

Red Announces EPIC-M Monochrome Black & White Movie Camera  - salimmadjd
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?85214-EPIC-M-Monochrome

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mjs
Leica do a monochrome camera too <http://en.leica-
camera.com/photography/m_system/m_monochrom/> with a similar filter (only
necessary to capture colour images) removed. Must be an incredibly small
market for these, though...

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morsch
Huh. I guess the benefit is increasing the resolution while improving light
sensitivity by removing the filter. For a couple of years, manufacturers tried
to increase resolution size by packing more sensor elements (which end up as
image pixels) on the same area, leading to a higher resolution. This ended up
making each sensor element smaller, thus reducing light sensitivity.

So this is quite cool. I have to wonder, though, that even if you don't affect
light sensitivity, if a higher resolution is going to be very useful. For
instance, the glass you put in front of the sensor might affect sharpness in a
way that 3x 18 MP won't look better than a Bayer pattern in front of 18 MP.
Does anybody know how much light a Bayer filter eats?

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TomGullen
What is it and why is it so expensive?

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davidjohnstone
It's a video camera that only shoots in black and white.

The reason you would want to shoot in black and white (rather than converting
to B&W in post) is because it gives a sharper image, because it allows every
pixel to be used for luminosity data rather than trying in interpolate. Read
on [1][2] in the announcement thread for more details.

It's expensive because of the market it's aimed at, because it isn't hugely
expensive for them. It doesn't cost much more than the colour version of that
camera. Spending tens of thousands on bodies, and similar amounts on lenses is
more or less the norm for very high end video. If it existed a couple of years
ago, it might have been used to film The Artist.

1\. [http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?85214-EPIC-M-
Mon...](http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?85214-EPIC-M-
Monochrome&p=1061850&viewfull=1#post1061850) 2\.
[http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?85214-EPIC-M-
Mon...](http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?85214-EPIC-M-
Monochrome&p=1061865&viewfull=1#post1061865)

