Inflection point.

Monochrome is a vision.

A way of seeing — chosen before the frame.

Light & form

Built of light.

The line it draws, the shapes it carves, the tones in between.

Workers on a ladder amid dark scaffolding — Work, framed in steel.

Scaffolding

A capitol dome seen through a rain-streaked window — A monument, dissolving.

Behind the rain

Form

Rhythm, before color.

An elderly woman writing in a Paris café — A letter, over coffee.

Café · Paris

A rainy night staircase, figures climbing — Climbing, in the rain.

Night · Lyon

A misty alley of trees — Where light diffuses into tones.

An allée, in fog

Contrast

Where light meets shadow.

Rounded stones set in clear ice — Texture you can almost touch.

Ice & stone

A man in sunglasses walking beneath a bright handrail

See beyond color

A single line of light.

Monochrome is the purest form of photography — painting with light.

The science

Look closer.

A color sensor that captures a true black-and-white negative — it sounds like a contradiction. Here's what's happening inside the camera.

The Bayer mosaic filters the light for red, green or blue, forming a latent gray checkerboard image. Complex algorithms later recombine this into a full color image.

From the frequency curves of the Bayer matrix, Pixii recreates the response signal of the monochrome sensor that sits below the color filter.

How it works

The Pixii magic
of Monochrome.

Sensors are born monochrome.

Each pixel does one thing — count the quantity of light reaching it. At the silicon level, the world is already shades of gray.

Color is a software construct.

The inverse equation.

A true monochrome negative.

The result is a genuine black-and-white RAW file: full dynamic range in a single plane of values, up to 16 bits deep.

Technical details

Digital Negative format.
Single monochromatic pixel plane.
12, 14 or 16 bits per pixel.
Tone-curve-guided pixel response.
Flat storage, packed or lossless compression.

Raw sensor values.

Our unique — patented — algorithm computes the RAW monochrome sensor values. We measure the influence of the Bayer filter to find the actual quantity of light received by each pixel. This restores the whole tonal range of intensities recorded into a single monochromatic plane.

More than

65000

intensity levels

Up to

96dB

dynamic range

High-fidelity recording.

Conventional B&W modes found in other cameras apply a film effect to an 8-bit JPEG file. The loss of dynamic range and detail is significant. Pixii preserves the whole post-processing latitude, with up to 16-bit precision, inside a standard, open-format DNG file.

B&W JPEG

Mono DNG

Sensor

Natural tone rendering.

To facilitate post-processing, we add a natural film-like tone curve embedded in the DNG container. This doesn't alter the RAW values in any way and can be fully adjusted during the editing phase.

Film-like

Profile

Adobe Camera Raw
supported

High-performance sensors.

Our image sensors deliver remarkable image quality. Their pixel technology make it a particularly good fit for our native monochrome mode. They render a smooth gradation of tones, preserve highlights and can resolve fine details in deep shadows. With a high-end BSI CMOS architecture, high dynamic range and ultra-low noise, they are the best on the market. DXOMARK confirmed their excellent performance, achieving a #1 ranking for Pixii Plus, far ahead of legacy rangefinder cameras with a full-frame sensor. Learn more about our DXOMARK score.

Up to

51Ke-

Full Well Capacity

As low as

0.83e-

read noise

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Choosing monochrome

Can I still shoot in color with the same camera?

Yes. Monochrome is a mode you switch on — turn it off and the very same sensor captures full color again. One camera, two ways of seeing, frame by frame.

Why shoot monochrome in-camera instead of converting a color file later?

Because you get a genuine RAW negative, not a converted picture. Pixii reconstructs the true response of the sensor and writes it as a single monochrome plane with up to 16 bits of latitude — the full tonal range to work with afterwards. And shooting mono is a creative commitment: you compose for light, shadow and form from the first frame.

The file and your workflow

Compared to a dedicated B&W camera

A photographer's shadow on a sunlit terrace

Monochrome is a decision.

Explore your vision of the world. It's waiting for you.

Buy Pixii

Performances: metrics according to DXOMARK and our internal lab tests, results may vary depending on the lens type and calibration accuracy.
Photo credits: We are grateful to the photographers sharing their work with us and with the community. Product photos: © Stéphane Dondicol.