New M8 owner.

[Paul Edwards]

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Hi

I am new to this forum as I Have very kindly been bought an M 8 by my fiancee as a pre wedding gift.

I have other Leica cameras the D2, D3 and the Dlux 2 and now to top them all I have an M8.

I am getting used to the focusing and the general feel of the camera. It has come to my notice though that you can't set the metering to say spot or centre weighted . am I missing something or is this just how the camera is?. I have read the instructions and can't seem to find anything on the spot metering.

Also when I transfer the images to the computer the image size does not seem to be as large as an image from the D3.

There is probably a simple answer for my questions so please forgive my ignorance .

[trs]

Paul, there is no spot metering on M8. It's only center weighted. It makes it easy in my opinion, no options to choose from

 

Welcome to the forum.

[Mark Pope]

Hi Paul,

 

congratulations - both on your forthcoming wedding and your M8. It's a fine camera, though many on this forum are prone to complaining about it.

As far as the metering mode is concerned, it is very simple. Basically a centre-weighted metering pattern. That's it I'm afraid. If you take the lens off and look at the shutter, you will see there is a white band on it. This is what the camera meters from when measuring the exposure.

 

As far as file sizes are concerned, are you shooting in raw or jpeg mode? You can change this by pressing the SET button - one of the options is Compression, which has options for DNG (which is raw), JPG fine, JPG Basic, DNG + JPG fine and DNG + JPG Basic.

 

The raw files are about 10MB.

 

It would be worthwhile reading the manual that comes with the camera - it doesn't take long and once you have gad a play around and familiarised yourself with the camera, I'm sure you will be fine.

 

Enjoy the camera. The images it is capable of producing are fantastic.

 

Cheers

 

 

Mark

[Paul Edwards]

Thank you both for your information your responses have cleared up those two point especially about the metering.

I have never been one for gleaning much from instructions I am afraid I prefer to use the camera and then refer to manual as problems arise. But lately I prefer to use the forum , much better and clearer solutions.

 

Thank you.

[wda]

Thank you both for your information your responses have cleared up those two point especially about the metering.

I have never been one for gleaning much from instructions I am afraid I prefer to use the camera and then refer to manual as problems arise. But lately I prefer to use the forum , much better and clearer solutions.

 

Thank you.

The M8 manual is excellent bedtime reading, Paul. Just take a chapter per night, at least until your big day! Nuggets of information will lodge in your mind and help you when operating the camera.

[squarenegs]

Paul

 

You say she bought you a camera... an M8!?!?!?!?!

Marry her quick and be nice, be very, very nice to her!

 

My best to the new threesome, you, her and the M8

or in whichever order you arrange things.

 

Regards

 

Sam

[lars_bergquist]

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The Leica M, even the M8, is a very strange beast today. It assumes that the photographer knows what apertures and shutter speeds are and what they do, and that the photographer (not "the user") wants to control them and then to take the photograph him/herself, after deciding for him/herself what to focus on. This is the very opposite of the run-of-the-mill Canikon cameras where there's a little electronic imp to handle every conceivable situation (conceivable in an office in Tokyo), as long as you can remember the button for it. Don't think, we do it all. And if there's no imp for the situation, you're lost. Even if you do know how to circumvent the automation, it will take you close to two minutes, and the subject is gone.

 

The Leica way is the fastest way, the action way, because it is the simplest, most direct way. As long as the 'user' takes the trouble to learn and to know. And I suspect from your obvious growing fascination with the camera that you will learn and know, There is a lot of genuine knowledge to be gained from this forum. You will learn to disregard the bellyaching. There is probably a Rolls Royce forum somewhere where someone doesn't much like the look of the fascia, and wonders if the marque is going to the dogs...

 

Two tips. First, practice with the rangefinder. It is amazingly accurate. After each sequence of shooting, return the lens to infinity. That way you will immediately know the next time which way to turn, instead of fiddling back and forth. --- Second, the camera can be put on manual exposure (just set any manual speed) and be operated just like any M camera since 1954, with the added convenience of a TTL light meter. This is a really good hands-on way of learning the camera, and the dance of f-stops and speeds. It will teach you one or two things about light, too.

 

The old man from the Age of the M3

[Nicoleica]

There is probably a Rolls Royce forum somewhere where someone doesn't much like the look of the fascia, and wonders if the marque is going to the dogs...

 

I searched the RR forums for this, and while I couldn't find one complaining about the fascia, I did find a good one regarding a faulty air-conditioning system, and another speculating that prices may fall in line with BMW profits. They appear to be very polite in those forums.

[Paul Edwards]

Hi

Lars thanks for your tips I was already thinking along those lines but you have speeded up the proses. Thank you.

[shootinglulu]

I just use AV. Do most people use manual? Is there an easy way to grasp the aperture shutter balance? I really like the idea of knowing and using manual easily for full artistic control.

[Marty]

Manual almost exclusively here. It is simply predictable. A is nice and I am glad it exists, but with it the shooting experience is dominated and dulled by the hunt for the right metering spot prior to every shot, IMHO (and I often get it wrong). But I don't think there is a best way - you use what works for you.

[Nicoleica]

I just use AV. Do most people use manual? Is there an easy way to grasp the aperture shutter balance? I really like the idea of knowing and using manual easily for full artistic control.

 

I'm not sure that I can summarise it clearly, but I'll have a go.

 

Let us assume for this, that you have turned off any 'Auto' ISO functions.

 

The 'correct' exposure requires a fixed amount of light. This is controlled by adjusting the aperture, or the shutter-speed settings. An adjustment of either by one whole marked setting will give you one 'stop' of adjustment. One 'stop' is equal to double the amount of light reaching the sensor if you increase it, or to half the amount of light if you decrease it.

For example, the proverbial 'sunny day' using ISO 160 would suggest 1/125th at f:16. But if you wanted to capture fast movement, you could use 1/500 and f;8. This gives the same amount of light because you are reducing the amount of time that the shutter is open by 2 stops, but you are increasing the amount of light through the aperture by 2 stops too. If you wanted to alter the depth of field, you would adjust the shutter-speed to suit the aperture that you have chosen for the desired effect.

 

You can see this on the M8 when using 'A' mode, by adjusting the aperture and watching the shutter speed alter.

 

The best way to develop a feel for this is to practise, and experiment a little. Having seen some of your images, I'm sure you'll soon develop the 'knack'.

[stevem7]

First of all, congrats on the M8!

 

Try to shoot in RAW (DNG) mode. The files you will get shooting RAW far surpass what you will get from the JPEGS. I have shot with every camera under the sun and just cant seem to find any DSLR that gives me the quality of the M8. I have yet to shoot a D3x but even if I did, its too big, bulky and heavy for my uses. The M8 is a highly capable machine and i am sure you will grow to learn it and love it (or hate it!). Take it with you everywhere and shoot it!

 

Steve

[earleygallery]

The Leica M, even the M8, is a very strange beast today. It assumes that the photographer knows what apertures and shutter speeds are and what they do

 

Not only that, the M doesn't have face recognition software either, so you have to be able to recognise people - and focus on them if you so wish - yourself! Really, can you imagine buying a new car today which has a starting handle!!

[Nicoleica]

Not only that, the M doesn't have face recognition software either, so you have to be able to recognise people - and focus on them if you so wish - yourself! Really, can you imagine buying a new car today which has a starting handle!!

 

I may be in the minority here, but I wish that they still did. My last car that had one was a Citroen GSA, and it came in very handy on particularly cold mornings.

[lars_bergquist]

I searched the RR forums for this, and while I couldn't find one complaining about the fascia, I did find a good one regarding a faulty air-conditioning system, and another speculating that prices may fall in line with BMW profits. They appear to be very polite in those forums.

Well that is of course a difference.

 

The old man from the Age of Politeness

[Rolo]

Hi

I am new to this forum as I Have very kindly been bought an M 8 by my fiancee as a pre wedding gift.

 

Hi Paul,

 

More importantly, I'll shoot your wedding with an M8 and give you a lesson in its use. What a deal !

 

PM me

[lars_bergquist]

Not only that, the M doesn't have face recognition software either, so you have to be able to recognise people - and focus on them if you so wish - yourself! Really, can you imagine buying a new car today which has a starting handle!!

There has been many an icy morning here at sixty degrees north that a car with a starting handle would have been a blessing.

 

The old man from the Age When Airplane Engines Were Started by Spinning the Propeller

[shootinglulu]

Nicola, you are very kind, i'm going to give it a go though can't see the results being as efficient as AV mode for a while!

 

Paul, sorry for barging in on your thread there.. Congratulations on your cam. I had severe teething problems, getting used to the M8 but 2 months later i feel very happy indeed.

As mentioned above, this forum is very helpful, in my case invaluable.

Lucy

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[lars_bergquist]

For the time being you are learning to use the M8, and you have to learn to use a basically manually controlled camera the way we learned in the old days. Also learning the finer points of maximum quality at the same time is asking too much. So I recommend that you learn the camera first, without bothering with RAW files and specialised 'developer' software, until maybe later. Just shoot fine JPG at maximum resolution. Already that gives you an image quality that is far beyound what I could ever attain with 35mm, without some exposure and development tricks that are too arcane to detail here. It is actually up the medium format alley (think roll film and a Hasselblad camera). This is really pretty amazing. It will in fact be all you need unless you want to print to sizes around one half to one meter.

 

I do expect to be hung in effigy for this statement, but it is true. Horses for courses.

 

F-stops have another important function, besides regulating the amount of exposure. They influence depth of field, i.e. the extent of and amount of sharpness on the near and far side of the plane of best focus. The d.o.f. markings on the lens tell you about this--as long as you don't take them literally. They are relics of an earlier more relaxed day when prints seldom exceeded 6x9cm. But there's a simple trick here: Divide by 2. So if your lens is set at f:5.6, read d.o.f. between the '2.8' markings on the scale (you'll find it next to the bayonet). -- Depth of field does not absolve us from good focusing. Detail definition is always best in the plane of focus, and falls off from there. But it is useful to know about it.

 

For the rest, Nicole's explanation is excellent. This is the knowledge that we all once learned as a matter of course, but is now practically extinct, because the 'you press the button' companies told people that it was just useless pedantry. The Leica M will teach you it is not. Just make a couple of shots of the same subject on A with the lens wide open and stopped down, and chimp! Instant audiovisual education (you will supply the audio ...)

 

The old man from the Age of the M3