M8 review now up on dpreview

[larry]

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Here's the link:

 

Leica M8 Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

 

Larry

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[sdai]

Thanks a lot for the heads up, Larry ... now this is what I call a flame bait. LOL

[larry]

Thanks a lot for the heads up, Larry ... now this is what I call a flame bait. LOL

 

Please don't shoot, I'm only the messenger! ;-)

[stunsworth]

Seems a pretty fair review to me.

[Samir Jahjah]

It says that for RAW file, only the lens used is recorded, and no changes are made to the pictures. This was not my understanding. I thought they would be vignetting correction recorded on the DNG file. Am I right?

[stunsworth]

There's vignetting correction if you specify lens detection and have a coded lens. I think the review mentioned this at one point.

[ken_tanaka]

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I, too, think that the review is very fair-minded. Phil, in his usual style, covered both sides of the camera very well. I feel that his final rating is also spot-on, given the M8's cost and compromises.

 

Phil is really the best camera reviewer perhaps of all time. Some of the magazine reviewers of yore (ex: Herb Kepplar) became well known but, let's face it, film camera reviews are trivial compared with digital camera reviews. I am sure that if Phil had been born 20-30 years sooner he could have easily trumped all of the magazine-based reviewers of the 1970's and 1980's.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Infrared / Ultraviolet sensitivity means screw-on filters are required for all lenses in order to avoid

the magenta color cast on man-made fabrics

Disappointing in-camera JPEG engine delivers sub-par results (jagged artifacts, moire, lower

resolution) especially when you see what's available from RAW

Really need to shoot RAW to realize the potential of the camera

Rangefinder disadvantages: you don't look through the lens, no depth of field preview, framelines indicate frame size not viewfinder view, no auto focus, virtually no telephoto lenses (beyond ~135 mm, 90 mm a sensible maximum), accessory viewfinder required for certain lenses *

Slightly dull (low saturation) color response by default (easy to adjust)

Poor automatic white balance in artificial light

No communciation contact between the lens and body means aperture isn't recorded

Sensor just as prone to dust spots as any other 'unprotected' sensor

You need to have your M lenses six-bit coded for the optimum image quality

You really have to want it, $4800 for the body and $1600 for a 50 mm lens

 

 

pretty much all the stuff we covered and trying to get a fix for . Jpegs alone are something leica wants to fix. have not read much but what i have read seems pretty accurate, than again i really don't need to read it , we live it. LOL

[woodda]

Seems a fair review. Leica must be pleased.

[teehas53]

Really need to shoot RAW to realize the potential of the camera

 

Not to dis Phil (whom I agree is a pretty balanced reviewer) but this statement is true of ANY decent camera that shoots RAW. It's more of a non-comment than a "con," IMHO.

 

I know there are those who prefer a "finished" file right out of the camera. But accepting even great in-camera JPEGs as an indication of what your high-end camera can do is akin to shooting with a Hasselblad and then going to the local drug store for prints...

 

T

[Guest guy_mancuso]

True Tom but leica does want good jpegs out of camera and reason they worked on the AWB so hard . Now i asked them to loosen the compression has anyone noticed this or not. I want to keep this on my list if not. So i can bring it back up again. have not had time to even try this firmware so be nice to know what's going on with jpeg stuff

[Guest sirvine]

Phil basically has only one gripe with the camera: the JPEG engine being slow and sloppy. Then he goes on to talk about how the camera changed his approach to photography, and recommends all serious photographers turn to rangefinders to rediscover the fun.

 

There's a ton of great info in his review, as usual. The 5D and D200 both come out smelling like roses, too.

[Shootist]

Not to dis Phil (whom I agree is a pretty balanced reviewer) but this statement is true of ANY decent camera that shoots RAW. It's more of a non-comment than a "con," IMHO.

 

Not really. With the Nikon D200, and I think all Nikon's of recent vintage, you can set sharpness, contrast and saturation in the camera for RAW, NEF, files and if you open those NEF files in the Nikon software, Capture 4.x or NX and even picture perfect (which is a bad program), those setting are carried over and use to displayed the image. You can turn them off and or adjust them any way you like without distroying the actual NEF RAW file.

But if you open the files in another RAW converter those settings mean absolutly nothing.

 

I know there are those who prefer a "finished" file right out of the camera. But accepting even great in-camera JPEGs as an indication of what your high-end camera can do is akin to shooting with a Hasselblad and then going to the local drug store for prints...

 

T

 

Agreed but with the ability to pump up the sharpening and contrast in camera gives you a better perspective of what the shot CAN look like and it is easier to judge focus with a little in-camera sharpening applied.

[larry]

I'm also very pleased with the fairness and intelligence of the review. It hit the bull's-eye concerning the approach of rangefinders vs. DSLRs.

 

Larry

[innerimager]

Here's my comment from the DP review thread-

 

 

I haven't spent the time with the review it deserves, and will, but it appears to be a well conceived and executed review. The "bottom line" seems to be you found it to be an excellent Raw image maker, that especially using the superb Leica glass, rivals any digital camera out there for image quality. Noise characteristics seem better than many might have guessed, dynamic range is quite high, and pixel for pixel acuitance is superb. The only real negative, is it's price. Certainly the JPG engine can be improved, while the price is likely to become more of a problem!

 

Seems like your review suggests Leica accomplished exactly what it attempted. To bring best in class RF photography with superb image quality to the world of digital photography. Given all the doomsday talk upon release, your review, our experience as users, and Leica's sales success give a resounding answer to those concerns. best....Peter

[sean_reid]

On the whole, it is a very positive review, in fact. Phil did a very good job of identifying many of the camera's strengths and some of its weaknesses (although not saying much about some weaknesses related to ergonomics, weather sealing, reliability, etc.). Naturally, as any reviewer would do, he emphasized the aspects which he found important to stress (JPEG quality) and paid less attention to some of the issues that arise from the use of filters and firmware corrections, for example. I certainly think, though, that he tried to do a thorough and fair review.

 

His dynamic range tests are interesting but they don't account for a very important influence on that performance which is, of course, the contrast of the lens used for the test. Differences in lens contrast will have a noticeable influence on his results.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[lemalk]

One of the interesting things I noticed is how Phil approached his sample shots (and the practice of taking) pictures differently than on other cameras he's reviewed.

 

Whereas with a Canon or Nikon, we'd have shots of crowds and tourists in the streets as well as shots from a museum, with the M8, Phil chose quieter and more introspective subjects - focusing on the composition of a shot instead of showing accurate color range, focal quality, etc. It was probably a breath of fresh air for a guy who had never used a rangefinder before to realize that photography is much more than pointing and shooting.

 

I think it was accurate based on other reviews I've read and the comments I've seen (I don't have the pleasure of owning an M8 quite yet).

[Guest sirvine]

The noise tests on page 13 are very interesting. Also, I learned a little something from his discussion of dynamic range on page 14-- I hadn't really considered how much some colors will fall off earlier than others.

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[farnz]

I also feel that it is a fair and balanced review. I was surprised, but pleased, that Phil rated it 7 out of 10 for value because the points in that category typically decrease as cost increases.

 

It's a shame that there was no mention of how much detail can be recovered from shadows in M8 raw files but I can understand why not, although this is one area in which I feel the M8 excels.

 

Pete.

[cme4brain]

Here's the link:

 

Leica M8 Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

 

Larry

 

I feel it was a pretty good overall review. The fianl rating breakdown listed the M8 image quality at an "8". Cripes, I wonder what 35mm camera he thinks is higher? My professional photog brother has compared my M8 full res images to his Canon "L" lenses and it is no contest- my Voigt lenses (yes, I know not Leica Glass) are sharper by FAR than his Canon "L" ones in center and corner resolution (no offical testing, just comparing images at 100%). It seems his overall rating was more for the JPEG images than the RAW, which he admits is much higher. The Canon 5D has a better high ISO chip (?above effective ISO 800), but the lenses can't match Leica/Zeiss/Voigt it seems IMHO.