M8 hands on impressions

[red dawn]

Hi

 

the Leica M8 came to the sunny country of Singapore earlier today, at the

official launch of Leica's new products from Photokina 2006. And of course, I

got to touch, use and shoot a bunch of pictures.

 

Interestingly, there were NO restrictions on using your own SD cards to try that

the M8, no Leica reps or salesperson really monitoring us as the people queued

and took turns to fondle, uhmmm i mean use the only M8 available for hands on

during the product launch. A number of people brought their own SD cards and

took full advantage of the generous time we were given with the demo unit. I

don't have any SD cards, but did take a number of shots with a friend's card and

tried out my Summicron 28 f2 on the digital body.

 

Leica also had a on-the-spot printing station for us to print 8 x 10s from

pictures we took with any of the demo units there (the M8, Digilux 3, Vlux,

Dlux3) Also, I was rather surprised Leica had up to 5 pretty models mingling

among the crowd, allowing us to grab shots with and of them. A more lifestyle

approach to marketing, maybe? :)

 

I will not repeat what others have said at length, other than the fact that Sean

(of reidreviews.com) was right on the money in his excellent review of the M8.

It felt every bit like a M, except that it felt (and is) thicker, and not having

owned the MP, I thought the new covering is rather slippery - I prefer the

traditional vulcanite covering. Changing ISO is really painful cumbersome

compared to my Canon DSLRS - and let's not get into exposure compensation!

Thankfully I'm more of a manual mode shooter. But the auto exposures were quite

accurate - no worries about the metering at all.

 

Having been a M shooter for several years, it also felt weird not having to wind

the film. My thumb wanted to do something after every shot.

 

Even on the LCD, I could guess the image quality is going to be very good (I

will of cours be analysing it more once my friend mails me the DNGs from his

card). ISO 2500 is rather worrying though - I can see noise even without

magnifying the image on the LCD - it certainly looks like I will be using it up

to ISO 640 only, falling back on high speed lenses.

 

Speaking of high speed lenses, I'm very pleased with the 28 cron on this baby.

The fingerprint of the lens shows even in digital format - it seems the 28 cron

was made for the M8. It's going to be my primary lens on the M8. (Made up my

mind to get it after today's positive experiences)

 

Some interesting facts I learnt about the M8 today:

 

1) You can turn off the camera and any unfinished images will continue to write

to the card. Canon's DSLRs all do this and this is a very welcome fact.

 

2) You can take off the baseplate, and the camera will still continue to write

images to the card, with a huge warning on the LCD about the baseplate being

off. This is very reassuring - and surely better than accidentally removing a

baseplate off a film M that is halfway through a roll. (ouch!)

 

3) Buffer is not that big; but there are no delays in shooting as even when the

camera is writing images to the card, you can still keep taking photos as soon

as the buffer is cleared.

 

4) shutter noise is quiet and damped - ok not as quiet as a film M but in

practical use I don't think it will be much of an issue. The quiet character of

the M is preserved!

 

5) Having come from the 0.58x viewfinder of my M6TTL, the 0.68x viewfinder is

surprisingly pleasant to use. i wear glasses and I have no problem seeing the

24mm framelines - I can't see much beyond the framelines but being able to see

the widest framelines with good eye relief is very good news to me. I have the

1.25x magnifier, and will be using it when employing lenses 50mm and above.

 

All in all, a very satisfying experience. I didn't eat much of the high tea they

were serving (the launch was at a posh hotel) - the M8 was too distracting! :)

[havenornirvana]

Send some pic.s then..

[roger_hicks1]

I tried one at photokina, alas without my own SD card. I was well impressed: easy menus, good finder, real 'M' feel, slightly odd shutter-cocking noise. I'm currently waiting for a review camera. When I get it. there'll be a report in The Photo School at www.rogerandfrances.com

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[andy_piper2]

BHT: Nice summary!

 

One point, though. You mention that noise at 2500 is visible without even magnifying the

image on the LCD. What I found (with a beta-firmware M8) is that the LCD shows far MORE

noise showing the full frame than one sees zooming in. A bug in the resampling routine of

the betaware, obviously.

 

Scared me the first time I saw it - until I zoomed in a bit and the noise muted

substantially.

 

Which is not to defend the M8 as to ISO 2500 noise - we'll get to judge that objectively

pretty soon in real images. Just a warning that the LCD view showing the full frame is not

trustworthy in that regard.

[robbox]

I got the chance to play with one last weekend here in Chicago.

Being the first Leica I've ever shot with, it left quite the impression and I was very impressed

by it.

Though, I'm not going to lie, the MP I picked up immediately afterwards felt much better in

my hands.

I've defenitely fallen in love and will have my eyes wide open for one in my price range (Aka

old, broken and totally inoperational) so I can get to shooting a Rangefinder.

Maybe I'll have one in a decade or so.