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Still Loving the M8


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33 minutes ago, MikeMyers said:

Does anyone know what size the threads are, on the inside of the 35mm Summilux?

The Summilux 35/1.4 pre-asph has no filter thread as filters would have caused vignetting at f/1.4 on this tiny lens. You need a 12504 or similar hood to use filters the way i tried to explain above.

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Edited by lct
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Hi, you and Ken Rockwell pretty much agree - https://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/35mm-f14.htm - but from his chart, I need a Series 7 filter.  I do have the 12504 lens hood.

Thank you for the explanation - now I know why a filter won't go into the lens.  Gee, I didn't realize how lucky I am - the newer 35mm Summilux is twice the size, and twice the weight!  My lens isn't a "Summilux-M", it's just "Summilux", and made in Canada.  

Anyway, I'm back in the game - I just need to order a Series 7 infrared, and infrared-block filter for this lens.

Thank you!!!!

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Hard to find Series VII IR-cut filters. If you have a 12504 hood, a 49mm filter should fit if you drop it upside down as i tried to explain above.
BTW glad to see that Mr Rockwell agrees with me. Not sure if he was born when i got my first Summilux though :D. Just kidding.

Edited by lct
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Yes, its time Leica started remaking many older fittings...filter adapters, lens adapters (OUFRO for example), etc. 

Lens hoods, etc for the older lenses and the system, in general.  There are a few of the the older, and sought after, fittings, adapters, etc freely available.  If so some can be hunted down at extortionate prices or "other country" knock-offs which don't quite fit.

Come on Leica, we need support, after all most of it's about legacy.

...

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3 hours ago, lct said:

Hard to find Series VII IR-cut filters. If you have a 12504 hood, a 49mm filter should fit if you drop it upside down as i tried to explain above.
BTW glad to see that Mr Rockwell agrees with me. Not sure if he was born when i got my first Summilux though :D. Just kidding.

I tried one 49mm filter both ways, but the filter didn't seem to go "in" far enough.  I have since found another 49mm filter, which I'll try tomorrow.

I can also order this one tomorrow, and return it if it doesn't work:  https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/808824-REG/B_W_66_098540_Series_7_UV_IR_Cut.html 

If none of this works, I can see if I can get something for my Voightlander lenses, and/or maybe order new ones from Camera Quest.

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Hmm, are 49mm and Series 7 the same thing?  I have a Tokina Coated, UV, 49mm filter in front of me.  The outside diameter of this filter is much larger than the opening in the #12504 hood.   Aint no way this filter is going into this hood.  I must be missing something here.

I expect to use the 35mm lens much more than the 50, and at $80 each, I think one is plenty.

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1 hour ago, MikeMyers said:

Hmm, are 49mm and Series 7 the same thing?  I have a Tokina Coated, UV, 49mm filter in front of me.  The outside diameter of this filter is much larger than the opening in the #12504 hood.   Aint no way this filter is going into this hood.  I must be missing something here.

Series 7 filters have no filter thread. Pics of Series 7 (13421) and E49 (13412) Leica UV/IR filters below. The 12504 hood works with non Leica filters too. If you don't have a Series 7 filter, you just need to open the hood and drop your 49mm filter upside down into it. Works with the 13412 but i have no experience with 49mm Rocolax filters. Can be found here for instance.

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Oops, I didn't know the hood even came apart.  Is that how you guys get the filter inside?

 

In all this discussion about filters and hoods, I'm leaving out the much more important part of all this, how pleased I am walking around outside with my M8.2 camera.  I don't feel like I'm using an "antique".  In some ways, it feels like a better camera for me than my Nikon D750, or my Fuji X100f.  I like the fact that >>I<< take the photo.  I don't have a computer buzzing around doing all sort of things to my image.  I'm feeling like I'm once again more involved in the process of photography.  

I'm curious how I would feel about an M10.  I no longer care if a 35mm lens covers the same field as my lenses when growing up - I've got too many cameras, and too many lenses, and for me my lenses on the "crop sensor" aren't really "crop" lenses at all - that's the field of view I get with them.  I can always put on one that's wider or more tele.  

I'm thoroughly involved in the thought that I need to fill the frame with my photo - no more of this snap and crop it later.  So the M8.2 is forcing me to do the full job in the camera, not "later". It's what I did growing up, with my Contax, Leica, and Nikon RF cameras.  

I thought I remembered the M8 as being "noisy".  Not so the M8.2 - while it's not the "snip" I got with my M3, it's not objectionable.  It certainly doesn't attract attention, with all the guys around me using a DSLR which you can here from a long ways off if you're listening.  

I honestly don't remember how I dealt with exposure when I was a kid.  I know I had a meter.  With the M8.2, I tend to put the lens at f/8 for outdoors, lock the ISO at 320, and let the camera play with the shutter speed.  Most of the time that's all I need, but sometimes I want the shutter speed to be faster.  I don't mess with the ISO, so all that's left is the lens opening, but the more I open it up, the more I need to focus every shot.  Speaking of focusing, every day it gets easier.  The first day it felt annoying, but now it's just part of making sure that the thing I most want to be sharp will be so.  

Like I started to write, I don't feel like I'm walking around with an antique, trying to get it to work in today's world.  Far from it.  It has a unique way of dealing with today's world, probably due in part to the sensor, and my photos are coming out nicer than had I used a different camera.  

And before I forget, the Leica makes it effortless to capture infrared photos.  I struggled to do this with my Nikon DSLR a while back - what a pain.  With the Leica, I have a perfectly clear view of what I'm shooting, and I just need to be sure my shutter speed doesn't drop too low.

When if I want, I have two more lenses to play with, courtesy of my getting involved in CameraQuest many years ago.  I bought a 25mm which seems to be easy to work with, and a 15mm which needs an external viewfinder.  Gosh, if I like either or both of them, that's two more sets of filters to look into......

It's too bad (or maybe good!!) that even a used M10 costs so much.  I keep thinking about it, but the next thought is always "why?"

 

The photo below is from my previous attempt to get involved with my M8.2, back in 2018.   Maybe I should just box up all my other cameras, and pretend they don't exist.

 

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Edited by MikeMyers
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Having seen what I did two years ago, I wanted to try it again tonight.  I now accept the need for an IR-cut filter if I'm trying to capture a realistic image, and eventually I will buy what I need to do that.  For this evening, I glanced out my window at 6pm and saw another sunset over Miami.  So, I captured it (except I messed up and got it in 'jpg', not 'raw', somehow, used Photo Mechanic to get the images into a folder on my disk (where I wanted to use Adobe's DNG Converter), but just brought them into Lightroom.  I didn't like the limited choices in Lightroom's editor, so I installed Nik Collection.  Here's the end result - starting off with a JPG image!

Between what you guys have been writing, and my personal experience, the question isn't "how good is the Leica M8 in today's world".  I'm "stuck" in today's world, but the Leica M8.2 is getting me better results than I got in the past with much newer and "more powerful" cameras.  In this case, it's even true for a 'jpg' image (still not sure why the image wasn't captured in 'raw' - need to check these things from now on......).

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Curious - the above image looks like a postage stamp compared to the real image.  How large should the images be that we post in this forum?  800 pixels wide doesn't show "enough".  For that small an image, there's no clue to what a Leica is really capable of......

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