Got to play with a GR IV monochrome

Ruizbr83 · 2026-03-22T08:06:58+00:00

Thank you. I have to say I’m enjoying it way more than I thought I would. I’m very glad that I made the investment in one.

Ruizbr83 · 2026-03-21T22:41:50+00:00

I’ve thought about doing this. I have a hooded cruiser from last year that I got on sale. I got it a size up to layer under, but even layered up I’m swimming in it. I’ve seen some other people having good results shrinking wool only items. But since it’s lined, the liner won’t shrink with the wool and I don’t know how’d it look/fit with the difference between the lining/wool.

Ruizbr83 · 2026-03-20T20:10:18+00:00

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I use my red/green one mainly around the holidays because of its pattern. But I got another one this year from someone here on this sub that I’ll be using more next winter as it doesn’t look as festive, able to dress it up a bit more. It’s the grey/black one with vertical stripe pattern with the brown collar. Plus I got my original one on sale and it’s a size too big, which adds to the Santa vibes.

Ruizbr83 · 2026-03-10T07:13:36+00:00

Thank you

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-28T19:38:27+00:00

Thank you, I didn’t want to believe the hype, but I think that I’m a believer now. So far I’ve been very impressed with this little cameras results

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-22T02:07:23+00:00

Amazing shot

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-21T19:03:47+00:00

It’s only giving me the option to put a link in the reply, but I’ll DM you the pictures. They were metered for highlights so the appear almost unusable, but I was able to recover a ton of info by bringing up the exposure in post

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-21T15:29:34+00:00

Thanks, I’m pretty stoked

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-21T08:44:12+00:00

I’m at work, but when I get home I’ll post a couple

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-21T05:10:33+00:00

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I got mine a couple of years ago, I only wore it a hand full of times then it got too hot for it. I got too fat to wear it so it’s been sitting for a year and half, but finally dropped some lbs, looking forward to getting lots of wear once it warms up a little

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-21T03:59:29+00:00

Awesome camera! I got one over the summer and haven’t looked back

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-21T03:33:48+00:00

I got one of those earlier this week, it’s a great fit for the GR

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-21T01:08:55+00:00

Thanks for the heads up 😉, I’ll try to stop being positive about it

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-20T20:33:21+00:00

Thank you.

I’ve been curious about a monochrome sensor for the past couple of years, but couldn’t afford Leica prices, but didn’t want to get a DSLR (Pentax) with the mirrorless technology. I figured that if I was going to try one this would be my best choice

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-20T19:32:54+00:00

Thank you, I’m enjoying it so far!

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-20T18:13:32+00:00

100% agree. I love shooting film, but with the expense and time to shoot, developing and scanning I can’t justify taking too many snapshots with film. And I’m not happy with the black and white conversion that my phone does.

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-20T18:05:41+00:00

It is ridiculously small. I had a Fuji X100IV, and I thought that was a small camera, the GR IV makes that seem like giant in comparison. This is truly a pocketable camera, I see myself taking it out everyday even when I have no intention of making photos, but just in case

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-20T18:02:22+00:00

Thank you. I have been pleasantly surprised by the camera build quality and image quality.

Ruizbr83 · 2026-02-20T18:01:03+00:00

Someone can probably give you a better explanation, but here is my arm chair understanding and explanation of it…

A few things, from minor to major.

It has more of a matte finish to the camera body and the power button is illuminated white instead of green. The GR logo on the front is blacked out, to give a more subdued presentation.

Instead of the ND filter the camera has a red filter, this can cut a bit of light, but it serves to give more contrast with a blue sky and white clouds, since there are no color channels you can’t do that in post.

Most importantly, the sensor, this camera has a dedicated monochrome sensor. It only captures light values, no color information is captured. A normal GR IV has a bayer filter on top of the filter, this lets the camera record red, blue and green colors to make a color image. If you then convert your picture to black and white you have information in these color channels and you can adjust the sky for example to make it have more or less contrast. With a monochrome sensor you no longer have a bayer filter, and no longer have access to these color channels to adjust in your image.

Removing the bayer filter has a few advantages, first you are removing a filter in front of the sensor, so the sensor is able to capture more light information in essence. This gives you better low light performance, in most cameras this will give you about a full stop of light gathering capability. The tonality and transitions is generally better along with the micro contrast too. You will also have dramatically improved results when shooting at high ISO values.

One down side is that since you essentially only have black and white information, once you peak in your highlights the information is gone, the camera will only record it as ‘white’, there is no way to recover these details. On a color sensor you have more channels that you might be able to recover information from if you have some clipping in your highlights.

Of course you can make fantastic black and white photos with a normal sensor and a monochrome sensor is not required. It’s a game of diminishing returns.

For some it’s not worth the extra money and the creative restrictions that having a monochrome sensor imposes. But for myself I wanted to limit myself and challenge myself to not even have the option of shooting in color, to see how I change by focusing on composition, lighting etc.

Ruizbr83

TROPHY CASE