JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

I had a Sony A6300 that wasn't getting much use and decided to take the plunge and send the camera off to "MonochromeImaging.com" for a mono conversion in which the CFA is removed along with the IR filter and also the removal of the moire filter. And it has been so much fun to use. I do shoot RAW with it and then some SW called Monochrome2DNG which processes the file without any demosaicing. The result is a B&W file that really doesn't need any additional processing.

Here is a shot that I shot RAW with a red filter, used Monochome2DNG and then Topaz Denoise AI Clear. Nothing else. Was using a Sony 35mm f1.8 lens.

Shooting with a mono sensor, since it doesn't have to be subjected to demosaicing, tends to produce better detail than a color sensor which has to use demosaicing. Zoom way in on the image and observe the fine detail without artifacts.

(Download)

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Jim you stated: "Here is a shot that I shot RAW with a red filter, "
This reference states "A red filter is the go-to for bold and dramatic effects. "
https://thedarkroom.com/color-filters-with-bw-film/

Your now B&W demosaiced camera is now a B&W film camera act alike? I wonder, could the same be accomplished with a full-spectra converted camera with a red filter attached? In Topaz B&W2 the ability to select color filters is possible... Red is one.

Thank you Jim, you have stimulated me to actually read the B&W-2 Tutorial rather than "just knowing". Knowledge of controls makes things complicated !
https://topazlabs.com/bweffects_static/selectivecolor_tutorial.pdf

Again Jim, thank you for pushing my seeking understanding of why and how your camera is demosaiced. I found this statement in the below reference to be interesting: " Color is added through a CFA (Color Filter Array) that’s placed on the digital sensor – the sensor itself, only captures light, or better yet, luminance values, and are always without any color information. Photographic sensors such as CCD or CMOS sensors, can only capture light intensities and are, due to its nature, incapable of separating wavelengths, which basically is the actual color. Contrary to common belief, black and white is not a color recording with the colors removed, but color originally is a black and white recording with colors added through the use of a CFA such as a Bayer filter, that can separate the different wavelengths.

https://bwvision.com/guide-black-white-photography/

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Jim, your comment "Shooting with a mono sensor, since it doesn't have to be subjected to demosaicing, tends to produce better detail than a color sensor which has to use demosaicing. Zoom way in on the image and observe the fine detail without artifacts." this holds true! Downloading and then hitting the +, the detail from the fore-background is amazingly detailed.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Let add for you that since this camera is also seeing IR, it is behaving as red plus IR for this inage. But I can add an external UV-IR filter so that it now is limited just visible light, and now behaves like your first link with the red filter. And now I could see the alternate effects using any of the other colored filters mentioned. And I have done this. It now behaves like the old Tri-X film, and is so much fun, but even better than Tri-X due to the advantages of digital cameras.

Another advantage is that when limiting what range of light is seen is that I can now use old lenses that may have CA problems, and not get CA problems. This is because the lens is no longer having to deal with the entire visible light spectrum and only sees a more limited range of light. Thus the old, not so perfect lens, now out performs what it can do on a non modified camera.

But there are quirks to deal with also. Removing the CFA also removed the phase detect points and this leads to problems with AF with some lenses. But for many lenses, there is no problem and AF works fine using CF. I do have a number of lenses that I have good experience with using this camera. And i have a few that its best to not use with it too. And I have a number of older manual only lenses that I just love using with this camera. If anyone were to be interested, I could share what lenses I like best with it.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Your camera-world is one that few of us have known about and even with being introduced will never venture into. For that reason, your images will be unique and eye/mind-catching.

I have found that to most photographers, a sensor is a sensor and their idea of how sensors are constructed is wrongly simplistic; worse yet, they really do not want to know. Then again, why should they want to know... aim and push the button is sufficient; why not, it is fun and their photos are praised. You and I are the nerd oddballs; just gotta know and dig deeper.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Yes, I know what you are saying. I suppose I was a Nerd before the word was even invented.
Here is a shot using one of my favorite lenses on the monochrome Sony A6300 (which I call my A6300M), the old Minolta Rokkor 28mm f2.5 lens with a red filter. I love using this lens. Of course there are quite a few others I love using for B&W also.

Look closely at this one too. The lack of demosaicing effect can certainly be seen looking at the fine tips of the palm leaves.

Note: I did run this through Topaz PhotoAI and it only applied some noise reduction. Of note here is that Topaz AI products will not work with mono files. Thus, it won't read the DNG file produced by Monochrome2DNG converter. But it will open the handoff from Lightroom which converts it to an RGB file that looks like a mono file. Then I can turn it back to a true mono file in Lightroom after it is returned from Topaz.

(Download)

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Here is a look at the noise in a monochrome image. I am shooting into a group of leaves using an ISO of 1600. There is no noise reduction done in a RAW file. And there is also no noise reduction done in the conversion from RAW to DNG. I then opened in Lightroom and set noise reduction to zero. Also sent a copy off to PhotoAI where it did a noise reduction and sent it back to Lightroom where I now set them side by side for comparison at 100%.

Note that the noise is very fine grained in the original DNG. This is due to the fact that pixels are not reporting the exact levels. The manufacturing of the sensor is not capable of achieving exact duplicates for each pixel. There is a distribution of measurements which we see as noise. And since there is no demosaicing, there is no averaging of neighboring pixels. The result is that the noise we see is rather fine grain and would look entirely different in the case of a demosaiced image.

In the image on the right, you can see that PhotoAI handled the noise quite well. Hit the download button for a closer look.

(Download)

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

"Of note here is that Topaz AI products will not work with mono files. " aaaha!! gem of wisdom. Fact is, i have not used my Topaz AI trio much.

Bo0mer

Great set! I keep toying with the idea of sending a camera off to have the CFA stripped off, but it's a pricy concept!
Thanks for sharing!

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Beautiful and serene 🖤🖤🤍🖤🖤