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bye bye Love bye bye M8


egibaud

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Canon's AF(just some personal idiosyncrasies and thoughts):

 

1. I feel the 1D series are much superior to the 5DII especially in low light but give the AF time to get it right.

2. L primes are more robust than the zooms. Give the lens a shake close to your ears, if they rattle, they are going to have decentering issues.

3. Send in your lenses for AF calibration(factory standard as you have 2 bodies) at least 2 to 4 times a year.

4. If you are a heavy user. Replace your lenses every 4 - 6 years. The AF mechanism wears out pretty fast.

5. Use the USM feature to crank the AF out of focus and let the AF snap to focus. Its usually pretty good.

6. For a ID get the Es-c focusing screen for manual focusing (I think I got that right, I hope!)

 

 

Other than that I think Canon's AF is pretty accurate 95% of the time.

 

Flare and veiling glare will be worse from Canon lenses than the CV, Leica and Zeiss M lenses. You may not want to give that up.

 

In low light the 5D MKII will just NOT focus. My solution :-) put the ST-E2 infrared flash trigger, it has a focusing infrared windows. I do not trigger any flash just use it to focus, it works perfect even in completely dark situation, the situation where of course you do not make pictures, just for test purpose.

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In low light the 5D MKII will just NOT focus. My solution :-) put the ST-E2 infrared flash trigger, it has a focusing infrared windows. I do not trigger any flash just use it to focus, it works perfect even in completely dark situation, the situation where of course you do not make pictures, just for test purpose.

 

Yes, I forgot you did mention that. It does distract occasionally but my experience is that usually people will get used to it or ignore it. A wedding is not street photography after all but if you are shooting VIPs, sometimes it can lead to a nasty situation.

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I have an ST-E2 from my time with the 5D. However since moving "up" to a 1DMk3 it just sits in my bag. I am continually amazed at the low light AF ability of this 1D body and the speed at which it grabs focus with a fast lens under very dim conditions is just incredible.

 

I've never invested in an M8 and at this point have no plans to. I augment my Canon kit with a pair of M6TTL's and tend to shoot HP5 at 800 & 1600. The processing from DR-5 yields fabulous results when you're pushing it a bit. I love the look of "true" B&W and the slides scan beautifully.

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.....

 

Eric

__________________

When I dream I do it through a viewfinder with a 35mm frame... am I crazy?

 

If you sell your rangefinders for an SLR I would considering change my signature if I were you ;)

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The processing from DR-5 yields fabulous results when you're pushing it a bit. I love the look of "true" B&W and the slides scan beautifully.

 

Are you by any chance in Denver? I used to use DR-5 and also loved the results, but it always seemed to take about 2-3 weeks to get stuff back from their lab.

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In low light the 5D MKII will just NOT focus. My solution :-) put the ST-E2 infrared flash trigger, it has a focusing infrared windows. I do not trigger any flash just use it to focus, it works perfect even in completely dark situation, the situation where of course you do not make pictures, just for test purpose.

 

I hate the ST E2. Flaky and disruptive. I'd rather focus and fire a flash than send out the red grid across the room.

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Are you by any chance in Denver? I used to use DR-5 and also loved the results, but it always seemed to take about 2-3 weeks to get stuff back from their lab.

 

I'm not in Denver any longer, but I did spend a number of years there. I still have a lot of friends in the area that can help me out with pickup and delivery in a pinch.

 

I remember having some slower turnaround times from them initially on smaller orders and lower volume emulsions. I'm fortunate that, after all of the trial rolls that I shot, HP5 ended up being my general purpose favorite as it's one of, if not the, highest volume film that they handle. Expedited (friend assisted) shipping both ways usually nets out a turnaround of a week or so.

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I came to the opposite conclusion and have given my Canon 5D and 1DMII and all of my Canon lenses to my daughter. I'm keeping the two M8's and my Leica lenses. It is harder and harder to focus, the older I get, but I can still do a better job than the auto-focus on the Canon in low light. The Canon wide lenses drove me crazy with chromatic aberrations and fringing on the edges of all wide angles, even the expensive L fixed lenses. I love my M8's and my Leica lenses and will never make the mistake of selling them. There's nothing better for low light photography than Leica's fast lenses. YMMV!!

 

Tina

Tina Manley

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...The Canon wide lenses drove me crazy with chromatic aberrations and fringing on the edges of all wide angles, even the expensive L fixed lenses. I love my M8's and my Leica lenses and will never make the mistake of selling them. There's nothing better for low light photography than Leica's fast lenses. YMMV!!

 

Tina

Tina Manley

 

I was never particularly wild about the performance of the wides on my 5D either. I got rid of the 5D and went with the 1DMk3. That sensor just seems to me to hit the sweet spot for IQ throughout its ISO range while virtually eliminating the fringe faults of the Canon lens lineup. I crop in camera with my feet or a zoom so the 10 MP is plenty for me.

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I was never particularly wild about the performance of the wides on my 5D either. I got rid of the 5D and went with the 1DMk3. That sensor just seems to me to hit the sweet spot for IQ throughout its ISO range while virtually eliminating the fringe faults of the Canon lens lineup. I crop in camera with my feet or a zoom so the 10 MP is plenty for me.

 

Agreed. The 1DmkIII is a great camera and for me a complement to the M8.

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I hate the ST E2. Flaky and disruptive. I'd rather focus and fire a flash than send out the red grid across the room.

 

I shoot some events involving ministers of state. The ST E2 will be the first to go:D

 

I don't shoot weddings so I assumed that its more acceptable in these cases.

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Yes- but the optics do not come from Leica Camera, like our lenses, they come from Leica Micro Systems, a completely different company and are probably originally made in China.

Jaap,

I found this link on the origin of glasses used for Leitz optics

"Corning" and "Schott"

Is it chinese ?

Summilux1.4/50 asph

Please look in paragraph "Glass types"

Regards

Henry

Edited by Doc Henry
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Quote:

Originally Posted by jaapv viewpost.gif

Yes- but the optics do not come from Leica Camera, like our lenses, they come from Leica Micro Systems, a completely different company and are probably originally made in China.

 

Jaap,

 

Jaap,

I found this link on the origin of glasses used for Leitz optics

"Corning" and "Schott"

Is it chinese ?

Summilux1.4/50 asph

Please look in paragraph "Glass types"

Regards

Henry

 

 

"The optics of Leica microscopes do not come from Leica Camera, like out lenses. They (microscope lenses) are probably made in china." Is what Jaapv was trying to say

Edited by adli
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Jaap,

I found this link on the origin of glasses used for Leitz optics

"Corning" and "Schott"

Is it chinese ?

Henry

 

1. You can buy a lump of glass from a number of places. You mention Corning and Schott...Don't forget that good lumps of glass are made in Japan too. Are you talking about lenses? Or lumps of glass?

 

2. "Leitz"? Is anything still sold as Leitz? I thought the Leitz spun off the product lines into different business units years ago. From Wikipedia: "Ernst Leitz AG, a former German corporation now divided into three independent companies".

 

Talking about "Leitz" products appears to be living in the past. :confused:

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Jaap,

I found this link on the origin of glasses used for Leitz optics

"Corning" and "Schott"

Is it chinese ?

Summilux1.4/50 asph

Please look in paragraph "Glass types"

Regards

Henry

Corning and Schott supply quite a lot of different types of glass all over the world, including China. As does Hoya, which supplies glass to Leica for instance for the disconued WATE and other lenses.

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"The optics of Leica microscopes do not come from Leica Camera, like out lenses. They (microscope lenses) are probably made in china." Is what Jaapv was trying to say

Actually, only the specials and one-offs are produced in Germany. All other Leica microscopes are built by Leica China.

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Latest update. Leica are collecting my M8 next Monday, and are hoping to get it repaired and returned to me promptly. I so hope that this will be a complete cure of it's ills, and that it will not have to return to Solms again in a few months.

Thanks to everyone for your support and understanding of my gloominess. Thanks to anyone from Leica who is reading too, for the prompt & helpful manner in which you have responded to my emails. :)

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Hi,

 

...

 

After using both camera type my conclusion are:

5D MKII has less noise at very ISO

I have more accurate focusing and I have many less missed shots for moving (me or subject)...

 

Eric

 

Ok. Different tools for different jobs. And OF COURSE the ^%$# Canon has less noise at high ASA. Even so, it is a bit of a pig, isn't it? :eek:

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Hmm... I have missed more shots with DSLRs than wih RFs, specially in low light where the AF either hunts forever or has a mind of its own...

 

Cheers,

 

Same here...the RF is sometimes not as fast but focus is almost never off. By contrast, even the best AF cameras sometimes miss the mark.

 

I use both.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

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Since yesterday, I have gone back through every photograph taken with my M8, and one of the red dots first appeared in the first photograph that I took when the camera was returned from Solms after they had cured the green spots. (There are several red dots in total.) It's certainly something up with the sensor, as it's in exactly the same place in every photograph.

 

Seems as my M8 have got the same disease :eek:

 

A red dot showing up at high iso, especially in dark surroundings. Other high iso files show a vertical stripe crossing right over where the red dot is on some of the pictures.

 

Strange thing is that the red dots don't show up in Lightroom, only in C1, but the stripes are visible in both.

 

Here are come 100% crops of the phenomen:

http://home.vikenfiber.no/adli/L9994048Reddot.tif

http://home.vikenfiber.no/adli/L9995539Redstripe.tif

http://home.vikenfiber.no/adli/Redstripe.tif

 

And here are a couple of untouched raw-files frow which two of the crops derives from:

http://home.vikenfiber.no/adli/L9994048.DNG

http://home.vikenfiber.no/adli/L9995539.DNG

 

Could someone please have a look and tell if it is the same problem?

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