I took a walk with my "defective" M8

[Woody Campbell]

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So I took a walk yesterday morning with my newly-arrived "defective" v1.06 M8.

 

75 mm chron

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500 images later this thing appears to be senational. No chromatic aberration. No purple fringing. No fuzzy corners. No red channel clipping in tungsten. No searching autofocus. No low radius USM to compensate for the AA filter. No high radius USM to compensate for poor local constrast. No sample variation on lenses.

 

Thanks to Tony at Popflash for getting this to me.

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[MarkM6]

Perhaps, Leica will say

B&W Only,

Shots must be taken between sun up and sun down (check your local weather for exact times)

 

...in a few month?

[nielsb]

Why will any body would to use autofocus for this foto?

Dude,

What's wrong with you? It seems that every other post you make is, if not an outright insult, at least a veiled insult.

Niels

[Riley]

Dude,

What's wrong with you? It seems that every other post you make is, if not an outright insult, at least a veiled insult.

Niels

 

sometimes people feel that their little world is threatened

im judging this fellow to have made an investment in another makers equipment

and has based his otherwise low self esteme upon it (and therefore himself) to be the best

in order to maintain his status quo, anything that challenges that view must be ridiculed and insulted

[Woody Campbell]

Why will any body would to use autofocus for this foto?

Well ok, let's forget autofocus for this image. We should also drop "red channel clipping in tungsten" for this one. That leaves us with no chromatic aberration, no purple fringing, no fuzzy corners, no low radius USM to compensate for the AA filter, no high radius USM to compensate for poor local constrast, and no sample variation on lenses. I didn't mention, but should add, dead on rectilinear, no vignetting, nice dynamic range, surprisingly accurate exposure metering and good menu system. Still not bad.

 

I'm not a Leica booster - I've shot primarily Canon for years. As a RF the M8 is a poor choice if you need long glass and isn't great for shooting action. And of course Leica needs to sort out the high ISO issue.

[Riley]

M Leica for many years is called no good for landscapture because unaccurate viewfinder, however best one in world for foto of people in dark place. Now all sudden M8 is look like good only for landscapture and no good in dark place from noise. Why is people exchange mind just because M8 is bat high ISO?

 

anyone who thinks a rangefinder camera is no good for landscapes has either been smoking his own products too long or doesnt know a damn about what hes talking about. rangefinders, being lightweight and wide angle oriented are perfected for use with hikers and the like. what reticent nonsence to ambiguously discredit a camera without the clear knowledge of how to use it

[MarkM6]

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M Leica for many years is called no good for landscapture because unaccurate viewfinder, however best one in world for foto of people in dark place. Now all sudden M8 is look like good only for landscapture and no good in dark place from noise. Why is people exchange mind just because M8 is bat high ISO?

 

I didn't dare saying that since my experience doesn't go back further than 8 years on a Rangefinder. But I believe you are correct.

 

Also, the Leica M used to be a minimalist's camera. Time has changed but I never would have wanted some of those changes due to the shortcomings of M8 [but I am hopeful that it will get better over 1-2 years].

 

One reason why a lot of people put up with the M8 as it is, may be that they are so desperate in having a Digital Leica M for their collection of lenses over the years; nothing wrong with that.

 

I just have a problem when people push the boundaries to make excuses.

[KM-25]

anyone who thinks a rangefinder camera is no good for landscapes has either been smoking his own products too long or doesnt know a damn about what hes talking about. rangefinders, being lightweight and wide angle oriented are perfected for use with hikers and the like. what reticent nonsence to ambiguously discredit a camera without the clear knowledge of how to use it

 

I use mine for lanscapes fine. Afterall, the only reason I own Leica is for the optics. Shooting my M6 on a gyro with fast aspherics for aerial landscapes is a blast.

 

They also have the best hyperfocal distance charts.

[cnguyen]

Nice pic Woody - thanks for a positive ad. I'm still waiting for my chrome M8 on order. getting real tired of all the M8 whinings.

[george +]

Woody, I share your sentiments. My M8 works just fine and, other than the odd purple - which I can correct, there seem to be no problems.

 

And I share your enthusiasm for not having to put up with autofocus inaccuracies.

 

Now for Magyarman: ajánlom vegyen egy pár angol órát és kicsit legyen udvariasabb. Itt az divat. KKÜK.

[sdh]

Actually the Leica was developed as a sort of landscape camera. The story goes that Oscar Barnack was an inveterate hiker, but because of bad lungs, couldn't schlep the heavy big plate cameras of the time. Since then , a lot of great landscape shots have been made with the Leica.

 

Regards - Seth

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Woody nice shot. Have to say i had a blast at Yosemite carrying this small camera around and the other 4 guys carry bigger bags. My back has been feeling really good lately. LOL

[ho_co]

Woody--the picture is a wonderful, bucolic delight.

 

But I have a question about a now-vanished comment:

Why will any body would to use autofocus for this foto?

I recently purchased an autofocus dSLR and find that occasionally I must fight its focus and prefer manual focus instead. But your shot seems to me to be exactly the kind of image where an AF system can't go wrong, so it would never occur to me to switch to manual focus for this picture.

 

Would someone tell me what about this scene makes autofocus out of place?

 

Many thanks!

 

--HC

[Woody Campbell]

I was listing the catalogue of things that I like about the M8 (recognizing the issues, which are real) - excellent rangerfinder focusing is one of them but it doesn't come into play in this image. Sorry if this confused things.

[ho_co]

I was listing the catalogue of things that I like about the M8 (recognizing the issues, which are real) - excellent rangerfinder focusing is one of them but it doesn't come into play in this image. Sorry if this confused things.

Woody--

Thanks. I understood that from your post. The linguistic subtlety may have passed Ferenc, but I'm still curious why he felt so strongly that AF was out of place for that image. Perhaps only he knows!

 

Anyway, it's a lovely shot; and the AF comments may be totally irrelevant.

 

--HC

[Woody Campbell]

Woody nice shot. Have to say i had a blast at Yosemite carrying this small camera around and the other 4 guys carry bigger bags. My back has been feeling really good lately. LOL

I do both people and landscapes.

 

This issue with the M8 as a landscape tool is too few pixels. I'm making prints prints that I like on A3, but I don't know about larger. Serious digital landscape shooters are using digital MF backs or even scanning backs.

 

I've been working on the following: put the M8 on a RRS pano setup. Set the camera up in portrait orientation and take 3 images, panning horizontally, each overlaping about 30% (for example). Stitch with PTGui. If you use a 50 mm the resulting images is the equivalent of a 28 or so. You can do the math and figure out other combinations. Pixel dimension of a 1x3 stitch is 22-25 megs.

 

Of course you could also do 2x2, 2x3, 3x3 or any other combination if you want even larger files.

 

The resulting files are technically sensational. I'll post when I get one that I like, and when I figure out how to deal with posting a very high rez image.

 

If this works this gives one the ability to produce very large (and beautiful) files with very light gear.

 

There are a number of issues to work out - I'm just sorting out nodal points on lenses, for example.

[rvaubel]

I do both people and landscapes.

 

This issue with the M8 as a landscape tool is too few pixels. I'm making prints prints that I like on A3, but I don't know about larger. Serious digital landscape shooters are using digital MF backs or even scanning backs.

 

I've been working on the following: put the M8 on a RRS pano setup. Set the camera up in portrait orientation and take 3 images, panning horizontally, each overlaping about 30% (for example). Stitch with PTGui. If you use a 50 mm the resulting images is the equivalent of a 28 or so. You can do the math and figure out other combinations. Pixel dimension of a 1x3 stitch is 22-25 megs.

 

Of course you could also do 2x2, 2x3, 3x3 or any other combination if you want even larger files.

 

The resulting files are technically sensational. I'll post when I get one that I like, and when I figure out how to deal with posting a very high rez image.

 

If this works this gives one the ability to produce very large (and beautiful) files with very light gear.

 

There are a number of issues to work out - I'm just sorting out nodal points on lenses, for example.

 

I thought about a 1 X 3 stitch pano using the rss setup and one of those tiny VC rectilinar lens (21,25 or 28). Vignetting seems to be under control but the cyan thing? The ultimate backpackers pano.

 

Rex

[fnuernberger]

Hi KM-25. Could you elaborate a bit on your gyro setup? Which one do you use?

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Hallo,

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