Test of the Leica Monochrom versus the 69-year-old Leica IIIC film camera

Leica IIIC rangefinder body and 5 cm ƒ/2.0 Leitz Summitar thread-mount lens

Dear Readers, a business trip brought me to Washington, DC, in late October (2018). I arrived early on a Saturday and decided to check out the Leica Store on 977 F Street NW. The store is in a strategic location: the Imperial Capital, seat of power and unbridled (and corrupt and uncontrolled) spending, half way between the White House and the US Capital, and near tourist sites like the Mall. The staff at the Leica Store are very nice and were glad to see me using my 1949-vintage Leica IIIC with its 5 cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens. I have written about this IIIC before and used it for a month in Nepal during my 2017 trip. Similar to the Leica Store in Hong Kong that I visited in 2014, this one had shelves covered with fantastic camera bodies and lenses, and superb photographs were on the walls.

Leica Monochrom Type 246 with 50mm f/2.0 Summicron-M lens (from US.Leica-Camera.com)

I had always wanted to try the Leica Monochrom, a digital rangefinder camera with a monochrome sensor. It has a body about the same size and shape as my 1967-vintage M2, but has a 24MP 24×36mm B&W CMOS sensor with no color array or low pass filter. Pseudo-photographers on popular photo web sites like Dpreview bash the idea of a monochrome camera, but serious workers around the world do some amazing work with it. Unfortunately, the Monochrom body alone costs about $8000. Hmmm.....

Regardless, Mr. Paul at the store let me do a quick test. We went outside to F street to find a suitable subject. A restaurant next door had white plates and cups that were glowing in the sun.

Leica Monochrom with 50mm ƒ/2.0 ASPH lens, DNG file opened with Photoshop Elements 11 and contrast reduced. Resized with ACDSee Pro to 1600 pixels wide. Click to enlarge.

Fujifilm Acros film, exposed at EI=80, developed in Xtol, Leica IIIC camera with 5 cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens.

The Monochrom DNG file has a tremendous tonal range. In the example above, I reduced the contrast to show details under the table, while not allowing the white dishes to become featureless glowing white blobs. But surprise: the Acros film also recorded all the data. I could probably increase the contrast to reasonably match the Monochrom scene. I scanned the 35mm negative at 3600 dpi with a Plustek 7600i scanner using Silverfast Ai's Tri-X 400 profile.

Full-size crop of the sugar packets in the Monochrom DNG file. Note the almost complete lack of grain. 

Full-size crop from Acros film negative.

With a crop of the file to look at the lettering on the sugar packets, you can see that the Monochrom file is essentially grainless. The resolution is amazing. The Acros film file is clearly grainier and has lower resolution. But remember, this is the "primitive" and "obsolete" chemical recording media exposed via a 69-year-old optical instrument. If I mounted the newest version of the 50 mm Summicron lens on my M2 camera, the resolution would be better, and an exposure on the now-discontinued Panatomic-X film might reduce the grain. Regardless, I am happy at how much detail film can record. It is not obsolete by any means (but the prejudice on the part of film-haters certainly is).

Leica SL (from US.Leica-Camera.com)

I also examined the Leica SL. It is a gorgeous piece of Teutonic engineering and solidity, like the film  Leicaflex SL of the 1970s. The viewfinder is superlative. But this thing is a monster and feels as heavy as my Nikon F3 with motor many years ago (and that was a big machine).

Comparison of Leica SL and 1960s M2 (from Camerasize.com)

Sorry SL, I just will not carry you around when I travel, and if I am going somewhere by car, I may as well take my medium format cameras. Also, the minor issue of the cost - $11,300 for body and 50mm lens - is problematic.

In summary, I really like the Monochrom but do not need it now. It is a bit (OK, very) expensive. Black and white film suits my needs presently, and I prefer the way it depicts the scenes that I typically photograph. The Leica SL is just too big and heavy to interest me. Its lenses are as big as Hasselblad lenses. I want to thank the gents at the Leica Store in Washington for the test run.

Here are a few touristy film photographs from the venerable Leica IIIC.

Room with a view: 17th Street NW. Fuji Acros film, Leica IIIC

Sunset at the WWII Memorial, Washington, DC

Checking the scene at the Mall, Washington, DC

Pennsylvania Avenue at the FBI building. I used a Leitz GGr (yellow/green) filter over the Summitar lens

Venerable tree on 17th Street, late afternoon

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 22, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tulsa is the second big city in Oklahoma that Route 66 travelers passed through (coming from the west). According to the Route 66 Adventure Handbook, Tulsa was the home of Cyrus Avery, who was instrumental in establishing Route 66. Tulsa was historically a major oil city.

In the 1930s, Meadow Gold Diary erected a large rooftop sign on a low building on Eleventh Street (Route 66).  In 2004, the sign was saved and re-erected on a Route 66 commemorative brick base, now at Quaker Street. Nice work to save this handsome icon.

The Boston Avenue United Methodist Church is one of the most amazing examples of Art Deco architecture that I have seen outside of New York City. According to their tour web page,

It is considered to be one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical art deco architecture in the United States and has been designated by the Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark. It is also an international United Methodist Historic Site and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Like many Art Deco buildings, Boston Avenue United Methodist Church reveled in the use of various different building materials, so metal, glass, terra cotta, Indiana limestone and Minnesota granite can all be found. The exterior is decorated with numerous terra cotta sculptures by the Denver sculptor, Robert Garrison, who had been a student of Adah Robinson's in Oklahoma City. These sculptures include several groups of people at prayer representing Spiritual Life, Religious Education and Worship. In these groups again can be found the motif of two hands together upward in prayer. While the building is in many ways unique, the idea of the large, semi-circular main auditorium has an earlier precursor in another Methodist church, Louis Sullivan's St. Paul's Methodist Church, designed in 1910 and built, somewhat modified, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1914.

The building's straight, vertical lines suggest the church's reaching toward God, and the tower's four shards of glass are placed at angles to the four directions - receivers and reflectors of light. The downward-flowing lines in the terra cotta motif symbolize the outpouring of God's love and are echoed throughout the building. The tower is 255 feet high and fifteen floors. The first fourteen are offices, and the top floor is a small prayer chapel with space above for an electronic carillon.

11th Street (Route 66), Tulsa (Kodak BW400CN film, Olympus Trip 35 camera)

Route 66 signs will direct you through central Tulsa, although with traffic and other distractions, they can be a bit hard to follow. On the day I was in town, the temperature was blazing, but there was a brilliant clear sky. In the northern part of town, Route 66 follows Eleventh Street for several miles. This is now a typical nasty American strip, and there was not much Route 66 architecture. I hope the photograph above conveys the sense of summer heat.

Olympus Trip 35, Kodak BW400CN film, polarizer filter

8929 11th Street, Tulsa. Olympus Trip 35, Kodak BW400CN film, polarizer filter

We saw some old motels and car dealerships, but not as interesting pickings as I expected.

Oasis Motel, 9303 E 11th Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma

The Oasis Motel at 9303 East Eleventh Street has a Route 66 appearance. The sign is, I think, a modern one intended to resemble a classic Googie sign. Googie design elements developed in the 1950s as an offshoot of Streamline Moderne architecture. "This was achieved by using bold style choices, including large pylons with elevated signs, bold neon letters and circular pavilions."

Dear Readers, this ends my 2017 trip along Route 66. Some day, I will drive the section between Tulsa and Chicago. If you want to see my articles covering the Mother Road between Los Angeles and Tulsa, you can type "Route 66" in the search box or use a Google search:  Route 66 site:worldofdecay.blogspot.com .

En route to Tulsa, we passed through McGehee, Arkansas, another small town lost in time.

The four black and white photographs above are from Kodak BW400CN film taken with an Olympus Trip 35 camera, with a polarizing filter to darken the sky. I did not have the right size polarizer, so I simply held a 52mm polarizer over the Olympus' lens.

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 21, east central Oklahoma

Heading out of Oklahoma City, we continue east on the Mother Road.

Arcadia

Arcadia is famous for an amazing example of woodworking: the Round Barn. It was constructed in 1898 and was restored a few years ago. It houses a gift shop, which is well worth a stop. The gift shop has photographs of other barns with unusual configurations. The round design is efficient in wood use and provides a large interior volume without the need for pillars. I asked the proprietor why there are so few true round barns, and he said one main reason was that construction required a level of skill similar to boat-building. The normal country farmer did not have the woodworking skill. Look at the astonishing roof in the photograph above (click to enlarge it).

Tuton's Drugstore from the 1890s is in an unusual limestone building. 

This old gas station at 109 Main Street may date to the Route 66 days. The asbestos siding on the building could be any date from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Chandler

Chandler has an old Philips 66 gasoline station with an appropriate Cadillac in front, awaiting gallons of gasoline and patiently awaiting restoration. I have previously written about an old Valentine diner on a side street in Chandler (click the link). A 2018 comment by a reader said the diner has been moved to another town for restoration. 

It looks like folks are conservative here in the Heartland. I hope it pays off for them.

Bristow

Bristow is a quiet town about 20 miles southwest of Tulsa. I did not see too much Route 66 memorabilia on Main Street. The downtown looks prosperous, and the shops are occupied. Nice little town.

We stayed the night in a modest motel run by a Pakistani gent. The place did not offer breakfast, so we headed downtown. Bristow has a real coffee shop! I am impressed, coffee culture is finally spreading out from the cities into smaller communities. As I recall, we had excellent coffee and scones.

Continuing east from Bristow, Route 66 passes under Interstate 44 and then curves to the east, eventually crossing and running south of the interstate again.

Kellyville

Kellyville is quiet. I saw an old brick warehouse that may have been once a shed for locomotives. 

Sapulpa

Contunuing east, we reach the small town of Sapulpa. This was once the home of Frankoma Pottery, according to the Route 66 Adventure Handbook. An older alignment of Route 66, Frankoma Road, winds through woods. The Rock Creek Bridge is an early-20th century keystone type. similar to the Fairground Street Bridge in Vicksburg.

The two photographs from Sapulpa are genuine Kodak BW400CN film, shot with a Olympus Trip 35 camera. Most remaining frames are digital images from Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera, with raw files opened with Photoshop Elements and black and white filtering with DxO Filmpack 5 using the Kodak Tri-X emulation.

Update: Here are some examples of gorgeous round barns in Indiana:

https://blog.jimgrey.net/2021/04/15/the-round-barns-of-fulton-county-indiana/

Travels on the Mother Road, Route 66: Part 20, west-central Oklahoma

Dear Readers, after several interruptions for other photographic projects, it is time to continue east on our Mother Road trek. After all those interesting sites in Texas, we finally reach Oklahoma. Many people think of Oklahoma when they hear the term "Route 66," probably because of old movies and the architecture of the many classic motor courts, drive-in restaurants, and gas stations that once served travelers.

Canute

One of the first Route 66 towns in western Oklahoma is Canute, named after "Cnut the Great," King of Denmark, Norway, and England (1016 - 1035). I am not sure how a small town on the prairie came to be named after a Viking, but anthropologists do have evidence that Vikings reached North America, so it is a appropriately noble name. Did they drive on Route 66? Regardless, Route 66 was routed through town in 1926, bringing some degree of prosperity as travelers patronized restaurants and motor courts.

Waiting patiently for the photographer to finish in Canute.

El Reno

Southern Manor, 319 S. Grand Ave, El Reno, OK.

Gallagher's Pub, W. Wade Street, El Reno, OK.

El Reno looked pretty rough to me. It is a historic town at the junction of Route 66 and the old Chisolm Trail. The Southern Manor on Grand Avenue was near the Rock Island Depot and was once a businessman's hotel. As of 2017, it was being used as a residence for elderly. They were in the process of moving out pending renovations. My Route 66 Adventure Handbook claims that El Reno is widely considered the home of the onion burger. OK.....

The Hotel El Reno Hotel is supposed to be the oldest surviving commercial building in the city. It was built in 1892 at 300 South Choctaw, then the city's business district. It operated as a hotel until 1975, when it closed and deteriorated. In 1984, the Canadian County Historic Society moved the building to its present location near the Rock Island Depot. Notice how much this modest frame building looks like the Gallagher's Pub in the photograph above.

Oklahoma City

Oklahoma City is the state capital and is a major metropolitan area. I did not take any pictures in town for several reasons. First, the car thermometer was showing 38° C, or 100° F, and I was lethargic and uninspired. Second, I did not see much Route 66 architecture or memorabilia, although there must be some scattered along the original route. The state capitol has producing oil wells on the capital grounds. The first automatic parking meters were invented and installed here in 1935. The city has an Arts District and a Bricktown, so someday I need to return and explore properly.

Most photographs are from a Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera, with most raw files opened in Adobe Photoshop Elements and converted to black and white with DxO FilmPack 5. Photographs 2 and 3 in Canute are from Kodak BW400CN film shot with an Olympus Trip 35 compact camera, with polarizer filter to darken the sky.

Romanian Railroads 1: Curtea de Argeș (Romania 2018-01)

Red circle shows Curtea de Argeş, Romania, from ESRI ArcGIS online (click map to enlarge).

Curtea de Argeș is a charming city in south central Romania. It is on the left bank of the Argeş River, which flows southward out of the Carpathian Mountains. The town is near the southern end of the famous Transfăgărășan Highway, Route 7c, which was featured in a Top Gear episode. The town is at the end of a rail line from Pitești.

My wife and I were on the main road heading out of town and passed by the old railroad station. Quick stop - places like this are too good to resist. The first thing I noticed was the unusual dual towers with arched windows, almost resembling Moorish architecture. Also, the facade of the station was covered with a tarp on which windows has been painted or printed. I assume the plaster was failing and the tarps covered the poor surface.

The track side of the station is also covered with tarps. The tracks are in fair condition but rusting. If there had once been rain sheds along the tracks, they are gone now.

The Romania 100 printed on the tarp refers to 100 hundred years of Romanian independence. Does this refer to the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918? Romania had a complicated history and was only free of Ottoman (yes, Ottoman) rule in the 1870s. But Transylvania was controlled by the Austro-Hungarian empire. My guess is that this rail line and station were built in the late 19th century, when the empire engaged in a comprehensive rail construction project, like other countries in Europe and North America.

The waiting hall was clean and intact. This is a classic European rail station, and I am glad a preservation effort is underway.

Digital images from a Moto G5plus phone (sorry, no film photographs this time).

Vicksburg's Seale-Lily Ice Cream Parlor and Tire Emporium (B&W film)

Tri-State Tire, at 2209 Washington Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi, occupies an unusual old shop with decorated pillars and big plate glass windows. This was a former Seale-Lily ice cream parlor. Preservation Mississippi has written about Seale-Lily stores in Jackson, but I found little information about a Vicksburg store. In 1943, a cash prize winner filed a lawsuit because he claimed that the Seale-Lily Vicksburg store did not award him the prize. The summary of the lawsuit did confirm the address of 2209 Washington Street. I buy tires at Tri-State, and my friends there generously let me take some photographs when my tires were being replaced. One of them said the Seale parlor closed in 1958 or 1959.

2209 Washington Street, Vicksburg, MS

View of Washington Street looking north.

I am not sure what this style of architecture is called. The arches have a vaguely Mediterranean  appearance, but the tiles along the roof facing give it a Southwestern look. As you can see, the glass windows once went to the top of the arched frames but were changed some time in the past. Tri-State has been here since the 1980s, and before that, a tire re-capping business occupied the premises.

The building was decorated with medallions and a checked pattern on the facade. The current owners have recently painted. I wish they could return to the original round-top windows.

These are ½ sec. exposures taken with my 24mm Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lens. I placed the camera on a shelf or beam and set the self-timer to eliminate vibration. As you can see, the fluorescent lights create some odd blooming. Still, I am pleased with this 1970s lens and am surprised how much detail the film recorded in the black tires.

The tire technicians told me that many years ago, there was a tall stainless steel tank in the middle of the room where the tire racks are located. I assume the Seale operation made ice cream in it.

I think they really do not want customers to wander around in the shop.... (Photographers exempted?)

This is the former Coca Cola bottling factory at 2133 Washington Street, about a half block north of Tri-State Tires. The 1938-vintage building has been leased by several users since Coca Cola vacated the premises about 20 years ago. The current tenant (or owner) sells furniture and gift items now.

All photographs are from March 6, 2018, taken on Kodak Tmax 100 film with a 1971 Pentax Spotmatic camera. The sepia image is from a Moto G5 mobile phone.