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Leica M8 is a good Buy?


anonimo2003

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So, what is it about the 5d2's IQ that you don't like? I don't really seem to be having any problems, personally.

 

One person said, once, that they didn't like the colours in 5d2 images. I remember thinking at that point: you just admitted that you let an engineer sitting in a lab decide your colours for you... which means, you don't "know" colour.

 

... and as far as it being a RF or SLR, I couldn't care less. That's like saying you'll be a better guitarist if you play a Gibson over a Fender. I am sure you understand how ridiculous that statement is. If a person were to say that to another guitarist, the response would be "You need to practice."

 

Also, this talk about weight is ridiculous. My 5d2 is gripped and I am not having a problem. I have a decent strap; I can wear it for 10 hours without feeling anything. Honestly, if these guys can't carry a camera without complaining about it, then they should take up knitting.

 

I am beginning to think that most people around here just want to be in the Leica "Glee Club". A lot of these guys can't tell the difference between an image I shot with the Elmarit 28mm and the $178 Canon 40mm pancake. Then they come on here and talk about image quality!

 

Hilarious.

 

Sure, I use Leica lenses. I like them a lot. I also use Rollei QBM mount lenses. They are also excellent. I have an old Nikon zoom that is amazing. So, "whatever".

 

I think I have seen the light. It's about consuming. It's about status. It's not about developing a set of compositions inspired by the paintings of Modigliani. It's just a bunch of retired accountants and engineers -that never actually studied art- but have the money to buy a new M... so they can be seen with it.

Edited by sfage
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What lens is this?

 

Here.

 

This is the $178 Canon pancake shot at F11.

 

Edited by sfage
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... and as far as it being a RF or SLR, I couldn't care less. That's like saying you'll be a better guitarist if you play a Gibson over a Fender. I am sure you understand how ridiculous that statement is. If a person were to say that to another guitarist, the response would be "You need to practice."

 

Actually, every guitarist has his 'favorite.' It might be the fingerboard, it might be the shape of the body, it might be whatever... he can play them all, but we all have preferences.

 

Also, this talk about weight is ridiculous. My 5d2 is gripped and I am not having a problem. I have a decent strap; I can wear it for 10 hours without feeling anything. Honestly, if these guys can't carry a camera without complaining about it, then they should take up knitting.

 

My friend, making sweeping assumptions like this is a little presumptuous. I have carried a 4x5 Speed Graphic and accessories in a fiberboard case with a wooden tripod in my day. When I was shooting DSLRs commercially, I carried them in a Tamrack 614 king-size bag that probably weighed 30 lbs loaded. Three bodies, two flashes, flash battery, and enough lenses to cover the 21mm-400mm range twice with redundancy. I carry my full digital M kit in a Domke F2 at maybe 10 lbs. That's a pretty significant difference. And I mentioned in my earlier post the difference in size between 50mm lenses alone.

 

I am beginning to think that most people around here just want to be in the Leica "Glee Club".

 

I started shooting Leicas in 1974 when Leica was on their down-hill run and almost out of the game. There weren't any fanboi clubs. It wasn't a boutique brand. It was a camera... a tool... and remains that way for me today. I've used 4x4 press cameras 6x6 SLRs and TLRs, and a host of 35mm SLRs over the years. I have returned to Leica because it fits my working style. Perhaps you're right about some of the members here, but in the short time I've been a member here, I have to say I'm quite impressed with the general knowledge and skill level of the folks on this forum, and many of them are quite skilled and own several different systems. I think your generalization is perhaps rather narrow.

 

A lot of these guys can't tell the difference between an image I shot with the Elmarit 28mm and the $178 Canon 40mm pancake. Then they come on here and talk about image quality!

 

Hilarious.

 

Frankly, if I loaded two images on this post at 1024, you couldn't tell what body and lens combination were used to make the images. Especially if they were both shot at f/11. Yet, you COULD tell me which image quality you liked better. And it may or may not have anything to do with the lens/body combination at all.

 

I think I have seen the light. It's about consuming. It's about status. It's not about developing a set of compositions inspired by the paintings of Modigliani. It's just a bunch of retired accountants and engineers -that never actually studied art- but have the money to buy a new M... so they can be seen with it.

 

You raise an interesting dichotomy: artists and practitioners, the folks who can make the best use of the tools, can't afford them and those who can afford them may not know how to make the best use of them. I'm not entirely sure I agree with that, but I get the gist.

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, I learned my craft behind the lens of an M2 and later an M4. While I'm perfectly capable of making images with whatever equipment I have at my disposal, like the guitarist who has a preference for a particular guitar, I have a preference for the M series Leicas. I developed my shooting style around them and they're comfortable for me to use.

 

The price of admission is high, but there's no other player in the game. No one else makes a digital bright-line rangefinder camera. If you want one, you pay the price. Unfortunately, that price is high. Fortunately, the M8 prices are dropping and that's how I was able to get back into Leicas. I bought a new-used M9P body at about half retail. It was still the most I've ever paid for a camera. My lenses are mostly used CV with a couple of late '60s vintage Leitz thrown in the mix.

 

I, too, am taken aback by the endless discussions of the image quality differences among the five versions of the lens X et.al. ad nauseum. I do recognize that there are some differences in the way lenses render, but most of what I see has to do with aperture shape. All of the other nuances that the the connoisseurs see are lost on me... I lived in Wine Country in California for a number of years and became conversant in wines during that time. I found that much of the nuance that the wine connoisseurs favored was lost on me too, so perhaps I'm just not sophisticated enough in my tastes. ;)

Edited by hepcat
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"Actually, every guitarist has his 'favorite.' It might be the fingerboard, it might be the shape of the body, it might be whatever... he can play them all, but we all have preferences."

 

Precisely. But the music is the task-at-hand. Not the guitar.

 

":Frankly, if I loaded two images on this post at 1024, you couldn't tell what body and lens combination were used to make the images. Especially if they were both shot at f/11. Yet, you COULD tell me which image quality you liked better. And it may or may not have anything to do with the lens/body combination at all. "

 

I also agree with you upon this point. And, of course, that is the point I have been making all along.

 

*** "And it may or may not have anything to do with the lens/body combination at all. "****

 

What does matter, however, is -as you put it- "the price of admission". In many ways, for a lot of people, I think the price of admission is the attraction.

 

"This is more expensive, ergo, better."

Edited by sfage
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What Leica brings for me is that I'm comfortable enough with it and have enough confidence with it that I can get the job done without the equipment getting in the way. I can't say that about any DSLR. That, for me, is worth the price of admission.

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Well, that's fine. I have both too. I have my M2 and Rolleiflex, etc.

 

I'd sell the M2 before I'd sell the Rollei... only for the reason that it is a larger negative and I can make larger prints to sell to people.

 

I'd dump the Bronica too. But not the Leicaflex. I love that thing. I don't think she has ever failed me.

 

At this stage, I have arrived at the point: "gear, meh, whatever." I have gear coming out of my ass. It's nonsense.

 

:)

Edited by sfage
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Yes, but that is the act of doing it. That has little to do with conception. That is upon a far lower level than an artistic vision.... you know, creating something.

 

That's why I brought up the musical instrument analogy.

 

An $800 stratocaster will not make you less of a musician than a $3,500 Gibson Les Paul. One would be an absolute idiot to think that way.

 

Or, here is another one: one person may like Sibelius, the other, Finale. The composer that writes with the -far more expensive- Finale might be an awful composer. But, the orchestra parts and score certainly look nice. It sounds like shit... but it looks nice.

Edited by sfage
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Yes, but that is the act of doing it. That has little to do with conception. That is upon a far lower level than an artistic vision.... you know, creating something.

 

I shot for years professionally with a Mamiya C33 an 330 TLR. Some of the images of which I am most proud were done with that camera, and I absolutely detested using it. Accurate framing and focusing on close objects required a paramender. Close-ups required the calculation of bellows factor for exposures. It was big and heavy and clunky and made beautiful images. Eventually, I switched to Hassy and found joy. My images weren't any better, but the camera got out of the way for me. I had to use Topcon Super D cameras for a while. I cussed those cameras every time I had to lay my hands on one. They were competent image makers, but awful in use.

 

At some point, and it only took me 35 years to recognize it, you will find that making images is more comfortable for you because of a specific brand or maybe even a specific body. It may be that the controls are laid out where you intuitively expect them to be, or the way the camera handles in your hand and at your eye, or any combination of very personal things where the camera just gets out of your way and is still part of your vision for what this image should be. You pick the gear up and use it without conscious thought, and everything just works. There may be no logical argument you can make for that camera; there may not even be anything that you can articulate coherently about why you make that choice... you just do.

 

That's where I'm at. Unfortunately for me in today's market my choice is more expensive than just about any other I could have made, but it works for me.

 

You may not yet have found that which works for you. Or you may have, but haven't recognized it yet, and that's ok. One day, you'll be shooting and realize that whatever you have in your hands isn't as comfortable for you as a camera you once used, but don't have any more. Then you'll think back and think "hmmm... maybe that old guy was on to something..." ;)

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Matter of tastes as usual, one feels better with his M8, the other with his 5D2 and another one (me and other endangered species) with his R-D1. Subjective things, horses for courses and so on. What i don't get is those recurrent comparos of apples to oranges. Comparing M8s to R-D1s or M8s to M9s that's fine but what's the point in comparing a DSLR to a rangefinder? A rangefinder is a rangefinder. Repeat after me.

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Matter of tastes as usual, one feels better with his M8, the other with his 5D2 and another one (me and other endangered species) with his R-D1. Subjective things, horses for courses and so on. What i don't get is those recurrent comparos of apples to oranges. Comparing M8s to R-D1s or M8s to M9s that's fine but what's the point in comparing a DSLR to a rangefinder? A rangefinder is a rangefinder. Repeat after me.

 

DSLRs and digital bright-line rangefinder bodies (or their film equivalents) both make images, hence the comparisons.

 

What it comes down to, though, is the process one goes about to make those images and how well you adapt to that process. While all of us can go back and forth at will between them and still make competent images, most of us here express a preference for the process of making images with an optical viewfinder/rangefinder and primes. That's a different skill set than making images with a TTL viewfinder (either optical or EVF) and zooms. Boiled down to its essence, that's what the hoopla is about... NOT the quality of the images produced, or even the lens rendering. It's all about the equipment's impact on how you go about making the image.

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And 5d2 is certainly not as good 'value' as the M8 because it will loose value much faster than the M8. Best proof is that when I bought my M8 almost 3 years ago it cost me 1500 Euro.

The 5D MkI was then around 1300 Euro, the 5D Mkii was then about 2400 I believe.Correct me if I am wrong...

 

I'd only agree with this point if you have a flawless M that doesn't require any maintenance or repairs. As soon as such is required, you can kiss goodbye to any money you may have saved in terms of depreciation.

 

My M8 had the coffee stain problem (twice) and hot pixels. Had Leica been able to fix it I would have been looking at a bill of £600 plus, which was half the value of the camera itself.

 

Digital Ms can be temperamental, and if you're lucky to find yourself in that position, they can become very expensive, very quickly.

 

i would only buy an M8 if it were very cheap, I.e. around £700 and had a late serial number, but even then there is a risk of problems (my M8 was near mint, had less than 7k shutter actuations and a 333 serial number).

Edited by 2Ms
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