[sean_reid]

I agree that this is indeed related to lens contrast, exposure and to the 8-bit DNG (which I'm not completely in favor of). The solution that many of us have come to is working with lower contrast lenses which tend to tame the contrast scale a bit.

The M8 does have some headroom in the highlights (sometimes a stop or so across all three color channels) but once that is blown it is really blown.

Daniel,

In another recent thread you wrote:

"I think it is funny how much people cry about more dynamic range, it is not making their images look any better, if anything, they look drab and boring like those terrible HDR landscapes I see."

Well, those dynamic range limitations are exactly what you're running into with these samples. And, even on film, many of the recent Leica Aspherical lenses tend to run "hot' in the highlights. So too with the ZM lenses.

So, three things can help:

Now: Lower contrast lenses
Future from Leica: 16-bit DNG
Future from Leica: broader dynamic range from the sensor/processor/etc.

As I've been saying for three years now, max contrast lenses are not always the ticket for digital capture.

Also...I haven't seen your originals, Daniel, but you may also be running into moire or something much like it. That can be the price of having the detail that comes with no AA filter.