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M8 Beginner Tips

leicanooob

By leicanooob
in Leica M8 / Leica M8.2

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leicanooob

leicanooob

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Hi All,

 

I have been thinking about purchasing a Leica for almost ten years and i finally purchased a Leica M8. I prefer to have fun and shoot creative photos - worry less about the technical details of photography. My lens is a Voigtlander 35mm - f / 1.4. I was hoping you ladies and gentlemen would be so kind as to share some great beginner tips for Leica ownership and basic tips for better photography with an M8. Also, what would be another good lens to own that would not overlap my current lens?

 

 

Thank you in advance your your help and as I travel down my path to knowledge I will surely do the same! Cheers everybody

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Loren

Loren

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Hi All,

 

I have been thinking about purchasing a Leica for almost ten years and i finally purchased a Leica M8. I prefer to have fun and shoot creative photos - worry less about the technical details of photography. My lens is a Voigtlander 35mm - f / 1.4. I was hoping you ladies and gentlemen would be so kind as to share some great beginner tips for Leica ownership and basic tips for better photography with an M8. Also, what would be another good lens to own that would not overlap my current lens?

 

 

Thank you in advance your your help and as I travel down my path to knowledge I will surely do the same! Cheers everybody

 

Practice.

 

Rangefinders are not a complex science like quantum physics.

 

However, you may want to take notes as you shoot so you can see what works and why when comparing the shot to the note you took.

 

Also, I tend to make a habit of turning the focus on the lens to infinity after taking a shot (unless I am going to take another shot at the same focal distance).

 

Parking the focus at infinity will give you a known starting position when you go to compose. You will know what direction you will have to turn the focus and this will help reduce focus acquisition time and hunting to get the shot nailed.

 

After some time you will also get a feel as to how far to turn it to acquire focus if you start from a consistent position.

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Loren

Loren

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what is hyperfocal focussing? I might be doing it and not even knowing :)

 

Online Depth of Field Calculator

 

Basically, sensor size, aperture, and lens size determine the depth of field for a given picture.

 

The optimal point where to focus is not always the subject. For instance, for landscapes where you want maximum depth of field to capture both near and objects at infinity, focusing at infinity is the wrong thing to do. However, it is a common mistake many do.

 

The reason is that focusing at infinity requires you to stop the camera down much further than you really need and of all cameras that are penalized for low light, the M8 suffers badly.

 

Experiment with the calculator I linked above to see what happens. There are also version you can download for your phone.

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wda

wda

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Aim to buy a coded Leica lens as soon as practicable.

Remember the crop factor when choosing focal lengths.

Remember UV/Ir filter for improved colour correction, freely available used.

Practise focusing and framing - often.

Explore and use User Presets to help with consistency.

Read FAQs on this forum. Lots of useful tips there.

Enjoy it. The M8 is still a great camera.

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leicanooob

leicanooob

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thanks for all the tips so far - i'm working hard to get there and enjoying shooting again for the first time. imo the biggest advantage of the leica is the size of the camera. going out w/ a rocket launcher around your neck doesn't allow you to enjoy yourself and be there. plus the camera is very unassuming and creates better facial shots! please add more as i really do check every day!!!

:)

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Freddddan

Freddddan

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Maybe a 50mm Nokton 1,5 would be a suggestion. Nice for portraits on the M8. Or the Elmar-c 90mm. I like mine very much because it is so compact, light and cheap, but still performs well. As a wide angle you might consider the super wide Heliar 15mm which makes a very good 21mm equivalent on the M9. You need an extra Viewfinder for that lens. But if you stop it down it is very sharp, very little falloff and no color shifts in the corners!

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Lenny49

Lenny49

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Hi All,

 

I have been thinking about purchasing a Leica for almost ten years and i finally purchased a Leica M8. I prefer to have fun and shoot creative photos - worry less about the technical details of photography. My lens is a Voigtlander 35mm - f / 1.4. I was hoping you ladies and gentlemen would be so kind as to share some great beginner tips for Leica ownership and basic tips for better photography with an M8. Also, what would be another good lens to own that would not overlap my current lens?

 

 

Thank you in advance your your help and as I travel down my path to knowledge I will surely do the same! Cheers everybody

 

Hi just bought one too with the same lens,im just a beginner as well how is it going?

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T44ISKN

T44ISKN

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I've only recently bought a M8.2 and am enjoying getting to know it with a 28 2.8 Asph and a VC 40mm 1.4. With the 1.33x crop, this gives me the 35mm and 50mm equivalents that I enjoy. I've successfully managed to file the mount of the VC to bring up the 35mm frame lines and hand coded it as a 35 1.4. Works a treat for vignette correction! The high ISO performance is definitely nowhere near that of the Fuji X series, but there is a lot of detail lurking in that noise (I am aware of Arvid's work with raw files). Enjoy!

Edited by T44ISKN
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Loren

Loren

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Hi All,

 

I have been thinking about purchasing a Leica for almost ten years and i finally purchased a Leica M8. I prefer to have fun and shoot creative photos - worry less about the technical details of photography. My lens is a Voigtlander 35mm - f / 1.4. I was hoping you ladies and gentlemen would be so kind as to share some great beginner tips for Leica ownership and basic tips for better photography with an M8. Also, what would be another good lens to own that would not overlap my current lens?

 

 

Thank you in advance your your help and as I travel down my path to knowledge I will surely do the same! Cheers everybody

 

Always make sure the lens cap is off before you shoot.

 

Don't ask me how I know...

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