With New Pentax SLR, Ricoh Targets Market Previously Dominated by Leica

In the film era, photographers would need make a decision about what type of photos they’d make when loading a camera. Color and black-and-white film called for different approaches to composition and exposure. In the digital era, ready access to Raw processing has moved that decision-making process to the editing room, with exceptions. The Pentax K-3 Mark III Monochrome, announced today by Ricoh Imaging, is one of those exceptions.

Pentax Goes Black-and-White

The K-3 Mark III is the first SLR we’ve seen with a 5-axis stabilized monochrome sensor, but it’s not an entirely new concept. Leica kicked off the black-and-white digital craze with its M Monochrom rangefinder way back in 2012, and sells the M10 Monochrom today, while medium format camera maker Phase One has a 150MP Achromatic back for its IQ4 system.

(Credit: Ricoh Imaging)

Leica and Phase are notoriously expensive brands, however, and while Pentax cameras aren’t quite as budget-friendly as they were in the K10D era, they don’t call for a second mortgage. The standard K-3 Mark III is positioned around $2,000 as a body only, and at $2,199.95 the Monochrome edition is priced to own.

We’ve not yet tried Pentax’s version, but it follows the same concept as others. Digital image sensors start out as black-and-white, they don’t get the ability to “see” color until a Bayer RGB filter is added. It’s a design choice that cuts out some resolution—the RGB overlay means the camera can’t see every color at every pixel site, so interpolation fills in some missing gaps. With a monochrome sensor, light is captured at every pixel site, for pictures with richer tones and texture.

(Credit: Ricoh Imaging)

Black-and-white sensors also gather about twice the light as color counterparts, and don’t show any sort of chroma noise, for exceptional picture quality in low light. There are reasons for photographers to trade away the option to make color photos. On the flip side, you’ll need to go back to using glass filters for color balance, and a higher ISO floor calls for neutral density filters. The K-3 Mark III’s 26MP sensor ranges ISO 200 up to a staggering ISO 1600000.

Understated Exterior

Aside from the change to the sensor, and corresponding changes to the image processing engine, the K-3 Mark III promises performance very much in line the regular version. You can enjoy some creature comforts you don’t get with a Leica Monochrom, like autofocus, and sports the same all-weather, magnesium alloy body.

(Credit: Ricoh Imaging)

The exterior has some aesthetic changes, however, including swapping out the green backlight for its top info display for a white one, and using silver and gray typefaces instead of ones showing color. Monochrome is printed above the LCD as well.

Ricoh expects the K-3 Mark III Monochrome to be in stores later this month as a body only, at the aforementioned $2,199.95 body only price. In this cases, lenses are all sold separately, and we expect many to pick Pentax Limited primes. We hope to follow up with a review to see how its monochrome sensor compares with its peers.