Is Leica really looking out for you?

[steven_moseley1]

Hi,

 

Q. "Is Leica really looking out for you?

 

A. Of course they are not, they are a business and will only look after their business. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.

 

cheers Steve.

[blakley]

<i>To the crowd who wants Fazal to suffer in silense and not make trouble just mind your business.</i>

<p>

I don't want Fazal to suffer at all. I just have no idea what he means when he says the camera has "lousy ISO performance". Fuji has built special sensors to handle high-ISO situations and their performance is indeed impressive. You can't put a Noctilux on any of their sensors, though, so you do have a bit of a choice to make. I haven't had a low-light situation I've been unable to handle with the M8 yet.

[vinay_patel]

"Is Leica really looking out for you?"

 

Is that what you expect from a company? If so you're in for quite a lot of disappointment I'm afraid.

[majid]

I need ISO 1250 because I shoot often in available darkness, in places where you need to go down to 1/15 or 1/30 even at f/1.4 and ISO 1600 film. Even then, most of the scene is in shadows (where noise is more readily apparent). The only way you can do this is with a tripod or a rangefinder. Others may choose not to work in such extreme (non)-lighting.

 

My Canon DSLR system simply can't deal with those situations, which represent close to half my shooting, and I had already been impressed by the R-D1's low-light performance, despite using the same noisy Sony CCD used in the Nikon D70. I decided to pass on it and wait for what Leica would bring out, but the end result was underwhelming.

 

In any case, I am not suffering, since I ditched my M8 for a R-D1. Any "suffering" would be very relative, in any case, we pampered westerners barely understand the concept any more, even on Thanksgiving.

 

I wanted to believe just as much as anyone, although the use of a Kodak sensor should have rung alarm bells (in my experience, every single product Kodak makes is utter dreck).

 

Leica's rush to release the camera and their handling of the IR issue was terribly bungled, but the root problem is Kodak's use of a BS7 borosilicate glass from Kyocera that lets in too much (10%) IR in the 1000 to 1200 nanometer range (oddly, it blocks IR fine in the 700 to 1000nm range). The reason why I returned my camera in disgust is the poor quality control evidenced by the dead pixels.

 

Part of it certainly has to do with the unrealistically raised expectations from early reviewers. The M8 does not feel entirely like a M, no matter what over-enthusiastic reviewers may have said. The shutter noise is incredibly disconcerting, for instance. I used to complain about the rewind knob on the R-D1 and how it is an affectation, but the shutter click and manual rewind on it is much less objectionable than the M8's loud motorized whine.

 

If you are in the market for a M8, I would strongly advise you to wait for a local Leica Demo Day so you can hold the camera in your hands and take low-key sample shots at ISO 1250. Once you receive your camera, check the rangefinder alignment, shoot pictures at low and high ISO and check them for defective rows or columns.

[StuartMoxham]

Well just for comparison here is the D70 at ISO 1600 100% crop JPG from camera.<div></div>

[astral]

So I think I've got this right: that the M8 appears to be designed primarily around f1~f1.4 (etc) lenses because its performance (sensor, etc) at higher than ISO640 was intentionally sub-optimal - or vice-versa?

 

The corollary is that that for lowlight work the limiting ISO is 640 and therefore a user who would otherwise obtain good images on ISO1000~ film, and an f2 or f2.8 lens will (with the M8) need to get the extra 1 or more stops gain by buying faster lenses, rather than cranking-up the ISO to 1250 or higher?

 

If that's correct, my M2 with an f2 lens and ISO1000/1250 film (etc) will probably have an edge over the M8. Surely, I've missed something in my assessment?

[vinay_patel]

Yes, go back and re-read Leica's ad copy on the M8 until you're convinced your reasoning is faulty :-)

[blakley]

Or you could look at Marc Williams' thread above, or Michael Reichmann's examples, to see that the claim that the M8 has low quality at ISO 1250 is simply wrong.

[majid]

Michael "what IR problem?" Reichmann's opinions carry little weight. I put up original DNGs up for inspection. Perhaps your tolerance for noise is higher than mine. Perhaps my M8 was a particularly defective copy (but I saw the same noise levels on a Leica rep's demo M8, so I doubt it).

 

Keep in mind that with digital, noise is most visible in shadows, unlike film where grain is seen in midtones highlights. If you shoot scenes where there is enough light to make the entire frame moderately lit, it won't be as visible as with really dark scenes shot at EV 1 where by necessity most of the frame is dark with very visible noise patterns.

[blakley]

Fazal, I wasn't talking about Reichmann's opinions; I was talking about his actual pictures from the M8, which are posted for anyone to see and form their own opinions.

 

I'm perfectly aware of how noise and grain affect low light. My AVERAGE exposure is 1/60 sec. at f/1.4 on ISO 400 film. In most of my pictures a lot of the frame isn't just dark, it's BLACK. I didn't have any trouble with noise at this exposure - in blacks, shadows, midtones, or highlights - on film (Delta 400, XP2 Super, and Portra 400NC), and I don't have any trouble with the same exposure - or in fact longer exposures - at ISO 640 on the M8. I haven't used ISO 1250 much because I don't need it - even by candlelight - but Marc Williams' tests in the thread above make it pretty clear that with proper post-processing, noise simply isn't an issue at that level either.