M8 in the rain?

[sean_reid]

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Hi Sean

I meant I'm not sure simple weather sealing is a cure-all. In such circumstances a Ewa-Marine housing or "raincoat"might be more appropriate.

 

Raincoats are a PITA. I've shot for hours on end, in heavy rain and snow, with a Canon 1Ds and sealed lenses. Not only were there no problems but I didn't have to worry that their might be.

 

I've told Leica this for 3 + years now but the digital M should have seals. Virtually every other maker of professional small format cameras offers seals in their pro bodies: Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Pentax. There's a reason for that and its not just a marketing brownie point. The digital M camera should be as robust in wet weather as any DSLR...period (IMHO)

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[ohnri]

The digital M camera should be as robust in wet weather as any DSLR...period (IMHO)

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

I couldn't agree more. Part of owning a Leica M is that feeling that you can take it anywhere and it won't let you down. I definitely feel that way about my M3 but I guess it's not the case for my M8. It's too bad but at least my DSLR's are all sealed ...

 

Zeiss has just announced some weather sealed lenses in a Nikon F mount. If they can do it then maybe Leica will follow your suggestion and make a few sealed M lenses to go with a more robust body.

 

OTOH, anything short of a heavy shower is not likely to cause any problems and it's pretty hard to shoot in most heavy showers anyway.

 

Best,

 

Bill

[woodyspedden]

Sean et al

 

What is really interesting is that, historically, Robert Capa and others took their M's into the field documenting war and other catastrophic events. No question that a delicate camera would have died in such conditions but theirs did not. This high reliability robust camera system proved itself over and over again through world war II and Korea. (maybe even Viet Nam but I am not sure of that)

 

Now we have a computer in a case that allows use of the M bayonet but without the requisite sealing to allow non-compromised use in realworld (read rainy, windy etc) conditions.

 

I love the M, as do most on this forum, but from a photo-journalistic perspective it just doesn' t cut it. Hopefully Leica will listen to you guys who are the real influencers for this product and "FIX IT". It just isn't that hard

 

Thanks for all your good work to make this latent world class product a real world class product

 

Woody Spedden

[guywalder]

There was a photojournalist who wrote a fairly recent M8 article. In it, he describes losing the LCD function on the M8 for a period of time after using it in the rain. The LCD did, however, reportedly come back to life after the camera dried out. Again, the camera is not sealed and one must realize that precipitation could possibly harm it. Maybe it will be fine and maybe it won't.

Cheers,

Sean

 

sounds like you are refering to Bruno Stevens comments about using the M8 in Iran.

Personally I am more concerned about the medium term accumulative effect of humid air circulating around the (apparently) un-lacquered circuit boards. Time will tell!