sorry Andy, red/blue...?

 

[Andy Perrin]

Green/Red are my problem colors.

[dabateman]

Andrea,

I really good Raw converter for monochrome cameras, but with steep learning curve is the free Raw Therapee.

The recent version (5.6 I think) has a plethora of interesting demoisac algorithms. One I have not seen before is RCD. But it is amazing at clearing the point point noise I see in 313nm shots.

 

If your more familiar with lightroom and like its odd interface, than Darktable would be better with also a highly recommend monochrome conversion capabilities.

 

https://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Demosaicing

[Cadmium]

Andy, OK, the two in the middle are green and red. The difference being U-340 2mm (red plot) being the lower of those two plots,

and U-340 1.5mm (green) being the higher of those two plots.

[Andrea B.]

Andy, I popped on the 6 mm UG-340 + S8612 stack and photographed the B/W standards simply to "prove" that the Leica Mono was good at seeing UV around 340-350. I was thinking that f/11 for 1 second at ISO-400 was a pretty good result for 6 mm of glass. Might be even better with a dedicated UV-lens? The Post Office photo was made with the Big Bad BaaderU.

 

David, thanks for the reccie! I had a Raw Therapee version at one point. Might be time to try to learn it if it can demosaic a true Monochrome file.

 

Cadmium, I find the problem interesting about how to present color coded graphs so that color-blind folks can deal. Will the Schott app permit non-solid line plots? That would be one solution - using different types of lines - dashed, dotted, etc.

 

*****

 

I have a series called "Minor Tensions". I was thinking that the Post Office photo belongs in that series because of the leaning flag pole. Creates compositional tensions.

[Cadmium]

I don't know all the color-blind colors to consider, so not sure how many colors I might want to accentuate with dots/dashes... but yes, it can be done, here is an example below.

Andy, let me know if this makes it any easier to read. Same graph as above, only with some dashes added.

I also gave the purple line dashes (longer dashes than green line), because it is a little dark and some people might get it confused with the black line.

 

[Andy Perrin]

Yes, all are distinguishable. Thanks. There are two kinds of color blindness, red/green and blue/yellow. The second kind is pretty rare. As long as you don't use red and green on the same chart without some other way to distinguish like dashes, it's probably fine for most people (unless you know for sure you have a blue/yellow person in the audience.)

[bobfriedman]

I also DarkTable for monochrome. Also open source

[Mark Jones]

why do you consider it surprisingly good when you still have to use a tripod? I think the main reason for a mono sensor is being able to use it handheld at shutter speeds of 1/30 or faster.

[Andy Perrin]

I can use my Bayered Sony A7S handheld at 1/30 because the ISO capabilities are pretty good. It is decent out to 25,000 or so with post processing. You do not need a mono sensor if shooting handheld is all you want.

[Mark Jones]

I want the photos to show skin damage like the viral uv sunscreen commercial, showing how sunscreen looks black, for shooting people you really need handheld. do you have any sample people shots at that iso?

[Andy Perrin]

Hm no although I could go outside and take a (horrid) selfie I guess.

[Mark Jones]

that would be awesome, put sun screen on half your face would be perfect! thanks in advance.

[Andy Perrin]

Ok new thread.

[Andrea B.]

why do you consider it surprisingly good when you still have to use a tripod? I think the main reason for a mono sensor is being able to use it handheld at shutter speeds of 1/30 or faster.

 

However steady your hand and however good your in-camera stabilization, neither hand or stabilization alone or in combo will beat the sharpness attainable with a tripod - particularly in a UV still.

 

Also, when shooting with a combo which is not designed for UV, you have to adjust the focus between the visible and UV photos. Not easy to perform hand-held and have final "matching" images for later stacking for channel swaps, etc.

[Mark Jones]

so will you be getting the blueish green ir/uv block sensor filter removed from this leica monochrome? you can buy a clip in filter to return it to visible only if you wanted. The price for a used one is abut $2500 in usa, seems to make sense to buy this rather than have to pay a company about the same amount to debayer a sensor, since this sensor is already debayered.

[Andrea B.]

I'm not sure there's any UV-blocking in that Mono. It is not having any trouble at all imaging UV. There is definitely some IR-blocking and it is strong.

 

But, no, I don't think I'm going to remove any internal filtration. I had bought the Mono for other use than UV. The UV trial was just an experiment. :)

 

For $2500 you could get between 3-4 used Lumix, Olympus, Nikon D3000 Nexi and have two of them mono-modded by MaxMax Daniel at Monochrome Imageing.com. *And* they would have Live View which my silly Leica Mono does not. :lol: :lol:

[Cadmium]

Several points.

I don't have experience with monochrome cameras, but the ones I have read about are made by way of removing the Bayer filter layer from the sensor.

You can not use a monochrome conversion for visual color use by way of any added filter, it can only be used for monochrome.

MaxMax is where Bod had his converted, and they remove the Bayer filter layer. That conversion is not cheap, so I don't think you can get more than one converted that way for $2500, maybe one only.

Also, with that conversion it is not full spectrum, it has a BG (blue green) type filter installed, I think it is BG38, so it is a UV+Visual range conversion (the range of BG38).

As some may know, many BG filters transmits UV down to about 300-320nm range, but cut IR at whatever point the BG glass is designed for.

With the MaxMax Bob got, the BG38 was installed to keep the IR from blurring the sharpness of the UV+Visual range (that is my understanding).

If you want to know more precisely about all of this, talk to Bob on here.

[Andrea B.]

Someone is converting to mono by removal of the Bayer filter and charging about $600. I'll try to find the link.

[Andrea B.]

Here it is: Convert a Sony Nex mirrorless for $600. Newer Sonys converted for $800. No point in spending more than that if you want a Mono conversion!

 

Daniel, the owner of Monochrome Imaging, will make the camera full spectrum or UV+Vis, whichever you want. My personal preference is always for full spec as I don't mind using external filters to block what needs to be blocked. And I always want the freedom to try for 300nm.

https://www.monochromeimaging.com

 

Sony Mono conversion versus a Leica Monochrom: can't tell the difference.

https://www.monochro.../sony-vs-leica/

[Cadmium]

Ask Bob to comment on this, because there was a reason Daniel at MaxMax put the BG38 in it, something about the full spectrum image being less sharp with full IR, and his was expensive as I remember, ask Bob, or ask Daniel.