M8 Novice - Story, Findings & Samples

[Perspectics]

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One month ago I purchased the M8 and three lenses, Summilux 1:1.4, 35mm (still waiting), Summicron 1:2, 50mm and Makro Elmar 1:4, 90mm, and its time to sum up first impressions and experiences. Especially this forum was very helpful to me, so this is my place to post. Many of the critical comments worked in favour of the M8 for me, btw, even when people here were complaining about naysayers and other nitpicking forum members. For me as a prospect the reinforcement of all of the M8’s shortcomings did not multiply their damage.

 

I shoot photos for hobby and bought a Sony DSC-V1 around 4 years ago. Its a low-budget, small 4MP camera with plenty of buttons and switches. My computer’s hard drive started to fill and a “best of” folder came to life, then a “best of 2” and then a “hall of fame” folder. First moments of success and wow! occurred and I started looking for a better instrument.

 

Of course it had to be a DSLR. Funny how difficult it is to spend a little money, here! It took me years to read and learn and compare and scan. Lost in the mega pixel race I waited for Nikon to release the D40x, waited for Canons EOS 400D to replace the 350D, then looked at Sony Alpha, later at the announcement of Nikon D3, even following rumors about Nikon to release a rangefinder camera. Dpreview.com was my best friend and I wholeheartedly loved Phil Askey for his professional reviews.

 

Yet I realized that one should not let the marketing folks work on one’s needs, nor product testers who are sponsored by the industry. The question is: “What does it take to improve my photos, really?”. The answer is certainly not simple but I easily derived some “must haves” from this question:

 

• Big and light viewfinder because composing the image is most important

• Inconspicuous camera, easy to carry, must not shy away people with a brutal pro-attitude

• Superb resolution – this cannot be done with software, unlike colour that can be fixed

• Quick uptime, no lag – sometimes the camera needs to be ready2shoot quickly and when pressing the button I want the shutter to release instantaneously

• ability to set DOF and focus manually

 

The first two requirements made way for the M8, the rest is delivered by almost any DSLR on the market. Funny that the Megapixels did not make it into my must-have list, no? Seriously, the M8 delivers 300dpi prints bigger than A3, and it will do so in 30 years. You can discus pixel size, dynamic range, resolution and so on, but today a digital print beats any film print hands down resolution wise and that’s just good enough for my needs. Always.

 

 

 

Experiences

 

Now that the M8 is here I rarely if ever leave my home without it. I got a “Billingham for Leica” bag for it and a gorgeous “Leicatime” leather suit and the whole stuff can be carried for hours easily, also in addition to any other baggage. Downtown the camera draws some attention and people are looking at it and its owner. You are now a difficult person to sense – it is unknown if you make a living with art and photo and nobody can tell if your equipment is just old and you don’t have a good one, or if its some kick ass special handcrafted piece of expensive German engineering. Or if you stole it from the museum - in any case you are special now. That’s fun to some.

 

Wandering around this planet without a zoom lense is another topic. If it wasn’t for the sake of fast lenses and for the nice bokeh (= quality of out of focus areas) I would not have been giving a second thought to this antique concept. But the look of out of focus objects as justification in the back of my head, and of course the fact that there is no zoom for the M8, I started to investigate. Restrictions everywhere, that’s clearly my first observation but trying to be constructive some other processes kicked in. I tried to visualize the 50 and 90mm frames everywhere and realized that framing my environment kind of needed some story or background in order to allow for finding the right object.

 

With a zoom lenses and an SLR you are in a micro-universe and very self-sufficient, anything goes: You look through the lenses and see the church, zoom more in, discover a carving, adjust the image to a balanced part within that carving and click, wonderful photo. With fixed focal length lenses this is not how the world is spinning, you just don’t find the right object in the first place, and then you’re constantly moving back and forth instead of turning a wheel.

 

Today I find myself thinking of lenses speed and light and about what I want to capture at all before going out. Certainly never did that before. But the feeling of “seeing” your object, approaching it up to the perfect distance in just the right angle, framing it quickly with pre-adjusted focal length and releasing this great shutter sound – wow, that makes me much more of a hunter than some random Nikon or Canon where people’s perception is the same as if you were walking your Pitbull.

 

My less prose-able observations are collected here:

 

• Pictures often appear to be falling to one side and this never happened with my previous camera. In general it is harder to make good photos with the M8 than with some stupid simple click-o-matic camera. The viewfinder offers a wide and light viewing field but it has side effects other than parallax, field shrinkage and focus sensitivity. Imagine a slanted object where in the M8 viewfinder you see the horizon to the left and to the right of the object whereas in a DSLR viewfinder you see nothing but the object. You will compensate for the slantedness in the DSLR instinctively and thus capture a straight object. With the M8 you will likely frame the horizon properly and receive a slanted image that needs heavy cropping. This effect requires conscious effort to avoid and its not yet proven to me that that’s enough for me. Loupe may help.

• Viewfinder parallax, field shrinkage and focus sensitivity have been mentioned in the preview bullet. I would just like to add that none of the above is of any relevance to me. Regarding focus I even did test shots of a ruler and saw a focus difference of 10mm in 1m distance between two different lenses. 100% neglectable in my humble opinion. But this forum scared me crapless and I had to know how serious this effect is.

• Viewfinder frame is smaller than photos taken. Leica changed some sort of “zeropoint” for the frame to 0.7m as opposed to formally 2m. This means that Leica have changed a working system to a sub-optimally working one in their digital edition. They explain that they want us to be on the safe side, we can always do some cropping. I find this remark almost insulting and very, very stupid.

• When shooting lit objects you don’t see some of the frame lines at all. This is disturbing to say the least. Maybe Leica could optionally add black contrast strips to the frame lines.

• Colours come out in a strange Vampire-like fashion which I contributed to shooting RAW and seeing pictures before setting white balance. Thus I purchased a pricy Kodak colour chart, took a photograph in the respective lighting and then set white balance accordingly but that did not do the trick. I use Capture One with M8 IR486 profile. Oh – and I use the official Leica IR/UV filter of course. There is some tweaking needed, I’m afraid.

• IR filter is indeed needed. While waiting for the filters I ruined many nature shots as some leaves were looking weird and yellowish, and I saw brownish casts when the sun was too much in the way.

• Some of the photos are just stunning – the out of focus parts (bokeh) look so beautiful at times that it takes my breath away.

• The level of detail / resolution is fantastic. In Capture One jpegs are produced at 300dpi per default and you need to go to up to 300% magnification before the first hint of a stair appears. The image is now inflated to something like 2.5 * 4 meters. Contour and micro-detail is more than convincing to me, all the way throughout the image.

• Shutter sound has been discussed excessively. My personal opinion records a wonderful, complex mechanical sound with no disturbing elements. Its gives immediate feedback on exposure time – 1/1000sec sounds much different than 1/25 – and also on whether you forgot to take off the lenses cap again or not, because in that case the closing sound is missing and you go “No!” in that very instance… waiting time before next picture is usually one minute.

• The M8 shutter obviously sprays oil and particles around in the camera housing during the first 1k shots. Other cameras auto-clean while the M8 provides for auto-smear, smirk! Get a cleaning kit along…

• Availability of lenses: Leica has serious problems keeping up with market demand. You cannot buy a 35lux in the moment, they are actually out of many important items (including loupe) and they’re just too small a company for demand like this.

• Lenses cap. Every once in a while (mostly when the picture is more important than the shutter time displayed) I forget to take it off. Not only the picture is lost but you’re also punished with one full minute of waiting time. I didn’t dare to just switch it off… the only way of knowing is looking at the shutter time (, or at the lenses cap obviously, or have other people remind you – embarrassing!). Okay, I am stupid to forget, my medicine is taken, but as for Leica people: There should be a warning at least, thank you!

 

 

Finally - did I praise the M8 enough? Yep, its got character and doesn’t deliver automatic gratification, picture wise. But touching it is satisfying already, owning it makes you a happier person, and being with it around your neck is my latest art of living – cheers!

 

PS:

1rst picture: Sony - 100% crops from not so nicely captured areas...

2nd picture: M8 - 100% crops from bokeh, cron 50mm, 1/60sec, aperture 2

3rd picture: M8 - Tour Eiffel, Cron 50mm, 1/20sec hand, aperture 2

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[Perspectics]

More pictures are here: Claus' Photosets on Flickr

[Shootist]

Picture falling to one side:

If you mean that they are tilted this is caused be you holding one side of the camera higher then the other. Many that move from SLR to RF find this problem. I even do it and I have used a Leica M for some time. I saw it more with the M8 but I believe it is because of the near instant viewing of DRF images.

 

Lenses:

Yes they are in short supply but if you look around enough you can get any lens you want. I had a 50 Cron, 90 TE and a 135 bug eye when I bought my first M8. I now have 21 CV, 24 Elmarit ASPH, 28 Elmarit ASPH, 35 Cron ASPH, NEW 50 Cron (sold my old one as there was something wrong with it, and it was noted when selling it, and the cost of fixing was near the cost of a new one), 50 Lux chrome, 75 Cron ASPH, the same 90TE and 135 bug eye.

Most were bought within the first 3 months of owning the M8. The 50 Lux was ordered on Sunday and will be with me today. So you can find them you just have to look.

 

Lens caps:

Take them off and leave them off when lens is mounted and you are out shooting. Also look at the meter LED's, if the cap is on it will flash "32" "32" "32", or you are in a dark/black box.

 

Good luck and good shooting.

[Perspectics]

Picture falling to one side:

If you mean that they are tilted this is caused be you holding one side of the camera higher then the other. Many that move from SLR to RF find this problem. I even do it and I have used a Leica M for some time. I saw it more with the M8 but I believe it is because of the near instant viewing of DRF images.

 

Thanks Ed! Tilted, yes, that's what I mean, but as for holding one side higher than the other, no, that's not what I meant. Its rather that "composing" an image that appears "balanced" (=not tilted) to one's eyes is more difficult when you don't just see the later-to-be-image, but much more... sorry I didn't make myself clear enough.

[andit]

Hi Claus,

 

Interesting comments about your M8. I was in much the same boat as you at the beginning of the year. I ended up dumping an entire Canon system, moved to the M8 with a 90mm f/4.0, 21mm f/2.8, 135mm Tele-Elmar, and a cv12mm.

 

In the beginning it was quite a change - my model was one of those that had some serious backfocusing problems. Once I learnt to compensate for this the images started blowing me away. I do not miss my Canon system in any way (I was using fixed length primes so I did not have the zoom lens issues).

 

What is interesting is that I also still have the tilting horizon. Where the M8 beats the other systems is in focusing. The other day I took some shots underground in a cave - with extreme poor incandescent lighting. Focus was a snap - no Canon would autofocus under those conditions - and using ISO640 I was still getting shutter speeds of 1/30sec while still having minimal grain.

 

Long live the M8. I wish I had started with Leica M's many years ago.

 

Andreas

[Guest tummydoc]

For me as a prospect the reinforcement of all of the M8’s shortcomings did not multiply their damage.

 

You should make that your signature line!

 

I realized that one should not let the marketing folks work on one’s needs, nor product testers who are sponsored by the industry.

 

Shhhhh....let's keep that our little secret, ay?

 

the M8 delivers 300dpi prints bigger than A3, and it will do so in 30 years.

 

That kind of subversive thinking is bad for business!

 

Downtown the camera draws some attention and people are looking at it and its owner. You are now a difficult person to sense – it is unknown if you make a living with art and photo and nobody can tell if your equipment is just old and you don’t have a good one, or if its some kick ass special handcrafted piece of expensive German engineering. Or if you stole it from the museum - in any case you are special now.

 

Seriously, I've been in Zurich a hundred times and never once has anyone given my Leica an approving glance. Perhaps a sneer and a sniggle behind my back. Or it could've been me...I don't exactly blend in as a Swiss.

 

If it wasn’t for the sake of fast lenses and for the nice bokeh (= quality of out of focus areas) I would not have been giving a second thought to this antique concept.

 

I believe that's what they call a back-handed compliment...

 

 

Nikon or Canon where people’s perception is the same as if you were walking your Pitbull.

 

How do all those tens of thousands of pros shooting Nikon or Canon manage not to get maced or tasered daily

 

Pictures often appear to be falling to one side and this never happened with my previous camera.

 

Perhaps with your wallet so much lighter now you've begun listing to one side No? Well, there's always orthotics...

 

Leica changed some sort of “zeropoint” for the frame to 0.7m as opposed to formally 2m. This means that Leica have changed a working system to a sub-optimally working one in their digital edition.

 

This is internet myth fueled by a rather poorly-translated piece from Leica's current copy writing department. Leica's and other (Osterloh et al) literature has numerous references to the fact that the M framelines were always calibrated to the coverage of lenses at their respective minimum focusing distance, with an additional amount cropped to simulate that which is covered by a slide mount. They were never calibrated for 2m. The 2m figure comes from the "virtual distance" which the rangefinder patch outline (and meter displays in those bodies that have meters) is fixed. Osterloh clearly describes the outer edge of the framelines as being usable at 2m.

 

What some believe has happened with the M8 is that the designers forgot to exclude the additional slide-mount crop, which slightly exacerbates the conservatism of the frames. In addition, due to the lower magnification of the finder, all frames are smaller, and the 75mm frame corner brackets seem to have been artificially moved inward so as not to be so close to the 50's. If one does a close examination, one will find that the 75mm frame in a 0.58x film body are overly-conservative as well--though it is not well known, because few people use a 75 on the 0.58, and then there is the lack of immediacy of seeing the shot and comparing.

 

They explain that they want us to be on the safe side, we can always do some cropping. I find this remark almost insulting and very, very stupid.

 

And yet others find it insulting and very, very stupid the notion of cropping a 10mp image down to 8 or 6 and then enlarging it, rather than spend a little time to understand the framelines and compensate visually whilst composing.

 

The M8 shutter obviously sprays oil and particles around in the camera housing during the first 1k shots.

 

My latest M8 has not done that. I believe they've either changed lubricants or else have discovered the optimal amount to be used. Anybody else with a recent M8 still having oil spotting?

[stunsworth]

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Vimay, last time I compared my M3 and M6 - and I don't have the cameras to hand to do it now - the M6 frames appeared to cover a smaller area than those in the M3.

 

Alas, I can't confirm or repudiate that before Friday.

[Perspectics]

Thanks for funny and constructive feedback!

 

This is internet myth fueled by a rather poorly-translated piece from Leica's current copy writing department. Leica's and other (Osterloh et al) literature has numerous references to the fact that the M framelines were always calibrated to the coverage of lenses at their respective minimum focusing distance, with an additional amount cropped to simulate that which is covered by a slide mount. They were never calibrated for 2m. The 2m figure comes from the "virtual distance" which the rangefinder patch outline (and meter displays in those bodies that have meters) is fixed. Osterloh clearly describes the outer edge of the framelines as being usable at 2m.

 

What some believe has happened with the M8 is that the designers forgot to exclude the additional slide-mount crop, which slightly exacerbates the conservatism of the frames. In addition, due to the lower magnification of the finder, all frames are smaller, and the 75mm frame corner brackets seem to have been artificially moved inward so as not to be so close to the 50's. If one does a close examination, one will find that the 75mm frame in a 0.58x film body are overly-conservative as well--though it is not well known, because few people use a 75 on the 0.58, and then there is the lack of immediacy of seeing the shot and comparing.

 

Well, I am a native from Leica-land and don't need translation I'm doing my mistakes all on my own! Yet I don't see the myth, framelines with my 50mm cron at infinity-focus are around 10% smaller than the image captured.

 

And yet others find it insulting and very, very stupid the notion of cropping a 10mp image down to 8 or 6 and then enlarging it, rather than spend a little time to understand the framelines and compensate visually whilst composing.

 

You're saying one should learn to guess framelines better? Sorry, couldn't resist.

[jaa]

My latest M8 has not done that. I believe they've either changed lubricants or else have discovered the optimal amount to be used. Anybody else with a recent M8 still having oil spotting?

 

I bought my M8 two weeks ago (serial 3195xxx, firmware 1.102). Lots of grease spots after just a few exposures. I cleaned the sensor one time after about 300 photos, not very carefully (I'd read the spots would soon be back). I've taken about 700 photos by now and the spots on the sensor are pretty much the same that were there after I cleaned it (which may mean they changed the amount of lubricant). I'm planning to clean it again soon, this time with greater care, as it seems the worst has passed. I don't know about cameras that shipped with firmware 1.107.

[jaapv]

You're saying one should learn to guess framelines better? Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

 

Resist or not, that is about the truth.....

[lct]

Vimay, last time I compared my M3 and M6 - and I don't have the cameras to hand to do it now - the M6 frames appeared to cover a smaller area than those in the M3. Alas, I can't confirm or repudiate that before Friday.

True for the M6J at least.

[larry]

My latest M8 has not done that. I believe they've either changed lubricants or else have discovered the optimal amount to be used. Anybody else with a recent M8 still having oil spotting?

 

 

I have a very early M8 and it has never had oil spots on the sensor -- I've only needed to blow off dust. It must be a hit-and-miss sort of thing.

[johnalex141r]

Claus;

 

Thanks for the posting. I, too, am new to the Leica M8; maybe 1 month now.

 

Other than a coolpix that an older brother gave me, and digital p&s cameras at work, my other still camera was a Fujica GS645S, with a fixed 60mm lens (6x4.5 neg). (my Canon F1n and multiple lenses does not count, as I never used the stupid thing)

 

I *totally agree* with your thoughts about thinking in framelines; I had found that with my Fujica, one thought about the picture *before* even handling the camera, which is backwards to the way most people take pictures.

 

BTW - I went on a trip with 2 others (Poland, steam trains) and the comments from the families of the other 2 men was "you guys take snapshots while John takes pictures" - my Fujica training, but with the coolpix camera. One guy even said "I don't know how he does it. we are taking pictures of the same thing, and HIS turn out great..."

 

It's the rangefinder training, IMHO.

 

JohnS.

[Perspectics]

In the beginning it was quite a change - my model was one of those that had some serious backfocusing problems. Once I learnt to compensate for this the images started blowing me away. I do not miss my Canon system in any way (I was using fixed length primes so I did not have the zoom lens issues).

 

Hi Andreas, sorry to hear you actually had this problem. This might be an upcoming issue for me as well as soon as my 35mm Lux arrives. The problem is said to be most obvious with short focal length lenses. Anyway...

 

Long live the M8!!

[Perspectics]

BTW - I went on a trip with 2 others (Poland, steam trains) and the comments from the families of the other 2 men was "you guys take snapshots while John takes pictures" - my Fujica training, but with the coolpix camera. One guy even said "I don't know how he does it. we are taking pictures of the same thing, and HIS turn out great..."

 

I love it!! And I seriously wish this was the M8 and rangefinder thinking. But I´m afraid thats just you...

[Guest guy_mancuso]

One month is really not enough time to get the swing of RF . I am new to RF also back in November last year and i had a million camera's in my day but RF really took some time to get the swing of it, give yourseleves a chance to learn it more and framelines and focusing seem to blend in your head better.

[lct]

...Viewfinder frame is smaller than photos taken..

Quite usual with rangefinders Claus.

Most of my film Ms show at least a 20% error at infinity.

Even the best RF in the world is not far from 15%.

I mean the R-D1 of course.

(ouch! no! not on the head folks)

[stunsworth]

Of course not on the head, maybe I'll drop this Noctilux on yout toes instead <grin>.

 

But of course with fixed frame lines there will always be the probablilty of the frame lines being incorrect, it's the designer's call as to what distance is chosen to have accurate frame lines.

 

Personally I'd have prefered the distance to be the mythical 2 metres, but then I guess people would be complaining about not getting everything in the frame when they were photographing rulers at f1 with their Noctis <grin>

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[wizard]

Vimay, last time I compared my M3 and M6 - and I don't have the cameras to hand to do it now - the M6 frames appeared to cover a smaller area than those in the M3.

 

Fully correct, Steve, but no contradiction to what Vimay said. M3 framelines were calibrated to a minimum focusing distance of 1m, whereas the M6's framelines are sized for a minimum focusing distance of 0.7m (and thus cover a smaller area).

 

Regards,

 

Andy

[Perspectics]

You should make that your signature line!

 

signature updated - thanks man, nicely spotted