You may be asking, why only shoot B&W? Shooting in monochrome does have its advantages - it exaggerates tone, mood, texture and light. And to a lot of people it lends a more classic, timeless feel to images. Other advantages include less noticable chromatic abberations and garish colour clash is muted.
Scientifically, having a dedicated monochrome sensor means that there is no red (R), green (G) and blue (B) colour filters - so the image doesn’t need to be de-mosaiced. If you are using a normal colour sensor to compose a monochrome image, colour sensors must convert colour data into monochromatic data by interpolating the obtained colour data while using adjacent areas of the image field as a reference.
This also means that the photographer can create extra-fine monochromatic images high in resolution and rich in gradation. And that pesky high ISO colour noise is negated as you now perceive it as ‘grain’.
The Pentax K3III Monochrome has a 25.7MP 1.5x cropped sensor with image stabilisation. Interestingly, the lack of colour filters reportedly means the sensor is more sensitive (by one stop) than the colour version of this camera - the Pentax K3III.
The camera is being released in Australia on 9th of June 2023 for a recommended retail price of $3,499.
Read more about the Pentax K3III Monochrome on the Ricoh website.
Or watch this great review by Niels Kemp below.