There are many Frontiersmen Rendezvous's across the county, and we're blessed to have one of the largest of them all. These were all taken with a K3 Monochrome and two lenses, an HD DA16-50PLM along with a DA*50-135.

Thanks for looking.

[gatorguy]

Great series, gator! Subjects almost called for B&W and you nailed it!
Did you shoot RAW? If so, what's your PP workflow for your modified K-3? Any different from when producing B/W images with a normal K-3?

Thanks for the compliments!
When I first started using the K3m it didn't take long to see that the raw's done in Adobe didn't have the same impressive detail as the back of my camera was showing. It was a kinda "what the heck??" disappointment. I'd seen others recommend using Monochrome2DNG for importing so I bought a copy. I was STILL disappointed, a lack of the spark I was seeing when I shot them.

But the problem was in settings. Monochrome2DNG has "demosaic" as the default. With the checkbox "off" and another attempt at raw processing there were those beautiful tones, fine detail, and very film-like noise if the light was less than ideal. I save the processed raws in a separate directory to open in LR or Photoshop. One of these days I want to do more research to figure out how to make those raws DxO-friendly. That software reports it can't open non-linear files, which are apparently what I'm converting to. Invitation for anyone to explain that part, and point me in the right direction. Probably a simple thing.

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Last edited by gatorguy; 01-26-2023 at 04:21 AM.

[kwb]

Thanks for the compliments!
When I first started using the K3m it didn't take long to see that the raw's done in Adobe didn't have the same impressive detail as the back of my camera was showing. It was a kinda "what the heck??" disappointment. I'd seen others recommend using Monochrome2DNG for importing so I bought a copy. I was STILL disappointed, a lack of the spark I was seeing when I shot them.

But the problem was in settings. Monochrome2DNG has "demosaic" as the default. With the checkbox "off" and another attempt at raw processing there were those beautiful tones, fine detail, and very film-like noise if the light was less than ideal. I save the processed raws in a separate directory to import into LR or Photoshop. One of these days I want to do more research to figure out how to make those raws DxO-friendly. That software reports it can't open non-linear files, which are apparently what I'm converting to. Invitation for anyone to explain that part, and point me in the right direction. Probably a simple thing.

I was actually wondering about demosaicing, so thanks gator.
I googled around and it seems that DxO doesn't/won't support true monochrome RAW files produced by Leica Monochrom models, supposedly because Deep Prime thing assumes the existence of color filter array. See e.g. Leica M10-R and M10-M RAW support - DxO PhotoLab - DxO Forums. Unfortunately it's not too surprising that DxO doesn't like the output of Monochrome2DNG.

[gatorguy]

I was actually wondering about demosaicing, so thanks gator.
I googled around and it seems that DxO doesn't/won't support true monochrome RAW files produced by Leica Monochrom models, supposedly because Deep Prime thing assumes the existence of color filter array. See e.g. Leica M10-R and M10-M RAW support - DxO PhotoLab - DxO Forums. Unfortunately it's not too surprising that DxO doesn't like the output of Monochrome2DNG.

Thanks, so it's not me just being a doofus after all.

[ToddK]

Fantastic images Gator! I am glad that I read through all of posts so I could get an idea of what you did in PP. They definitely have a quality to them that I only have occasionally stumbled upon when converting to black & white.

[gatorguy]

Fantastic images Gator! I am glad that I read through all of posts so I could get an idea of what you did in PP. They definitely have a quality to them that I only have occasionally stumbled upon when converting to black & white.

Thanks!

If/when Pentax releases a monochrome K3III I don't think it will take very long for our forum members to realize the difference between a true monochrome-captured image and one taken in color and then converted. Yes it's still a niche need that not everyone will find financially viable considering the limitations, but as a companion camera, I'm absolutely in love with mine. My photography feels reinvigorated, and shooting monochrome will pay dividends in working with colors and contrasts on my non-converted Pentax bodies.

The K3m is already helping me become a better overall photographer.