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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’.

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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.