A PASSION FOR PICTURE QUALITY. BLACK AND WHITE.

Digital black-and-white photography with the M Monochrom

The high standards of the world’s first digital black-and-white camera are carried forward into the next generation – and exceeded.

Decisive moments happen once in a lifetime

Thanks to the Leica Maestro image processor and 2 GB of buffer memory, waiting until the camera is ready to shoot is now a thing of the past.

INSTANTANEOUS RESPONSE

With a monochrome sensor

As the Leica M Monochrom has no need for a colour filter, there’s also no need to calculate luminance values by interpolation. The result: black-and-white pictures with unrivalled sharpness – even when shooting in low light

Black-and-white photography with unrivalled speed: with the Leica Maestro, the Leica M Monochrom not only features the same high-performance processor as its counterpart with colour vision, the Leica M, but also offers the extra speed reserves of a 2 GB buffer memory. This enables sequential shooting at three times the speed of the previous model – with pictures in the exceptional M quality photographers expect. The pictures are instantaneously available for display in review mode and written as JPEG files and/or RAW data in DNG format to the memory card.

Discreet and solidly built, the Leica M Monochrom brings all the essentials anyone could ever need for unobtrusive photography – to last a lifetime, if you wish. Its endurance is guaranteed by the superior quality and solidity of the materials that go into its construction – top deck and baseplate are machined from solid brass and the camera body is engineered from high-strength magnesium alloy. Equally hard-wearing is the extremely scratch-resistant and almost unbreakable sapphire glass cover plate for its LCD monitor. This reduction to the essentials is what makes it a true Leica.

The omission of colour filters in front of the sensor allows more light to reach its surface. More light for aesthetic, pin-sharp and finely resolved exposures at sensitivities up to ISO 25000. Pictures that possess a finely grained noise signature at the highest ISO values that are reminiscent of the look of analogue photos. Thanks to the combination of low susceptibility to noise, a bright viewfinder/rangefinder, a low-vibration shutter release and fast lenses, the Leica M Monochrom opens up entirely new dimensions for available-light photography.

By modifying the conversion of colours to grey scale values, yellow, green and orange lens filters – calculated especially for use with the Leica M Monochrom – offer new opportunities for the exploration of creative effects with light and contrast. This means that the colour of the filter in the original scene becomes brighter and its complementary colour darker. This is effective for creating unusual moods in landscapes, portraits and other genres of photography. At the same time, multilayer coating reduces reflections and ensures high transmission without vignetting.

In Live View mode, the high-resolution 3" monitor with a resolution of 921,600 pixels enables complete control of composition, framing, exposure, focusing and depth of field. Live View also offers two additional focusing methods: Live View Zoom for tenfold magnification of the scene or subject, and Focus Peaking, which automatically marks the edges of objects in colour when they are sharply focused. All leading to the same destination: pictures with exceptional sharpness.

Moving pictures in M quality

Video at the press of a button: the Leica M Monochrom has a separate release button for activating video recording in 1080p full-HD format. Thanks to a dedicated adapter, the legendary R-series lenses can also be used for recording video with all available functions. Perfect sound is ensured by an optional Leica microphone adapter set, comprising an adapter and a stereo microphone.

** Lens not included **