Finally love Leica again and M8

[tobey bilek]

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I started photography in1960 with a Waltz Envoy RF and 50 2.0 Nikkor fixed on it. After college, I bought a Pentax Spotmatic system and spend years trying to emulate the type of prints I saw in the paper sample books in the stores. I never could achieve it. We moved and I made friends with a neighbor who loaned me a Leica M3. The first WOW hit. same film, same developer, same everything and the prints transformed as if by magic into what I was looking for. I was a loyal customer for years until digital came along. I bought a Nikon D200 to do quickie work and decided I liked it.

 

Calumet Photo had a Leica demo about that time and I tried the new M8 at that time along with the 50 1.4 current. Nice, but no wow factor compared to Nikon. Photoshop makes up for most of the deficiencies of the Nikon glass. Bought a lot of Nikon stuff over 6 years up to the pro bodies and the new current G pro lenses. Pretty nice stuff, not Leica but pretty nice.

 

Then last Dec, got a bug to upgrade his M3 system to digital. He asked me for my opinion and I was slightly against the cost. He figured he would get a nice M8 from Tamarkin and he ordered it. Before it arrived, I called and ordered another for my self.

I knew the camera had issues with purple blacks, but that is a trivial fix in ACR with the local desaturation tool and auto masking. I can fix anything in 15 sec.

I found there was more wrong than what I knew.

 

Tamarkin included a UV/IR filter which I found was necessary to get ALL the colors correct.

So I bought a set of them for 6 lenses. Now the cyan corners appeared.

 

I made up a fix in photoshop which was pretty good, a radial gradient of complimentary color to the cyan/green corners and corner vignetting correction . Better still but no wow.

 

I was stubborn about cornerfix, but eventually tried it. Better than my work, but still no wow. It seems to dull the photos somehow.

 

So I tried the hand coding after 4 months into this. I can get it to work, but glossy black fingernail polish rubs off as fast Sharpie.

 

Next I considered the options to code, Leica at very high cost, hand grind some pits, send the flanges off to J. Milich and let him add the pits, buy some tooling and small end mills & build a fixture, or buy some of the replacement codeable flanges from Jinfinance on Ebay .

 

Last choice was made because the cost was $113 for 6 lenses and I did not have to give up any lenses for a period of time.

 

I have had them a week and they are all installed and they seem to work ok. One flange was off thickness by .0025" for the 35 2.0. Lens seems to focus and work better than before which I can not explain. I bought it used in 1985 so I really do not know the full history of it. I works as well as a new 35 2.0 ASPH someone recently aquired.

 

To make the drama short, the wow is back. The final journey was 5 months.

 

Paint was auto paint that I purchased special, Duplicolor brand GM universal black and GM Artic white. Lucky those are is the colors of two of my two cars. I figured the gloss black was fine if gloss black nail polish worked. Thin with a little MEK and use a #1 liner brush with a steady hand. Looks as good as a Leica precoded lens from the factory.

 

I am a happy camper again. Now if I could just retrain myself to keep my greasy fingers off the camera windows.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[jlaw]

is good to know you enjoy the M8 so much.