Sean Reid's review of a pre-production upgraded M8

[tbarker13]

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Very true. It's not $1,800.

It's actually $1,761.35 as of a minute ago.

[charlesphoto99]

Well I'm sure the euro will crash against the dollar any day now and we'll all be able to get our upgrades for under a grand.

 

I'm thinking $1800 will sound like a bargain by next year.....

[tjphoto]

After buying both the new canons, i'm selling my M8. They absolutley kill it..In every way.

After a year with this camera i have come to the conclusion it's a piece of crap.

The lens's are great, but i can't deal with the camera anymore.

Later,

Tim

[canlogic]

I would hope they would kill it after all they are twice the size of the M8.

[ken_tanaka]

<...>

 

Later,

 

Tim

 

Given your stated plan, I doubt it.

 

Your Web site suggests that you're a rather experienced, and presumably knowledgeable, vocational photographer. So I'm a bit surprised that you would present such an incongruous, simple-minded A/B comparison to your Canon 1's. Other than both being cameras, they're very different instruments. The basic design of the M never anticipated the range of applications that the Canon 1's serve daily.

 

So to say that your M8 is "a piece of crap" (nice turn or language, by the way) because your Canon 1D's "kill it" is...errr...

 

Had you never touched an M before you bought that M8?

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Just have to ask, any lenses for sale.

[stunsworth]

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Not everyone likes broccoli, not everyone likes cabbage. I like the later and hate the former.

[tjphoto]

Hey guys nothing personal. Sorry for haste, but i'm fed up with it. I'm keeping the lens's as

i'm getting another M7 . And, yes i've had many M's before the M8 . They were much better.

Sorry for the "c" word, but maybe the truth hurts?

Thanks

Tim

[stunsworth]

What was crap about your particular broccoli?

[Ecaton]

Well I'm sure the euro will crash against the dollar any day now and we'll all be able to get our upgrades for under a grand.

 

I'm thinking $1800 will sound like a bargain by next year.....

 

I love contrarians. The downside though would be that the USD value of your used M8 would plummet with the crashing Euro, since the nominal USD price for new M8s would, with some time lag, be fixed below of what you paid for yours.

[Jack_Flesher]

Tim:

 

Tag me --- I may have a buyer for your M8. (Of course we're assuming it's priced like a crap one )

 

Cheers,

[AlanG]

Of course pricing is driven by what people are willing to pay. From recent experience:

 

$1800 will only buy 200 small bottles of water at a restaurant on the slopes of Val Thorens in France. (6 Euros per 1/2 litre.)

 

At Costco, 24 1/2 litre bottles cost under $7.00 (29 cents each.)

[Guest Robert Belasario]

Of course pricing is driven by what people are willing to pay. From recent experience:

 

$1800 will only buy 200 small bottles of water at a restaurant on the slopes of Val Thorens in France. (6 Euros per 1/2 litre.)

 

At Costco, 24 1/2 litre bottles cost under $7.00 (29 cents each.)

 

Bang on the point my friend, bang on ......

 

why would anyone pay 6€ for a 1/2 liter of water ..... I realize people do, but why I ask you WHY?

 

taking into account that 6€ will keep a family of 5 alive for a week ....etc etc. etc. you probably know the rap....

 

(and for the short sighted here, try and just adjust your "angle of view" a bit wider than you normally do)

[ken_tanaka]

Hey guys nothing personal. Sorry for haste, but i'm fed up with it. I'm keeping the lens's as

i'm getting another M7 . And, yes i've had many M's before the M8 . They were much better.

Sorry for the "c" word, but maybe the truth hurts?

Thanks

Tim

 

No offense meant or taken, Tim. No, it's not really a "truth" to me but I can certainly understand the disappointment you expressed. I went through something similar in last year when my early M8 experiences sometimes invoked defecationist remarks from my mouth. I, too, expected an experience similar to that of my M7.

 

I set the camera aside for nearly three months while I was working on a project (which called for my big Canons). But early last summer I returned to the M8 for one last visit before I would make the final decision to sell it. Something happened. My experience with it, and results from it, seemed somehow different. Last fall I used it to capture several of the images for a large-format book project at-hand at the time. The book is a catalogue of a world renowned sculptor's work and, consequently, was quite a demanding effort. But the M8 images selected by the designers (unbeknownst to them) are --if I may say so-- terrific and will each be presented wall-to-wall in full-bleed in the book.

 

That the M8 has more of the quality characteristics of handcrafting than of mass production is indisputable. Maybe you have a stinker that needs to go back to obedience school in the Fatherland. Maybe a few more months of getting the hang of it would help. Maybe you're just sick of it. Different strokes... I just thought I'd share my own valley-and-hill experience with you.

 

Good fortunes to you.

[tjphoto]

Yes, i think it needs a sapphire display cover . Lame.

[gravastar]

Of course pricing is driven by what people are willing to pay. From recent experience:

 

$1800 will only buy 200 small bottles of water at a restaurant on the slopes of Val Thorens in France. (6 Euros per 1/2 litre.)

 

At Costco, 24 1/2 litre bottles cost under $7.00 (29 cents each.)

 

LOL! I remember 30 years ago on the beach in Nice, Cote D'Azure France, handing over a 10 franc note for a glass of lemonade and waiting, waiting...... for the change.

 

Bob.

[sean_reid]

Well I'm sure the euro will crash against the dollar any day now and we'll all be able to get our upgrades for under a grand.

 

I'm thinking $1800 will sound like a bargain by next year.....

 

Oh good....any chance the CDN will fall as well because that would really help me out. <G>

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[jrc]

There is a problem with the price of this upgrade, whether or not you can afford it. I'm a pretty affluent guy, and $1,800 is not a significant sum of money to me. Still, for what you get for your $1,800, if you were to send it to any of a number of third-world-oriented charities, you could literally save some lives. If you pay $1,800 for this upgrade, you are literally paying to reduce the sound of a camera from a medium finger-snap to a quiet finger-snap, or something on that order. How many lives is that much sound reduction worth?

 

I know this is a harsh way to put it, and there are undoubtedly professionals who need a quieter shutter for their work...but for those who say the question of $1,800 is simply a matter of whether or not you can afford it -- no it isn't. There's also the question of what else you could do with it. That's what bothers me. I would like a quieter shutter; I think there are better places to put $1,800.

 

JC

[rob_x2004]

So they will run out of the old shuter at some stage and start using the new shutter standard. When will this be or do Leica have a stockpile of two hundred old ones that will take seven years to clear?

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[Jamie Roberts]

And another thing folks are ignoring (or maybe don't know). A new shutter in a Canon 1DS costs <$300, and that's tied in with the mirror mechanism so there's more work involved. $1800 for a new shutter and LCD glass is effin robbery, pure and simple. It's an effin pre-assembled mass-produced Japanese shutter, not some complicated handmade German clockwork. Ya there's the warranty. But unless yours is up, that's a waste.

 

Well, mine is up. It was only 1 year in Canada anyway, IIRC. Doesn't matter: it will be two by the time I upgrade if I upgrade.

 

Look, my 5d shutter assembly, according to CPS Canada, is $400 (plus tax, etc...) to replace. 2 years of warranty has to be worth $500. The CLA alone from Leica--good or bad--is $500.

 

That leaves $300 for the sapphire crystal. Not that I need it, but it's a cool idea. So it all depends where your camera is on the cycle.

 

And just for the record, wedding officiants can be really nasty about photographers at a wedding, regardless of what you've seen. I've seen obnoxious videographers thrown out mid-ceremony. And I know they can't get as nasty as a judge in a courtroom but try explaining to a client the reason you can't shoot their wedding is because you're not allowed back in the church (hasn't happened to me, personally, thankfully).

 

So anything that is less obtrusive is better than more obtrusive. All together, it's really an easy choice once the tax write-off is taken into account...