Is there something you're not telling us? Something about your
'smiley' at the end of the post makes me think you're holding on to a vital clue. ...
The M8 image looks almost to have been post-processed for an oil-painted appearance. There is definitely something wrong with it.
You manually focussed the Wista (obviously) and the Canon. Could it be that your 1.25x magnifier on the M8 is the gremlin in the works? Or was it the case that by the time you'd set up the third camera the cliff was eroding beneath your tripod's feet?