"magenta madness"

[ray .]

<i>companies that don't respect their customers lose in the end. </i>

<p>Somewhat a different discussion, but I don't even think that statement is true.

Not that it shouldn't be, but in the existing market system, customers are

manipulated all the time by companies that are thriving. Furthermore, if the

customer cannot get what they want that the

product has from any other product, they may knowingly allow themselves to be

manipulated as part of the deal.

[rj]

Leica really needs to fix the banding issue with the sensor, the IR magenta issue has a fix using filters, so I assume this will be the fix. I would like to see Leica maybe giving an IR filter away free with a camera purchase as a sign of good will to its customers. That and fixing the banding is what I would like to see. I believe that they will do something like this in the future, at least I am putting my money on it this weekend in Chicago. I feel that the M8 is the digital camera that I have been waiting for and have decided to get my deposit down for a chrome one to go with my m3.

[nels]

Today's Wall Street Journal features an ad for M8 with a cut away coupon for a free IR filter with the camera. Small print says "only while supplies last". Hurry.

[karl_keung]

... and the more you pay, the more respect you want.

 

so the acutal question: is the current price for M8 so high that purchaser is entitled to expect

nothing but a well-nigh perfect camera from Leica?

 

Sean Reid's Part 4 review on M8 has shown that in fact Epson RD-1 also also affected by the

IR issue. The Epson has been in the market for over 2 years now.

[frederick_muller]

"reviewers who sat on test result information, and leica apparently shipping product knowing the issue existed"

 

Absolutely a credibility issue.

[simonpg]

Frederick and others' postings here make a lot of sense. The comments about Puts excessive verbiage are equally valid, although I do enjoy much of his writings. I think his skill is in writing on technical issues rather than product marketing issues.

 

Having said that.... as a "modern" Leica M user and recent convert to Leica RF, what gets up my nose is simply the lack of a strong unambiguous response from the company.

 

Any company that has Leica's brand legacy and, until now, integrity and wishes to launch a premium product had better get that product right before it hits the street. Leica did not - no matter how you look at it and no matter what technical verbiage is used to try to justify the product's limitations.

 

My own reason for not taking up digital imaging has been that I felt I would be making 6 steps backward to gain 3 forward steps. It seems the M8 might be such an example - how can I tell otherwise because Leica has said nothing either way.

 

Because of his expertise in equipment (including Leica), film and digital technologies and the fact he has been using an M8 (and happens to be an excellent professional photographer), Marc Williams ranks as a well qualified USER - not a scientist, nor fondler, nor a marketer, just a user who demands imaging quality and is prepared to pay for it. In another post he rightly said something like: "if you are satisfied with purple blacks..." Such a product is unacceptable; such a premium product is probably a disgrace.

 

But, Leica remains silent (unless I have missed an announcement and I apologise if I have) and hiding their heads in the sand will not deal with the issue. And while we ALL speculate, so-called fixes like adding an IR filter to lenses are not fixes. Gee, even Leica once said we should avoid filters to see the real lens performance.

 

De j'a vous? Cast our minds back a few years when Kodak (Leica's chosen M8 sensor maker) released the 14 (or so) MP SLR - a disaster. At least they handled that with financial integrity when they made the fixes and released the improved version.

 

The M8 was a real risk from the beginning and I hoped it would be a 100% perfect product, but clearly it is not and the company remains silent. The biggest risks were obviously damage to its brand integrity and the M product legacy. There is a smell of arrogance or embarrassment coming from Germany. It is not a case of "tall poppy" syndrome but rather a case of surprise and disappointment I think.

 

What really amazes me is how today consumers seem often willing to accept or just overlook some fundamental flaws in their prized gadgets (see Apple's iPod battery saga for one major example) and now this may have spread to the camera industry! Is it really that complicated - why should we not expect a digi-camera to deliver black blacks etc?

 

Imagine picking up a brand new Rolex and being told: "thank you sir, but keep in mind that it will lose 1 hour a week - never mind, just adjust the time each week!"

 

For a while my M7 was looking like having a short life in my hands, it is now looking like the very long term investment it deserves to be.

 

Now I must go out and get some more Provia.

[robbie_caswell]

How, How, How did something like this slip past the vaunted QC of leica? Unacceptable.

 

Decades of user respect and their response is to give the consumer a black eye. They should recall them all and fix the problem.

 

I'll keep my M6 and 35 + 50 Lux because I like shooting film.

 

$5000 buys me a Canon 5D and a 50mm f/1.2 to compliment my D200. If my wedding business picks up, I wont think twice of selling my Lux's and M6 to help fund the purchase.

[ray .]

Buddha

exposed to film through glass. How much glass? Where was the glass? You tell me.

If this is all

such a big issue it ought to be obvious from the imagery, right?<p><center><img

src="http://

chaospress.com/other_pics/Buddhaweb.jpg"></center>

[simonpg]

And to all those who are softening the blow, GIVE ME A BREAK! And please keep in mind 3 things - and I say them only in the absence of a firm and up-front announcement from Leica management:

 

1. Would the media; would Puts; would members of this forum be so tolerant of ANY other manufacturer who released a US$5,000.00 digital camera that had such an image characteristic? NO WAY. If it were EPSON's digi rangefinder or a new SLR from Olympus or Canon, everyone would PICK IT TO BITS. I dare say that the same would happen if they even released a US$2,000.00 digital camera with the same issues.

 

2. If Fuji or Kodak released a new film that made blacks purple, would we tolerate that! No way.

 

3. and VIP - sharpen our memories and think back, Leica (and possibly Puts too) said it would not release a digital M camera that could not do justice to their superb M lens' imaging qualities.

 

Well, well (and I don't wish to play the cynic here), all my Leica lenses have one common attribute - SUPERB COLOUR tonality! Today every colour film I have used does 100% justice to Leica's superb lenses.

 

Finally, no matter what we think of ANY of the Leica M film cameras ever manufactured since the M3, they ALL have one common attribute - the image one gets on the film frame (relative to the era they were made in) was reliably SUPERB. Today, use any current film you like (even the cheapest supermarket film available) in ANY Leica M camera ever made and that image you create through a modern Leica M lens will be technically superior (assuming of course that you know how to make a photograph). Is that so with the M8? Or will we need to add filters and spend hours in PS making the image look like it should have in the first place?

 

So like I said in my earlier post - many steps backward for a couple of steps forward! Why would I trade perfect M7 film images for suspect M8 images?

[matt_m__toronto_]

correct me if i'm wrong please.

 

but i thought only a few of the m8 orders have been shipped out? would this not suggest that leica is sitting with the cam's trying to find a solution?

 

i'm sure the cam's that have gone out will be taken care of at no charge. this is leica that we're dealing with and i again say, i think we owe them more credit than what they've been getting. solutions will be made to satisfy the customer.

 

i do not have an m8 on order nor am i in the market for one. it just seems silly to be bashing a company with a record like leicas over an issue that is being looked at and remedied.

[steven blumenkranz]

Before we all get bent out of shape, lets remember what makes the Leica MB unique. First, its

small and light, second ITS QUIET. I ofter need to shoot in concert halls where the sound of

my Canon 1Ds II, let alone Hassy H1D, would raise a ruckus. The leica M8 is the answer to

my prayers and I will happily use a IR filter and do some post processing to get the image I

want.

As has been pointed out before, in B+W this is a non issue. Also, I understand that Capture

One has a processing solution that addresses the magenta cast issue.

[pico_digoliardi]

<i>As has been pointed out before, in B+W this is a non issue. </i><p>

Sure it is, unless the Leica lenses are perfectly aprochromatic. <p>

[fourfa]

"Imagine picking up a brand new Rolex and being told: "thank you sir, but keep in mind that it will lose 1 hour a week - never mind, just adjust the time each week!"

 

I'm guessing you're not a mechanical watch enthusiast, as that's precisely the case. As a machine for keeping precise time, mechanical watches like Rolex can't hold a candle to the cheapest quartz watches. The highest caliber mechanical watches require individual calibration by hand to meet the Swiss -4/+6 seconds per day standard, while most quartz movements far exceed their +/- 0.07 sec/day spec without even trying. You are indeed expected to adjust it every month or so. My own Rolex is far out of that spec, but I don't really wear it enough to bother sending it to Switzerland for calibration at $300. Oddly enough my cheap Seiko automatic runs at +10 seconds a month.

 

Anyway I fear that your analogy is more apt than you know, since absent superior functionality, mechanical watches are esteemed precisely because they're expensive and ostentatious fashion items. There are also a few fringe owners who just appreciate the mechanical elegance of a self-winding mechanism (guilty).

[fourfa]

BTW I have heard the rationale a number of times that an advantage of a good (i.e. absurdly expensive) automatic watch is that it doesn't stop working if a battery dies, despite that fact that it probably needs a CLA every three or five years to hold reasonable precision. The relevance to this forum should be obvious

[simonpg]

Andy, like you I am guilty - you guessed wrong about my admiration and first-hand knowledge of mechanical time-pieces.

 

However, I think you understand my point very well - new out of a box; whatever brand; there is a basic expectation of "fitness for purpose". The higher the relative price and the higher the product segment pitch, the greater the reasonable expectation.

 

The ONLY issue with the M8 is that for a US$5,000.00 camera, blacks should simply be black. Sadly the advent of digital in-camera imaging seems to have lowered some people's expectations of a camera and the images it can produce.

 

The image quality of my US$69.00 CV Bessa L is looking like even more remarkable value for money than I originally thought.