john_camp

"When it comes to the R line, even if Leica made the lenses in EOS mount, if they didn't

have auto-focus and image-stabilization, I wish them good luck selling enough to make

the endeavor profitable."

Absolutely. Autofocus and image stabilization are routine now, and Leica would be crazy

to try to sell an R10 without them...which is why I think they'll probably offer them. Pentax

did it with the K10, which can use heritage lenses with in-body auto-focus, and is also set

up to take new lenses with in-lens auto-focus. Leica at least has to match that. If they do,

and go with a ~16mp sensor that is equivalent to the quality offered by the M8 (plus the

extra resolution) they may do okay.

JC

The $900 Pentax K10 offers an f1.9 43mm (FOV x1.5=64.5) with in-camera image

stabilization which is good for a stop or two...treading into Nocti territory for low-light

shooting, although not with the

dime-thin DOF.

JC

Screen Patronus was very quick and responsive in their service, and the die-cut protector fit

very well on my M8, but it began peeling off after about three weeks of intermittant use and

it is now becoming unsightly.

JC

I rode a ferry from Alaska to Washington State two summers ago, and you have to

remember (unless you're shooting friends on board) that on a ship you're already pretty far

away from things -- in the middle of a channel, and high above the water. Even a 90

would be short for shooting whales (since you can't tell where they're going to pop up, and

usually it's some distance from the ships...hundreds of meters.) There are lots of great

bird shots, but those are almost always long, too. On board there might be some nice wide

shots...and there are some nice wides in the towns. (The towns are almost entirely built

around tourist shops for cruise ships; they make Cancun look like an authentic Mayan

village by comparison.) If you're going to look at the glacier outside of Juneau, the viewing

stand is now about a mile from the end of the thing; it's been melting like an ice cube in a

glass of scotch...The landscape, however, is spectacular, and the sunsets are even more

spectacular. I have both M Leicas and a D2x. I had the Nikon with me on the trip, and a

good thing, too, because the longer lenses really came in handy. If I had to take only two

lenses, I'd take a good short zoom (like 17-35) and a longer one (80-300). Because most

of what you'll be shooting will be really short (on board) or really long, the middle focal

lengths are not so useful. Might tuck away a small fast 50mm prime...

JC

The first time I saw his stuff, I was astonished. I always thought the things that Cindy

Sherman was doing were interesting, but ephemeral -- what would "Marilyn" mean to

somebody in 2200? But Wall's stuff does seem to me to resemble painting, in the way he

assembles the work: if you read about what Seurat did with "La Grande Jatte," how he

assembled it and then painted and repainted it, you begin to see that Wall is doing something

like that. I think his photographs will be around for a long time.

JC

I think my problem might be card-related. I use 2-gig Lexars, and after reading the above

stuff, tried with a Canon-branded SD card that I got free with a P&S. It's only 32 megs (with a

two-photo capacity on the M8) but the P2000 saw the files and loaded them, though I

couldn't see them as I'm shooting RAW only. I'll try some other brands, and see what

happens.

JC

John, that was exactly the same message that I was getting until I undated the firmware to

2.51. After installing 2.51 I could download files from the card, but of course couldn't see

any of the images that had been downloeded.

Stupid question, but does the bottom right hand side of the screen say 2.51?

Yes, it does. It says, "Ver.02.51" I just went to the Epson site and looked it up, and that

release was made on 01/03/06, which is 10 months before the first M8 was delivered. I'm

wondering...is it possible that some of you guys downloaded software for the newer

Epsons? I wonder if the p4000 (or 6000? whatever it is) would work on the P2000?

JC

I have an M8 and a P2000 and the latest 2.51 firmware and when I put a 2meg Lexar SD card

in, I get a message that says that the card contains no files. Unless this is a peculiarity of the

Lexar card, I would say that the P2000 doesn't support the M8.

JC

Photographer Frances Schultz (wife of Roger Hicks) wrote an article I believe for Shutterbug

magazine a few months ago in which she investigated the "Leica glow" phenomenon. She

says it definately exists, because Roger gets it and she doesn't. IIRC, she says it tends to

happen in high contrast situations when Roger is shooting quickly, and where he tends to

over-expose (while she tends to be fussier with correct exposure.) So it apparently involves

over-exposure and high contrast. I'm not sure that I got this exactly right, and I no longer

have the magazine, but it certainly can be an attractive attribute of some photographs.

JC

Here's a personal opinion: Amy Stein is pretty good.

JC

If you're a happy Nikon film user, why not get a Nikon rangefinder (they made some of the

best.) In fact, they made a special edition just a couple of years ago, so you could get one

new. There's a Nikon S3 at B&H for $2295 with a 50mm f1.4 lens, and I think there are a

number of legacy lenses that will fit it. Check the Rangefinder forum (rangefinder.com)

which has a Nikon interest group...

If you decide to go with a Leica (or an R-D1):

I have an M8, and the filters seem to fix the IR problem, that caused the magenta color

shift. There may be an issue of an additional cyan shift with wide angle lenses, but I

haven't see that because I just got my camera back, and have only been shooting with a

50mm.

People are experimenting with IR filters and IR photography, and it works, but you'll have

to work out some focusing issues. Michael Reichmann discusses this on his Luminous

Landscape forum (luminouslandscape.com)

For me personally, the 16-18-21 Tri-Elmar is too closely spaced to be as flexible as I'd

want. And it's an f4. I have the other TE (28-35-50) and use it quite a bit; it's a good walk-

around lens on sunny days. But for shooting in the early morning, evening, and in most

towns, I find I want more speed, and of course, with the Leica, it's available. My most

commonly used single lens is a Noctilux, which, with the crop factor, gives you a 35mm

equivalent view of about 66mm; it gives you just a bit of the short tele that means you

don't have to get right in peoples' faces when shooting in bars or on the evening street,

and the f1.0, combined with the Leica's pretty-good high ISO response, means that you

can get some fantastic low-light stuff. I think it may well be the best photographic lens in

existence, when coupled with the M8; I think the 1.33 crop *improves* it -- but that has a

lot to do with my personal way of shooting.

There are other external viewfinders available other than the Leica external, but I agree

with you; it's too much. And actually, most people have found that you don't need them, if

you're willling to fake it a bit. With a 21mm lens, the entire view through the viewfinder,

completely disregarding the frame lines, is reasonably close to the 21mm view. And

remember, you have instant review on the LCD, so you can take a shot, look at one or two

seconds later, and then recompose if you have time. But the main thing is, you can get

used to shooting a 21 with the regular viewfinder, and then immediately look at the LCD

-- and quickly train yourself to know what you're going to get when you look through the

viewfinder.

The coded lenses feed information to the processor which, it is alleged, will clean up some

cyan corner shift in very wide-angle lenses when firmware version 1.10 comes out in

February. It also shows details in exif. Since the codes are just small black-and-white

marks on the lens mounting ring, there have been a number of postings on the Leica User

Forum and the Rangefinder forum which tell you how to make the marks on your own,

with Sharpies...People are doing this to code non-Leica lenses.

JC

Joe,

If you put a "strong" glass on top of the sensor, and if some light were rays coming in at a

sharp angle to the glass, and some were perpendicular, wouldn't you then get a vignetting

effect that would vary greatly from lens to lens, and so strong that it might be uncorrectable

with software?

JC

Sounds like Elliott Erwitt -- he has a personal site with all his books listed, with photos of the

covers -- but the band member crying is probably the photo taken by Ed Clark of Life

magazine after Roosevelt died. See here:

http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/FDRgoing.htm

Is that the one you were thinking of?

JC

Geoff Goldberg said, "Mind you, it happens worst in low light, incandescent situations.

Most shooters never experience it [magenta shifts with the M8]. It might be fixed in a later

model with a thicker IR filter, and a slightly revised body.

I agree with the sense of everything in your post, but it's not true that most shooters never

experience it; unless you're shooting mostly at night, with starlight or moonlight, you

expereince it, and fairly frequently, too. I had my M8 for about a month before I sent it off

to Solms to be fixed, in in the thousand or so shots I made, I found quite a bit of it -- and

in the oddest places. Like a perfectly normal shot of peopel ont eh street, and here are

three guys carrying magenta briefcases...

I'll fix it with filters, which are only band-aids in the sense that lenses are band-aids. If the

LFI stuff I quoted above has any truth to it, I agree with Leica's decision to go with filters

and keep the resolution. I shot with a variety of filters on film cameras, for years, and only

occasionally had problems. Like, maybe, once in a thousand shots? Or not that often?

Infrequently enough that I didn't bother to c ount, in any case.

I think the Leica is a brilliantly realized camera, handicapped by mostly by public relations

mistakes made by Leica.

The camera did have some mechanical/electrical faults, as many new cutting-edge

products do, and Leica is fixing them. The whole magenta controversy could have been

avoided if Leica had recognized it in the beginning, and had then done some public

brooding: "Hmm, more resolution or exernal filters, What should we do?" I think most

Leica fans would have voted for the filtees, and there never would have been a

controversy.

As to the RD-1, one of which I also have, the magenta is there, but not as seriously.

Neutrail dark blues (jeans) become duller, blacks shift a bit toward brown, greys go a bit

darker, but you have to look for it. I plan to leave my IR cut filters on the lenses when I

shoot the RD-1, too. If I continue to shoot it after I get the M8 back...

JC

Joe,

I've always been interested in your posts since you seem to know what you're talking

about. However, the detailed discussion of the IR problem in LFI magazine portrayed the

situation somewhat differently.

LFI says the descision to use the current weak filter was deliberate, the result of some

difficult engineering problems having to do with the closeness of the lens to the sensor.

LFI says there are two kinds of IR filters commonly used in cameras, interference and

absorption. Older cameras, according to LFI, used absorption filters, but newer ones use

interference filters.

The article continues (I'm quoting from LFI):

"Interference filters work differently [from absorption filters], with a bigger edge

steepness. Several thinly applied layers -- or, rather, the relationship of their bordering

layers -- serve to eliminate infra-red light by scattering it between the semi-reflective

coatings while allowing other wavelengths to pass through the filter layer.

"The main disadvantage of interference filters is that they distort the light that is intended

to pass through the filter unopposed. In theory, the interference filter only works

seamlessly when the light enters at a perpendicular angle. The moment that the light

comes in at a slant, the filtering frequency changes. More significantly, the permitted light

is distorted into a shorter wavelength and changes color. Furthermore, interference filters

have the tendency to reflect some light elements and cause the sensor to act like a mirror.

Eventually, this light would end up randomly somewhere on the sensor and lower the

contrast. More severe reflections would provoke mirror/ghost effects."

Because (given the size of the sensor and the closeness of the lens) a sharp light angle

couldn't be avoided in the M8, LFI says, Leica had to go with the older, weaker, absorption

filter, and really couldn't make it thicker than the present 0.5 millimeters.

There's quite a bit more in the article than I've quoted here, but it really was presented as

the best choice to be made, given the engineering constraints and the necessity of using

the installed base of M lenses...

JC

I have an M8 (actually, Solms has it, but they've promised to send it back to me someday),

a Nikon D2x and a Canon G7 P&S in digital, and some film cameras. If I were getting a

camera to take pictures of my wife and kid, I'd go with the G7. Michael Reichmann, who

runs the Luminous Landscape website, mostly shoots with large Canons (with Zeiss

lenses), with the most advanced MF cameras, and with the M8; he has recently been

posting shots taken with a G7, and in fact, has one up right now on the home page of his

website:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/

For what it is -- and it's a mostly automatic camera with a good lens, good high-ISO

performance, and fairly long zoom with image stabilization, and built-in flash, at half the

size of a Leica -- it's a terrific camera. Other people like Fujis, and while I've never used

one, I believe them: they sound really good. If you gotta have an M8, then you gotta; but

don't blame the kid for it. If you want something you can blame on the kid, get a modern

P&S.

JC

If you were stranded on a desert island with a DSLR, you could use the long lenses to scan

the horizon for ships. And since the cameras wouldn't be worth anything anyway -- you

couldn't recharge the battery -- you could pull the mirror out of the DSLR and use it to

signal with. And if you had a DSLR, that would probably mean that you'd have a tripod,

and you could use that for all kinds of things -- clubs, spears, etc. An M8 is primarily

handheld, so you probably wouldn't even have a tripod, or if you did, it'd be like a Leica

tabletop, which are beautifully made, but not worth a damn in a fight. The only better

reason to have an M8 is that you wouldn't be as likely to sink when you were swimming to

the island...But wait, are we talking about a *deserted* desert island, or or are we talking

more along the lines of Grand Bahama? I think you need to define some terms.

JC

"In any event, despite the snide fanboy comments from the peanut gallery, my original

point still stands. Why not insert a filter on top of the sensor like every sane digital camera

company does? Nice attempts at evasion though."

Because the filter degrades the sharpness of the image; as does an anti-moire filter.

Medium format people have put up with this for a long time -- it's simply a design choice.

Take your pick -- more sharpness, along with the need to remove moire with software

when necessary; or, more convenience, get the moire removed in camera, with softer

photos.

Lots of serious photogaphers who use DSLRs are primarily concerned with speed, ISO, and

automatic features, because they are working in fast-moving, fast-changing conditions --

wedding, PJ work, etc. To get the auto features, they are willing to accept the softness you

get with DSLR sensor-mounted IR and moire filters, and somewhat inferior lenses.

With Leica lenses, however, and with the typical Leica working style, which does not focus

on speed or automatic controls, Leica chose to wring the most sharpness they could get

out of their sensor. That, they felt, would make the best use of their lenses. They got the

sharpness, but there is also some occasional moire to be cleaned up in software, or the

need for IR cut filters to be used if there's a lot of synthetic black materials being shot. The

moire clean-up is trivial for anyone who has ever used post-processing software, and can

be done on a spotting basis -- you don't have to soften the whole image to clean up the

moire. You can also use or not use the filters -- but try to unscrew the IR filter on a Canon

or a Nikon for more sharpness. Of course, many excellent DSLR shooters aren't concerned

with more sharpness -- their photos are being printed on toilet paper anyway (newspapers

or news magazines) or a slight softness is regarded as desirable (no need to record every

last pimple on the bride.) And that's fine; what you want is what you want. Leica shooters

want sharpess.

The story out of Leica is that they knew about the IR sensitivity, but they didn't think the

effect was strong enough to be a major concern. Unless you've used the camera, it's hard

to understand -- but it's perfectly possible to take hundreds of shots (landscapes, city

scapes, still lifes) without seeing the IR shift except in certain enhanced greens (in foliage,

for example; and by enhanced, I don't mean wrong, I mean more separation of shades.)

The problem comes mostly with dark neutral shades (black, grey, dark blue) of usually

synthetic materials, or materials recently washed in some laundry products, which reflect

an unusually large amount of IR. Then you get a magenta shift. The most awful example

I've seen of this was a picture of a symphony orchestra, all in black tuxes, which were now

vaguely magenta tuxes. But for ordinary street shooting, you didn't really notice unless

you went back and compared materials to the photographs -- there's an awful lot of real

reddish-colored clothing around. Sean Reid, who does camera testing, published a whole

series of street shots that contained magenta problems, and didn't see the problems until

other people started reporting it. He then went back and looked, and found quite a few

examples of it. In my shooting, I usually found it only in interiors, lit with incandescent

lights, and sometimes, it *was* disconcerting, but not in the expected ways. That people

would have reddish shirts usually was not troublesome -- it just wasn't something that

you'd notice, because they might have been reddish. But to see a pile of reddish nylon

briefcases *was* troublesome, because you *knew* they weren't.

In any case, the M8's problems did not arise from stupidity, but from design choices. The

resulting tumult is basically an artifact of the internet, where teen-aged aggression seems

frequently married to ignorance; which is one reason that the most extreme statements

about the cameras seem to come from people who don't own one. As far as the camera

itself is concerned, it is selling well, is being heavily used, and according to the biggest US

dealers, is back-ordered for months.

JC

Ever notice that half the people on the Leica forum are Canonites? Ever notice that half the

people on ALL forums are Canonites? I wonder if they ever take pictures?

JC

Alice,

The V1 is the same (generally) as the Panasonic FZ50, which has been reviewed at Digital

Photography Review here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz50/page19.asp

Phil Askey gives it a "Highly Recommended," but I would look carefully at the comments

about excessive noise reduction at ISO 400 and above, and the rather slow lens at any

length other than the shortest.

I've always found this kind of camera to be awkward to travel with, because you can't ever

carry it flat -- it's lumpy in three dimensions, where, with a small DSLR, you can remove

the lens and put on a body cap, and carry it more easily in a briefcase or backpack.

For the kind of money at you're looking at with the VLux, I would suggest that you also

look carefully at the Pentax K10, and read some reviews of it.

JC

"It's probably worth remembering that most genuine PJs have long relied on DSLRs, and for

the same reasons the sports photographers do it (and they're PJs too). The few that use

Leicas aren't doing it for a living. Unless of course "PJ" means the aged-man-of-leisure

with the tan photo vest who hopes to get published occasionally."

If this was a comment on my post, above, you should notice that I wasn't talking about PJs

using Leicas, but using G7s (point-and-shoots.) I was a reporter for a long time and I

agree; I don't know any photographers who'd give up a DSLR to go to a Leica. Leicas aren't

flexible enough. However, if you look at most newspaper photos, you'd see that most

could be taken as easily with a G7 as with a 1DsII. You don't need 1DsII resolution if you're

running high-speed presses on newsprint. And if you think PJs have long relied on DSLRs,

you must be fairly young -- unless by "long-relied," you mean five years. The D1x came

out in 2001.

JC

I have both an M8 and a G7. Very different cameras; and I have no problem using the M8

at 1250 (which is really 1600; independent tests show that Leica rated the camera too

conservatively.) The M8 simply delivers astonishing results, period. I also shoot with a

D2x, and the combination of Leica glass and the new sensor delivers images that are

sharper (IMHO) than the Nikon's. Though I still use the Nikon a lot; love the fast zooms.

The G7 delivers astonishing results for a camera that's not a lot bigger than a pack of

cigarettes. If somebody told me that it delivers the results that you'd expect from, say, 70s

Leicas and 70s film, I wouldn't be surprised (in other words, results as good or better

technically than HCB had for most of his working life.) I've been constantly amazed by it,

and I wouldn't doubt that it would be all that a photojournalist would need for 95% of his

shots, not that a PJ would be caught dead using it. It even has a decent flash, for the kinds

of pictures you'd take with an on-camera flash, like snapshots. The thing I worried most

about was the lack of RAW; as it turns out, the auto WB is good enough that I haven't had a

problem, and frankly, I'm not planning to put the shots in an art gallery anyway, and for

what I use it for, the WB is good enough, even if not perfect. In a lot of ways, this is my

dream travel camera, and a pretty decent street camera.

Some things that you can do with the M8 though, like shoot at F1 with depth of field of

one inch, you just can't do with the G7. The fast end of the lens (which is pretty fast at

f2.8) is too wide for portraits, where you often want shallow depth of field, and the longer

end, which is nice for portraits, goes pretty quickly to f4.8, and with the small chip, the

DOF gets pretty deep just as quickly. So what you don't get is that Leica across-the-bar

shot of the isolated pretty-woman's face with the sharp eyes and the nice bokeh all

around; you get everything including the Schlitz can in her hand.

My M8 is now in Solms, getting fixed; not like my cat was fixed, I hope. To the guy who

said he'd accept the three-week turn-around, dream on; after they logged mine in (and it

took four days to get there because I sent it registered mail) they notified me that it would

take four-five weeks to get back, and also, that Leica closed from Dec. 23-Jan. 2...I sent it

off on Dec. 8. I expect, realistically, to get it back around Jan. 20. By the way, if you send it

to NJ by registered mail, it'll cost you around $20, and registered mail does NOT get lost

or stolen, and you can insure up to $25,000. But it's a bit slow, because the package has

to be signed for by every person who handles it. Also, if you talk to the people in NJ by

phone, they'll set up compensation for your shipping costs (I'm told; they weren't ready to

do that when I wanted to send it, so I sent it anyway and told them to forget about the

$20.)

JC

Thanks, guys. I'm sending it off. I fully expect the fix to cost more than the lens. Bummer.

JC

I completely messed up the serial number in the above post. It should be Nr. 11536xx

JC

I bought a cheap old collapsible summicron f2 in what I thought was fair shape (good glass, couple of

nasty dents, but everything turned and clicked, although the lens-lock stop looked like a beaver had been

chewing on it) but after getting it home, I find that it won't mount reliably in either an M7 or an M8. So I

sez, hmmm, let's get the screwdriver & pliers out and take this puppy apart and see what can be done.

It appeared from eyeballing it that the mount could simply be unscrewed. I was wrong. Now it appears that

there is some kind of torsion-spring ring inside that holds the mount to the barrel. Is this correct? Do you

need a special tool to take it apart? Should I just mail it off somewhere and get somebody who knows

something to fix it, or will a hammer and chisel do the job? I was hoping that there might be a way that I

could use a piece of a screw-mount-to-bayonet lens adapter to fix it, but my faith has been shaken.

The lens is serial Nr. 115338xx, if that means anything to anybody.

Thanks,

JC