M8 and RD-1 First Impressions (giddy, lengthy)

[Ben Marks]

The following is an edited version of an RFF post of earlier today. Thought it might be of interest in this forum.

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I am a current owner of an Epson RD-1 and a new owner of a Leica M8, now for a little less than a week. Take the following comments with a grain of salt as I am really enjoying the M8. I am trying to decide whether to keep the RD-1 now that I have the M8. It is interesting -- the cameras seem to do well with different lenses. Acceptable focusing accuracy (and by this I mean - don't need to fiddle - just focus and shoot) is as follows.

M8 - 50/35/75/90 Summicrons, Noctilux, 75 Lux, 50 Asph, 50 Summitar
RD-1 50/35 Summicrons, 40 Nocton, 50 Asph, 50 DR, CV 28/1.9

Back/front focus with M8 (preliminary): CV 28/1.9, 135/2.8 (w/goggles), 50 Summarit, Canon 50/1.5 (screw mount)

Both cameras like a J-8 with an adapter. Oddly the M8 doesn't seem to like the 40 Nocton wide open, jury is still out on the CV 35/1.2. The CV 15 is a blast on the M8, as it behaves like a true wide. I will be taking the 24 Asph out into the streets at lunchtime and see what's up there on the M8. The 50 Summitar is just plain fabulous on the M8. M8 won't mount the Dual Range Summicron -- or rather it mounts but won't focus; in contrast my RD-1 just loves this lens - bang on focus and a really nice look. My RD-1 just won't get along with the 75 Cron, the 75 Lux, the Noctilux, the 135/2.8 - these lenses really challange the rangefinder baselength of the RD-1 and I can work with them, but only by calculating focus error and then trying to compensate in the VF with a static subject -- not really RF photography at its best.

I have been using the M8 with the 1.25 multiplier permanently attached. It does very well in low light with fast lenses. I have some good low-light pix with the RD-1 and the Noctilux, but my image-to-image ability to focus is hit and miss. The biggest difference in how it feels to shoot with the cameras, for me, has to do with the larger buffer size of the M8; I really appreciate the 10 image buffer on the Leica in comparison with the RD-1's 3 picture limit.

M8 at its best (ISO 160, steady support) is capable of image quality I once could only get by moving up a negative size or two from 35mm (think Hassie with 400 speed film). I really feel like I have moved up a level in terms of what my Leica glass can do. At higher ISOs I might go with the RD-1 -- I am still feeling my way with regards to noise suppression software on both cameras. Very preliminarily, my feeling is that RD-1 at 800 is equal to or better than M8 at 640, but the jury is really still out on this.

Build quality -- too early to tell really. I have an M2 and two M3's and a couple of Rolleiflexes as well as some early Nikons -- now those have build quality that has been proven by 40-50 years of service. Will either of these digital cameras (M8/RD-1) be clicking away in 50 years? I laugh at the thought of it, given the technological cul-de-sac we seem to be charging down pell-mell with digital. It is frickin' insane to think that today's digital cameras with their short product cycles, dependence on odd-shaped specialty batteries and specialty software, LCDs and tiny flat panels and image file compatibilty/grandfathering issues will have anything like the durability of manual cameras machined from brass. Of course, you need something to load into the M2, and blah-blah-blah. Rant off. Build quality on the M8 _feels_ superior to the RD-1, but neither of these babies is a Canon A-1, a Nikon F3 or an M3, if you get my drift.

Battery life seems marginally better on the M8 than on the RD-1.

Overall, image quality nod goes to the M8, but it is evolutionary rather than revolutionary in the move from 6 to 10 MP, particularly at an 8x10 print size. Note that I tend to use the higher ISO as a default and noise from the sensors may be obscuring real differences in terms of ability to blow up images to poster-size.

I should also add that the metering on the M8 seems pretty good based on in-camera histograms and double-checking in PS "Levels". My RD-1 has a 2/3 stop underexposure bias when set to auto. Odd, that.

RF patch in the RD-1 is tilted off of square a couple of degrees in the VF. M8 VF is of comparable quality to M7, M6 etc. Leica really knows what they are doing in terms of bright, contrasty viewfinders. With the RD-1 and a 50, I have learned that I need to bump the top of the subject's head right up against the top frame line (or even clip a little hair) to have the subject appropriately placed in the actual frame. No such issue with the M8. Also: I rather like the quality of the files (16-bit TIFFs) from Epson's native RAW conversion software. I have not bothered to load the software that came with the M8, trusting to either C1 LE (still a bit of a mystery . . . where do those processed files go, actually? Sometimes, I can't find 'em - user error, no doubt) or Adobe Camera RAW.

Shutter noise - same-same, but different. RD-1 is more plastic-y/spring-y; M8 is more motor-y.

IR issue - I don't get it. At least not yet. Last night, just on a lark, I took a close-up picture of chicken cooking on a black gas-grill. Absolutely brimming with IR (or at least it should be- I could feel the heat on my face). No purples. Hmm. Guess I'll have to track down someone who is dressed in shiny black nylon to see if I can get a case of the purples.

So to conclude: deliriously happy with the purchase of the M8; but having said that, the M8 and RD-1 seem to compliment rather than compete with each other. I wish I understood the RF compatibility issues in a way that made sense. Which lens works best on which camera seems a bit random. (50/1.4, 40/1.4 work great on my RD-1 when wide open; 40/1.4 has yet to blow me away on the M8 -- does this make sense?)

Oh: and on my one quick grab shot of my sunset-drenched back yard, I noticed no particular light falloff issues with the CV 15. Hmm. No lens detection, no coding, no IR cut filters. Actually considering a set of IR-pass filters. . . any recommendations?

Giddily,

Ben Marks

[Chuck Hatcher]

Originally Posted by Ben Marks

...Will either of these digital cameras (M8/RD-1) be clicking away in 50 years? I laugh at the thought of it...

I'm sure my M8 won't be working when it is as old as some cameras I have used, but the older I get, the less I worry about such things!

Originally Posted by Ben Marks

...No purples. Hmm. Guess I'll have to track down someone who is dressed in shiny black nylon to see if I can get a case of the purples...

No need to look for the purples - they will find you. They pop up unexpectedly and are by no means limited to black synthetics in artificial light. I have a chair in my living room upholstered in a fairly light shade of blue, and it turns purple in daylight from a window. By and large it hasn't been any trouble for me, all the colors look great and 99% of them are even correct...

Originally Posted by Ben Marks

...So to conclude: deliriously happy with the purchase of the M8...

Me, too.

[sean_reid]

Hi Ben!

Just a quick point to consider: The M8 is 1/3 stop more sensitive than rated so:

M8 160 and R-D1 200 both equal true ISO 200....etc.

Best,

Sean

[sdai]

Sean, do you have any insight why Leica considers this particular CCD in M8 performs best at ISO160 while almost all other Kodak sensors have 100 rated as their base ISO?

[sean_reid]

Originally Posted by sdai

Sean, do you have any insight why Leica considers this particular CCD in M8 performs best at ISO160 while almost all other Kodak sensors have 100 rated as their base ISO?

Yes, I actually talked about this in my first or second M8 review. Leica's explanation to me, last summer, was essentially as follows. Increasing ISO is done by an amplification (in a sense) of the sensor level at base ISO. (The engineers here can likely be more precise.) The lower the base (true) ISO level of a sensor, the more it needs to be boosted to reach higher ISO levels. So, for example, an ISO 100 sensor needs to be boosted more to reach ISO 400 than an ISO 200 sensor does to reach the same level. So, they were shooting for a base sensitivity level that would provide low noise (at that base level) but also less increase in noise with increasing ISO. I wouldn't be surprised if Nikon works from the same theory.

Cheers,

Sean

[Ben Marks]

A clear indication of too much time on my hands: So last night I put the M8 at ISO 160 on a tripod with a CV 35/1.2 wide open RAW with no filters and no coding and in a dark room took a 24 second exposure of my fired-up Vermont Castings cast iron wood stove, which had a surface temperature of 800 F. Nothing. Repeated at ISO 2500. Still nothing, other than the barely visable outlines of the stove and the chrome handle on the front door (this was from ambient room light). No magenta cast at all. I was certain that the stove would be emitting IR at this temperature (at around 1000 F, iron begins to glow in the visable spectrum, I understand) -- but it must be on the wrong wavelength for the M8's sensor to register. At this point, I am simply going to put IR issue in the back of my mind and just shoot pictures.

Here's a question. What recommendations for an IR-pass filter for a nice outdoor IR effect? Any suggestions? Still having a blast with this machine.

Ben

[jaapv]

Originally Posted by Ben Marks

Here's a question. What recommendations for an IR-pass filter for a nice outdoor IR effect? Any suggestions? Still having a blast with this machine.

Ben

B&W 092. But use it on an old, simple lens. IR with modern asph's and things is not very good. I find my Summaron 3.5/3.5 cm goggled ideal.