I have made it very clear that color Leica images are excellent, competitive, but no better than what I can get from my D610. The Leica color images are just as god or better than my A7 II.

Although I can't afford one, friends of mine have Monochrom cameras and they indeed are special. Even the 18 MP version is better than a D810. I don't own a D810 either.

However you are in no position to judge any Leica digital camera since you have never used one and have only read about them. You have never seen what they can do.

Neither has anyone here seen what you can do. See Where do I Create a Small Gallery? where you said, "This gallery will hopefully add authenticity to my posts."

So until you actually show us what you can do you are coming across as a negative, embittered troll. You enjoy expressing your contempt for the knowledge and skill of your fellow members but your own knowledge is questionable at best. It all seems to be based on Internet research rather than your own personal experience.

It's really time you grew up.

You are suffering from an inferiority complex of mammoth proportions - a serious case of Leica envy. Why should it matter to you how much someone pays for a camera?

You clearly know nothing about rangefinder cameras or the Leica Monochrom and its unique advantage from having no Bayer array. There are other cameras that do not have the Bayer disadvantage but the Monochrom is the only B&W version. You just can't think out of your DSLR box.

You are also blissfully unaware of the advantages of larger formats and film that are capable of greater resolution and performance than any 24x36 mm sensor.

Are you still buying gray market stuff from 42nd Street? The one thing that we can be sure of is that, when you are posting, we are dealing 100% of the time with an uninformed dummy.

Holy Halibut, for a few posts I was reminded of when I’d wandered into a pub in an English village, wearing a green pullover sweater. Only to discover that this particular shade of green was the team color of the neighboring shire's football (soccer team). I had to remove the “jumper" as the Brits call them, before being served. Nevertheless there was a good deal of stink-eye sent my way by individuals who were convinced I was either a provocateur or some sort of soccer spy.

Please understand that I was unaware of the existing sub-cutaneous vein of brand-partisanship and ire that my simple question seeking anyone's experience, intel, or insight using the Leica Monochrom would invoke. Certain remarks suggested a level of economic envy, and what read like bitter disdain disparaging anyone who would even consider paying thousands of dollars for a technologically minimal camera that had such an apparently limited scope.

So, please let me apologize. I’ve stayed alive by avoiding walking into mine fields. Somehow, I missed this one.

I was simply asking for some insight and intel under the presumption that the members of this forum are more skilled photographers and much more competent post-processors than I am, or can ever hope to be. And I’m grateful for how much I’ve learned, thanks to your collectively sharing that knowledge.

Even, Mr. Dan, if it comes as a backhand slap, a teaching’s a teaching. Thank you, sir.

Again, please understand I make no claim to be a “photographer." I’m just a writer who's happened to have a camera on certain occasions under uncertain circumstances and eked out a living with words and pictures as a result. My sole claim to photographic technique comes from either reading (or guessing) my exposures from chimping the inside of a flattened out Tri-X Kodak box I kept in my shirt pocket.

Well, we all know that world's long gone. I'm staggering around suffering from Post-Traumatic Digital Dyslexia. I can develop film in Belsonal and canteen water, but have failed at turning color convincingly into B&W and thus sought solace with simplicity, i.e., the Leica Monochrom.

So, I’m not always well-informed and selective. I'm an "…f8 and be there" guy who used any camera I've happened to have with me--that I can figure out how to use. Most of which, Nikon, Canon, Leica, Contax, Rollie, etc. I’ve picked up second-hand, or got cheap when a guy with a lot of knowledge and a lot of cameras couldn't pay his bar tab, got scared, got Malaria or Dengue, got wounded, was threatened with divorce and bailed out.

As to paying thousands of dollars for a camera with a good combat reputation? Dude, life's pitifully short. Get the big fries.