Pentax K3 III Monochrome

The photographers have tended to miss the obvious, standing in front of great landscapes with beautiful deep blue skies that always work well in monochrome. But then photographing a greyish waterfall instead.

I really, really hope that a sample copy for review will find its way to us in due course. I have been planning to do a series of shots in JPEG monochrome using the K-1 in square format but the K-3 III Monochrome is a better idea.

Too specialised a camera for me...but in the hands of an especially talented creative this could be a real gift.

It should be very profitable for Pentax given the very limited extra drain on its resources to bring it to market...I hope they do well with it.

I should imagine the next iteration of the K3III might be the specialised 'Astro' version they have mentioned previously.

I just hope that they don't forget their core base of enthusiastic amateurs in their quest for new niche markets to occupy.

Monochrome needs a different way of "seeing" IMO - as you say, great landscapes such as those produced by Ansel Adams are truly suited but not everything is. Green foliage or indeed grey waterfalls don't often translate into stunning black and whites whereas a colour capture may well present a beautiful range of tones of one base colour.

I've been playing around with the set-up you mentioned for a few weeks (K1 Monochrome Jpegs in the 1:1 format) - most have been binned as I head towards a "look" that I'm happy with, but here's a few from today of some very ordinary subjects that I believe benefit from B&W...

The taps have it IMHO, that quality that would only be softened by colour.

I was recently given Salgado’s Amazonia photo book, an extraordinary endeavour shot entirely in black and white over many years. There are basically two categories, aerial shots of the vast landscape and portrait photos of tribes some visited by the outside world for the first time. I gather for the latter black and white was convenient because of the low light levels in many scenes; we miss the vibrant colours of adornments but the focus of interest is on the faces. For the aerial landscape shots though I think colour would have given a far stronger message with all those miles of vibrant green.

I see some websites calling for a mono version of the GRIII which would make a lot of sense as well but I get the logic of using a platform compromising size with high resolution.

I'd be very interested to hear what people whose main photographic preference and output is B&W think about the K3iii Monochrome. Seeing Don McCullin's B&W photos of the Somerset landscape was an eye-opener for me. A type of landscape that I thought I knew fairly well became something quite different that I hadn't seen. And part of that was because it was B&W. The other part, of course, was because the photos had been produced (taken and printed) by an exceptional photographer who had seen and photographed human misery and suffering through several decades, mostly in B&W.

Steve

You'd have to REALLY like monochrome to spend all that extra on a camera that only does it, but then I suppose that's who it's aimed at. For everyone else, tweaking the monochrome settings in-camera and forcing yourself to stay off colour is a much cheaper alternative (though of course you lose the benefits that the lack of colour filter array bring). Or shooting B&W film (which is the option I'd go with)

I'll be interested to see how many of them are actually produced to get an idea of how many people are genuinely able to put that kind of money down for such a camera.

Hopefully many will go to those using a Pentax for the first time and increase the demand for lenses.

Mike Muizebelt ,has the best video on youtube so far, regarding the K3iii Monochrome Imho.
The tonal range from highlights to shadows and everything in-between and Photographic scenes that suit it more with stunning results, worth checking out.

Regarding this lengthy ongoing discussion on Mono/B&W. On this forum I guess are a great many members, so, why not a competition in B&W to discover what is the best method. Straight out of camera, no filters. I have been trying Mono on K1, cannot seem to emulate anything close to B&W from my youth, there may be a member out there who has cracked it. At least we may get somewhere close. Just a thought.

It depends what you mean by mono/B&W, because there is a whole world of difference between say a super-fine-grain ultra-sharp contrasty image on Kodak Panatomic-X film (ISO 32) and a gritty, high contrast street photo on Kodak Tri-X (ISO 400) or any of the other hundreds of options/combinations of films and developers, all giving different results. It's not as easy as deciding to select Mono, that is just the start and monochrome photography is as big a subject as photography is.

Spot on John - the beauty of a great 20"x16" print on good quality photo paper produced from a Pan-F or Pantomic-X negative is something special, and the gritty graininess of night-time street shot produced from Ilford HP5 pushed a stop or two takes me back in time

...aaaahhh, Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

Getting an attractive B&W image from a digital camera has a bit of art to it and some cameras do it better than others, depending more than anything on the flexibility of their jpeg engine, though of course you need to know what you're doing.

As someone who shoots a lot of mono, this obviously has a certain appeal but, sadly, I don't have that sort of spare cash. I can shoot/develop/scan a lot of FP4 for the money. If I had an unexpected windfall, I'd jump on it, but as it is I'll settle for converting the files from my K-3iii if I need digital BW.

I really hope it is a success, however. I predicted a while back that if Pentax were going to stick to SLRs, they would have to re-invent themselves as the SLR-version of Leica. This is a step in that direction.

Kris.

It's a great idea... i shoot B&W film a lot (mainly as colour film has been hard to get and is now expensive) an this looks lovely.
But.
B&W film have different characteristics and that will be missing. I appreciate you can change tonal shift, etc, but, for me anyway, part of B&W is in the film characteristic - the silvery sheen of Cinestill BWXX, the grungy feel of Fomapan, the creamy tone of many Ilford films, the crazy contrast of some of the experimental films and the dreamy tones of other (Washi film, I am looking at you here), etc.

Also... wish I had the money to buy one!