Leica has long been a manufacturer happy to exploit niche markets – its M9 may be a fascinating camera to shoot with, but the company’s adherence to the near-obsolete, manual focus rangefinder design, coupled with its distinctly exclusive pricing ensures its cameras will only ever be enjoyed by a few. However, we can’t think of any of its products that combine ‚fascinating‘ and ’niche‘ as well as its latest creation – the Leica M-Monochrom. As the name suggests, the Monochrom is a truly black-and-white camera, with no filter array to allow the capture of color information. Just as any discussion between former film photographers will eventually come ‚round to the idea of a dedicate manual focus digital camera with the large, bright split-prism viewfinder they remember from their film-shooting days, it was almost as inevitably touch on the idea of a black-and-white digital camera. But it’s not just nostalgia that makes the idea of a monochrome camera sound appealing – especially on a system famed for its (expensively achieved) high quality lenses…..

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