Need help deciding!

[SteveL63]

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Hi,

I am new to the forum but not to photography. I used to take a lot of sports stuff on Canon DSLR’s but that’s all in the past. These days I just have a Sony A7 which covers my wife’s running events and trip photography and a Fuji X Pro 1 with just one lens, the 35mm 1.4 which takes great walk about pictures, especially in B&W which I like working in, especially with the various built in filters you can use with the B&W option.

But never having used a rangefinder I am drawn to trying one out and have narrowed it down to two, either an M8 to just take B&W photos (keeping the other 2 for colour) or an MP 240 to replace the X Pro 1. I have been hovering over buy it now buttons on both cameras for a few weeks now and still am not sure if either camera will bring anything to my photo taking that I don’t have already, if so which choice is best, or if this is just a case of Gear Acquisition Syndrome. 

I can afford either camera and will get a few lenses for it, prob 35 and 50, so budget doesn’t come into it as a consideration, the questions I asking myself are will the M8 take better B&W photos than the Fuji, will I be happy with the MP240 instead of the Fuji?

I am hoping somebody on here has had the same choices to make and came out the other side with an experience they can share that will help me decide which way to go.

Thanks for any help in advance,

Steve.

 

[enboe]

Perhaps a rental is in your future.  There is a learning curve to rangefinder focusing and metering, but once mastered, are both very fast, accurate, and easy.

Don't count the M8 out for color at lower ISOs.  It provides Kodachrome-like results when lenses are equipped with IR-cut filters.  

One method for B&W + Color is to set your Leica M digital up for DNG + JPEG, select B&W for the JPEG color space on the camera.  The back screen will show B&W images, the JPEGs will be B&W, but you will still have the full-information DNG files that you can process as color or B&W.

On the debate of M8 vs. M240, that's a bigger discussion.

Eric

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[jaapv]

The M8 will certainly make better B&W than the Fuji, but so will the M240. I would advise the M240, B&W on the same level as the M8, better viewfinder, no crop factor, still in service for all parts, more features, Live View, optional EVF, slightly more robust.

The arguably best B&W comes from the Monochrom1.

[Jeff S]

Some bond with the RF experience, some don’t.  The only way to know is to try... demo, rent or buy.  If the latter, get a good used copy from a reputable dealer with warranty.

Keep in mind that the M8 has a cropped sensor (1.33x equivalent field of view... a 35 acts like 47, and 50 like 67), while the M240 is ‘full frame’, no crop.  The M8 also benefits from UV/IR cut filters (some prefer them with b/w, some not). Other differences may or may not appeal....shutter recock noise, video or not, CCD vs CMOS, etc.  

The M240 has more robust build and weather sealing.  If going with the M8, I’d recommend an M8.2...more refined and reliable camera (and with frame lines optimized for 2m like the M240).

Quality of b/w can be excellent... or not... from both, depending on you, especially if you print.

Jeff

[andrea-i]

Hi there, first post here! but felt very close to OP in that I'm coming from an M8 sold years ago to fund a fuji x-pro1 and I just re-purchased the M8.

Mind that my decision has been driven mostly by the shooting experience with the M series rather than image quality per-se.
What I mean is this, to my taste and eyes, the fuji cmos is far superior (compared to the M8) in terms of performance, I tend to shoot b&w with 1600 iso to try and get a bit of grain (still, I won't get much) and the results with the x-pro are as follows: 
Number of shots missed because of fuji's sensor performance: zero. 
Number of shots missed because of x-pro1 buttons, exp compensation bumps, macro activated by mistake and so on: many.

Flip that and you get my experience with the M8:
Many shots missed because some ugly noise pattern shows up and ruins my picture, banding, dead pixel line, artifacts. Most of the time iso 640 was still not low enough to produce "nice-looking" noise.
Zero shots missed because of camera failures. It's true, you can't shoot repeatedly without jamming the buffer, but the same applies to my m2, that is a non issue for me.

I think the M240 is the real competitor to the xpro in terms of performance, but if you are like me and feel that limitations will tingle your creativity, than the amount of joy and surprises you get out of the M8 is very similar to loading a low iso film roll in your camera and going out to make the best of it, surprises will show up after processing and some shots will be amazing and totally unexpected!

As a personal note, I keep looking at low light shots made by very talented folks with their M8s and get reminded that the camera is only as good as the photographer.

 

[jaapv]

There is an answer to your problem: don't underexpose! ETTR.

[SteveL63]

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Thanks for all the helpful comments. So andrea-i if you could only have your x-pro or your M8 what would you chose?

[andrea-i]

16 minutes ago, SteveL63 said:

Thanks for all the helpful comments. So andrea-i if you could only have your x-pro or your M8 what would you chose?

I've just sold the x-pro to a friend : )
If you get the M240 and you like the raw M rangefinder experience, then I don't think there's anything left to be missed from the x-pro.
But if you want to just try things out before committing entirely, than having an M8 and keeping your x-pro1 will probably create enough of a gap to be able to enjoy both.

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

There is an answer to your problem: don't underexpose! ETTR.

jaapv I try my best : D
Unfortunately banding at high iso is not something I can control though, so I always end up trusting more very low iso with some help from lightroom.