Small portable camera not leica M8

Hello,

 

Recently, I posted a question about my desire to add a Leica M8 to my

photography arsenal for its "quality" and portability. Well, I must admit I

should have had my head examined for considering it. I ended up going with the

Canon G7, after a extensive research. During that research, I came across so

many examples or horrible bugs in the Leica M8. It made my decision easy.

Thanks for all the input, and good luck debugging the Leica M8. I really with

they could have gotten that camera right.

Welcome to the dark side. At least your wallet will thank you!

 

I suspect you may be quite happy with the G7. It's not perfect either, but then it's not $5000 (plus lenses...) and if and when the G8 comes out, you can afford to throw the G7 away.

 

I'm sure Leica purists will recoil in horror, but when it comes to "Leica style shooting" I suspect the G7 will be able to hold it's own. 16x20 enlargements won't be as good, and your images won't have that elusive "Leica Glow", but I've found that small digicams can actually be pretty useful for "street" photography and they attract even less attention than a Leica M would. They're also often quieter which can be good for candid work.

I wonder how many M8's Leica needs to sell to break even on it, and how many they will actually sell now that everyone knows about the IR filter requirement. I wonder how many people are convinced there is a replacement that doesn't need filters already in the works and are either waiting for it or to get one of these M8's on closeout or used, for a fraction of MSRP. I will be curious to see what happens beyond the next few months when Leica catches up its backlog of orders. The Big Two camera brands have been slowing their product cycle turnover quite a bit from what it was a few years ago, it would be ironic if the M8 which Leica said they had waited on for technology to mature and slow down, ended up with a very short life cycle.

The M8 was too much for me to consider. But I think it wasn't so much bugs, as a different perspective going into digital. Leicas are about quality and the IR filter and the corresponding moire might just be an attribute of going for ultimate image quality and fixing the moire and color castes when they show up. It's a different perspective, but not a wrong one.

Leicas have always been more about portability and decent quality (like G7) than they have been about refined images.

 

If refined images were the main goal, Japanese rivals beat Leica years ago with superior SLRs (and arguably a superior rangefinder)...that were unweildy and inappropriate for rangefinder/digicam kinds of situations.

 

A Barnack-style tube finder is available in many Canon digicams, in brighter, zooming versions, and of course the lenses in many digicams are better than were several optics that were instrumental in Leica's fame.

Cameras, any camera, are only as good as the shooter. Everything else is just fluff.

The "leica glow" sans leica can be <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/

multi_page.asp?

cid=7-6468-7844">found here.</a> </p>Buy an M8 if you want to, but either way, life is

good.

I must admit I was very excited about the M8 when I heard about it. I still understand the Leica purist who will buy it no matter what. In addition, they will likely make great pictures. It just seems like too much extra hassle to worry about color shift problems and moire effect in a 5000 dollar camera.

 

I have never been very grounded when it comes to camera equipment. I have made some pretty bad decisions in the past regarding gear I should not have sold vs gear I should have never bought. Anyway, I toiled over this decision for quit a while, and it paid off well IHMO. Even if the G7 does not work out for me, it sure did not cost 5k plus lenses.

"Leicas have always been more about portability and decent quality (like G7) than they have been about refined images"

 

That certainly was what the Leica I and II were about, but by the era of the M's, Leica was certainly sliding toward quality at any price when it comes to lens quality. Why spend $3000 for a lens if all you're going to use it for is to do a "decisive moment" grab shot on the streets of Paris. There's nothing wrong with doing that of course, but clearly lenses optimized as heavily as Leica's beg for careful technique, and to me the M8 seems to be aimed at that idea.

"when it comes to "Leica style shooting" I suspect the G7 will be able to hold it's own." -

 

This may be true and the camera does have appeal but the problem with the camera is the lack of RAW and the focal length range of the lens. The lens only is as wide as a 35mm would be in full frame, honestly for me that isn't enough. I would like to see 28mm, 24mm being a whole lot better. This might be able to be fixed with wide angle adapters but this is as much of a hassle if not more as using an IR filter on the lens. The lack of Raw is a killer all by itself for me. There is only so much you can do with a jpeg from the camera, sometimes its not that much of an issue, sometimes it really is, especially when you are shooting a bunch of detail.

 

Now if they made the G7 and included RAW with an actual wide angle lens then I would agree completely and it has nothing to do with how great Leica is

Unfortunately for the Leica elves, Rudolph is out for the season with a torn hoof leaving the lead slot to Basshher.

Looked at a Canon at the electronics store. The finder showed MUCH more than the LCD screen. It would not have been so bad if you got some extra, but to have things cut off, no way.

Check this out: http://www.dcresource.com/news/newsitem.php?id=3403

 

With no guilt whatsoever :>), I always carry around a little Canon SD600 in my pocket. I get amazing 8x10's out of it.

Sigma, interesting. I am not currently in the market, therefore, not really interested in doing too much research in this product. Please let me ask some basic questions. Sensor size? Cost? Examples from this plus 100% crops? It might benefit some other posters.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0609/06092604sigmadp1.asp

 

Can't find a price yet.

 

Stephen, I didn't realize that typing the model # of a camera into a Google search window was that tough.

Leica Digilux 1 and Nikon S5 for this shooter. I have one foot in the digital age. The other foot? I just bought a IIIc with 50mm f/3.5 Elmar, to keep my M's company. Gotta stay balanced, you know.

Jake,

 

The two links contain identical information. BTW, I dug my HP calculator out. The crop factor is ~1.7 and the aspect ratio is 1.5 (like 24X36, not 4X3). Sensor size (dimensions) is a trivial calculation of geometry, but this is the level of my interest in this camera. But, my intention was for other poster's possible interest of being informed and not being flamed. The cost question, even a "ballpark" figure considering Sigma's other priced products remains unanswered. I won't go so far. It's the holiday season and I, like everyone else, am busy.

Most the people that can afford to buy the M8, but won't now because of the problems, are people that don't understand what the M8 does anyway. The remaining group of people that are very knowledgeable that could afford to buy the M8 but will not now because of the problems simply feel betrayed.

Roger, and I thought you preferred the G7 to the D-Lux 3? So many models coming and

going it's hard to go up. But you're bang on, the G7 or G8 is no M8. Interchangeable

lenses is the big difference, especially the lack of wideangle with the Canon. 35 is just not

wide enough at all.

I totally agree. People who spent all that time comparing a point and shoot Canon G7 with a Leica M8 should really have their head examined, disregarding the out come of the extensive research.

Actually, there is no comparison considering the Leica M8 is an unfinished product with bug after bug appearing.

Thinking of the Leica M8 and the Canon G7 is an exercise in contrast, not of comparison. What's similar other than they both need electrical power? No coincident rangefinder, no interchangeable lenses, etc. etc. Admit you want an M8 but rationalized your decision to purchase a G7! :-)

I heard that Rudolph's bright red nose, turned magenta............

I ordered one before the filter and magenta cast controversy reared up, and before I had time to think about cancelling the order Adorama shipped it.

 

I decided to hang on to it for a while, to see whether or not Leica could live up to getting it to work. I had been shooting with an R-D1 since December 2004, and loved the form factor and the way it rendered B&W with its' RAW converter.

 

The M8 is a perplexing camera.

 

ISO 2500 is VERY noisy to me, I've been spoiled by the Canon high ISO images in terms of noise, so I admit I've not even shot 2500 with this one.

 

The images up to ISO 640 are great even in color, and sharper than any camera I've ever owned. HOWEVER, the other issue that really got me was the streaking of image highlights in low light. I bought the camera as a low light camera, and between the streaking and the ISO 2500 noise, I'm not terribly impressed there.

 

Leica has a fix for the owners, but it involves sending the camera back to Solms--I have to ship it to New Jersey insured (probably $90 or so) and then wait three weeks to get it back.

 

Leica also has a fix for the magenta cast, which we all know is the IR filter, and although that doesn't bother me too much, I can just wait to see the reflections bouncing off of the filter when I shoot at night.

 

Overall, in spite of those issues, I prefer it greatly to the R-D1 now, due to the fact that Epson's R-D1s firmware crippled the battery life, vignetting is not wonderful with the 15mm Heliar, and the image quality overall is much better. Also I really like B&W at ISO 1250--that is about the same for me as the R-D1 at 800 but a tad faster. The 50 Nokton and the M8 are a good combo here, especially with the longer baselength rangefinder.

 

I'll send the camera back to Solms in the new year, and see how the filter situation works out. I have to ebay one of my cameras, as I can't afford to own all of this equipment. I thought it would be simple--get the M8 and ebay the R-D1 and my M6 TTL and recoup the costs. Now I'm not 100% sure what my plan is.

 

I have a some of my M8 images sitting on my website at http://www.flickr.com/photos/krimple/sets/72157594387627376 and will continue to upload ones I like to that account. I think that it was a big mistake for Leica to release the camera in a hurry to beat out the trade show fanatics, and I can't see how they didn't test a Leica camera for 1) low light shooting and 2) IR characteristics. That said, the camera can take great images, has no discernable vignetting on my lenses, and is tack sharp 90% of the time.

Yes,

 

I would really love an M8 without some of the problems that Ken described. I very reliable and working M8 vs a G7 is really no comparison. I would like to see an M9 come out or maybe an M8 mark2 in the future, and I would jump on board. However, by that time I am sure that Zeiss, or maybe another company will have a comparable rangefinder digital camera. that Sigma camera looks very intersting.

 

Despite the bugs that have appeared due to poor beta testing of the camera. It seems the quality control has decreased as well with stories of focus problems etc. It seems that it is like hitting the lottery if you get an M8 that does not need some sort of warranty work right out of the box.