#photography nerditry:
Is it worth using a monochrome sensor for making digital B&W photos?
TL;DR: Sometimes, but the benefits are relatively limited and may not outweigh the cost and hassle.
I make mostly B&W photos, at least in my fine art photography practice. I’m fortunate to have both the color and achromatic (B&W) versions of the sensor I use in my main camera system, but I usually (about 80% of the time) use the color sensor and convert to B&W in post processing.
The tradeoffs:
1/
Also, another practical disadvantage of achromatic sensors: there are hardly any cameras on the market that have them, and those that do are generally at the high end of the price scale. Phase One and Lecia have achromatic versions, and maybe a few others. And you typically pay *more* for the privilege of not getting the Bayer and IR filters (because the achromatic versions are much more a specialty product).
As always, use whatever tools work for you.
@mattblaze@federate.social Thanks for this explanation. Your conclusions map pretty well onto the choice of monaural or stereo cartridges for playing 78s: the “proper” solution (e.g. Denon DL-102) is expensive and obtains only a very marginal benefit.