who bought the m8 and regretted?

I finally held one today. Chunky. VF looks fine. Rewind crank a miss. This friend of mine has 2 m8. He said he likes it so much he wanted a spare one.

I think the M8 price point is a real problem - the Nikon D3 has a full-frame sensor and apparently amazing high ISO performance for $5k.

Yeah the price and the magenta problem are a pain. I am sure the D3 is a brilliant camera

but it weighs a ton. And it is probably noisy. I wonder if you need to the the equ. of a

M.A. to get through the controls.

 

I like the M8 because it is so easy to operate. It is also so light. I do not need to hire a

mule to carry my gear.

 

So far (since Feb.) the M8 has treated me very well. Too well. I really feel lonely for my

film camera and have had to devise special uses for them.

 

No regrets, Teavis.

I'm thinking about it, but every time I use my IIIF or M4 I say: "Why Paulie? Why do it?"

I love the camera even with all its quirks. You learn, as with every piece of equipment, to

work around them. It doesn't bother me that it is not full frame. I wish the sensor behaved

like the sensor in my 5D at higher ISOs. At the lower ISOs, it is as clean as can be.

I too have an M8 + RD-1s. I can carry both with lenses attached in my tiny Billingham Hadley Small camera bag. One standard lens and one wide-angle. I still have a Canon 5D, which has superior noise performance and great telephoto with 70-200 f/4 IS. But do I want to carry it on my holidays?

I found my (recently departed) R-D1 more useful than enjoyable, but that's not to say I won't buy another digital in the future - for now an LX2 is enough to cover 'useful'.<p>I'm about to order another big lump of tri-x.

I'm waiting for the Bessa $1000 version.

Who will admit that openly in a public forum? On the otherhand, here what <a href="http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=501" >two dollars </a> will get you per day in Burma!

I hope those Leica guys will have a look on this forum. When I have the first look on the M8, It looked fine to me but I just wanted to ask: why they didn't keep the advance lever?

 

The advance lever is NOT just for advancing the film, it is actually helping the right hand to hold the camera (when it's in pulled out position). It can actually be kept on the M8 design as an over-sized on-off switch. It could have 2 positions only: when it is pushed inwards, it's off, and when it's pulled outward, it is on.

 

Leica should also issued an extended battery pack which assembles the size and look of the Lecavit.

If/when I buy it, I am going to have a blast with it. It is a superb camera.

 

Unlike what Robert Budding says, in Europe, the Leica M8 is cheaper than the upcoming Nikon D3.

 

(Sorry Leslie, I am not being forgetful of the grim situation you point to)

Almost there. I didn't sell mine yet because I would buy another one the following day. There's no better camera for doing what a Leica does; a light, high precision camera with great lenses and low noise at 800 ISO.

Not at all a regret, but a revised expectation (or a fantasy----whatever.) It's not a camera that matches the functionality of an SLR with a very high quality wide, mid, and tele zoom. So, although I use it occasionally for my work, the SLR is what I usually rely on. OTOH, it is in every respect my most preferred photographic tool (for all the reasons that I needn't repeat here).

Robert...I know what you mean...yesterday I had an orange...pretty good but nowhere as tasty as an appple.

 

Oh...that's right, they're different animals (fruits).

I love my M8 and have no regrets. Sure it's a quirky beast and definitely not a camera for anybody who likes a lot of features and automation in the digital capture process, but it is capable of producing images of stunning quality and as Alex says, you don't need a mule to haul your camera system around. I also find the M8 to be a quiet and very unobtrusive camera for candid and street photography.

 

With regard to image quality, my point of comparison is the Canon gear I used before I purchased my M8 and the Nikon gear used by friends and family with whom I share an interest in photography. I find that compared with their images, the M8 images are consistently more detailed and tonally rich and furthermore, we are all in agreement on this - and so although this is hardly a scientific sampling, this observation would seem to be more than just purely my bias as an M8 owner. Other people more experienced than me have observed that the M8 images are closer to medium format in quality than to 35mm and I think that this is true.

 

Of course, none of the wonderful attributes of this camera will make you a great photographer if you don't work at developing your photographic eye and skills, but if you can get all of those things right, I think the M8 will allow you to go as far as want to photographically and it is a really marvellous and craftsmanlike tool.

RALPH GIBSON gave a lecture during his big show at Tucson's CCP last week, and indicated that he had been given an M8 by Leica, but couldn't use it with his own personal style because of lag in shutter delay. (I missed his talk, so this is a second-hand report and may not be exactly reliable.)

i too have both the M8 and rd1s. use the epson a whole lot more. i cannot say i regret buying the M8. however, it is not going to make it onto my all-time favorite list (as opposed to the rd1s). and what is that list anyway? let's see, here's my favorite dozen: linhof master tech V, bessa ii/heliar, leica M2, epson rd1s, graflex xlsw, deardorff V8, nikon F3T, hasselblad xpan, contax t3, mamiya 6MF, leica iiig with vit, and zeiss ikon sw full monte.

I travel a lot, I've got a three or four day overseas trip down to a fine art where everything fits

into one carry-on bag. The only practical camera choice is an M8 plus the 28/35/50, either

that or it's a P&S. Not the best reason for choosing a camera I know, but that's why I'm

sticking with the M8!

I bought M8 recently. Now I'm a believer..)

 

The output is excellent. As good or better that color negative film (35mm)

The annoying things are: white balance, dust on the sensor, intermittent

software/firmware glitches, relatively short battery life.

 

This camera is like a cute pet. It is enjoyable, but I wouldn't take it anywhere without Hexar

Rf or Contax G backup

It's been somewhat of a love-hate experience.

 

I bought mine early last summer and went through all of the gyrations - getting my lenses coded, settling on buying IR filters (which I did not want to do), and experiencing some of the commonly reported issues with the camera itself.

 

I am currently on my second body (my friendly Leica dealer, Tony Rose, replaced the first one), and now I am hooked. Once I was settled on the fact I couldn't use the M8 like a consumer digital camera, I was set. Currently, all I shoot with is the M8; I don't want to use any of my other (film) cameras.

 

With the M8, you must shoot in DNG/RAW (IMHO, the jpg files are completely worthless) and you must get your lenses coded and IR filters for them to be relatively trouble free. There has been somewhat of a learning curve with digital processing, but I have to say it has been worth it.

 

I may soon pear down to one M film body (as a back-up for the M8).

Actually since someone mentioned it, Using the Nikon DSLR's especially the D200 and above is actually very fast, no menue hunting for the main functions, all one dial, etc. for white balance, ISO, shutter speed, focus point, etc. I'd like an M8, but I wouldn't pay 5 grand for it.

I have to make a confession - the only thing I like about the M8 is it looks like a Leica and has some of the benefits of a digital work flow. I am going to sell it soon and buy a Linhof 6x12 - as a novelty camera I will get far more mileage out of this big boy XPan set up.

>>> ...and buy a Linhof 6x12 <P>

 

Pete, noooooooo...<P>

 

<a href= "http://www.roundshot.ch/xml_1/internet/de/application/d438/d925/

f934.cfm">Get this puppy instead</a>. Scroll down half way to see how big this cam

really is.

Yowza,

7,500 x 21,250 pixels and 950 MB tiff files.<P>

 

Get a custom strap from Luigi, hang the beast around your neck, and you'll become an

instant

babe magnet...

Roger--What makes the RD1S your favorite over the M8? Just curious, as somehow spending

$5k on a leica seems like a better value than $2500 for an epson.

Brad, you know very well Pete doesn't need that cam to be a babe magnet. And please don't

encourage him. :P