Sadly I sold my M8

P

palker

Established
Local time
11:08 PM
Joined
Sep 23, 2007
Messages
109
After one year I sold my M8.

I really tried to like the camera, I simply wanted to like it, I used it non-stop for a year, but alas I am not good enough.

At first I like the wide angle viewfinder, being able to see what was happening outside the frame, but over time became frustrated with the lack of precise frame lines. The lack of any possibility to close crop a photograph with any level of confidence, left me with additional post processing activities.

At first I thrived with the manual focusing, the ability to decide where I wanted to focus gave me a challenge to strive to get the essence of the subject without necessarily being obsessed with sharpness. Then I realized I was discarding more and more photographs in my post processing because what was in focus was wrong.

Now I have a 6month old daughter and I have to admit that I cannot handle the camera with any sense of speed. The time it takes me to react to a situation I can see building up in front of me means I’ve missed the photo. I’m just too slow. I cannot focus and frame on such a small unpredictable subject.

I have tried so many times, but I have not been being able to track any moving subject, or time the exposure correctly.

Whilst my daughter might be young my eyes are not, the effort of trying to focus sharp photos on my daughter’s eyes would give me a headache, especially using a summilux and a focus area approximately covering the same area as a 21mm. Focusing in the dark was simply focusing in the dark .. not happening.

However I have re-discovered the simplicity of fixed primes, and will get some fast primes when I sell the Leica glass I’ve collected over this last year.

This may very well my last post, so I wish you all good luck.

Sadly,
Phil.
 
It will be a Nikon - probably a D300. I used to have a D200, but it was stolen. I am used to the interface with Nikon.
 
Phil, I have to say I'm not the fastest either with my RF, a Minolta CLE, but then I don't always need to shoot quickly. I'm almost opposite to you in that I bought a Nikon D80 plus a couple of primes and a zoom and have barely used them as i tend to prefer my RF. May be a weight issue for me too as I suffer a back problem and arthritis. Anyway it's gonna be like your M8 and sold, soon as I get round to it.
Hope you find a camera more suited to your way of shooting and you don't have to leave here just coz you don't have an RF you know.
 
On the contrary, I used more and more M8 to shoot my kids over DSLR. I know it is difficult to shoot moving objects like kids, but finally I managed to do it with my f2 Hexanon lenses (35 and 50) at wide open most of the times and underexposed -1 1/3 stops to get decent speed with ISO 320 and processed it later.

Good luck with your future purchase
 
There are all kinds of denominations in different religions. There are a lot of car models. There are a lot of camera models. All that because we are all different and comfortable with different things.

Find what you like and use that, be it SLR, RF, TLR, film, digital; doesn't matter to anyone but you. If you aren't comfortable with a camera, you won't use it much. And a new daughter should not go unphotographed!

And no, no one has to feel they should leave because they don't have an RF.
 
i second your comment oftheherd
the reason this forum is so cool is that we all have something to offer about the craft of
photography, our experiences & equipment
stay with us palker
 
Last edited:
There was a reason why SLR's survived and thrived while rangefinders almost all died out, and then why autofocus SLR's survived and thrived while manual-focus-only's almost all died out, and I don't buy for a minute what's sometimes insinuated on internet forums (especially Leica forums) that billions of photographers are all lazy and inept and need crutches. Years ago, truckers had to be big men, because nobody else could steer them, stop them, or shift the gears. Nowadays a grandmother could operate a modern 18-wheeler, but she'd still need the same knowledge, skill and experience to handle it well. The auto features on cameras have leveled the playing field in respect to eyesight and reflexes, but they don't create interesting photographs, that's up to the photographer. So there's nothing wrong with choosing the camera that lets you maximize your creativity. I still have and use a DSLR, as I suspect is the case with the majority of people even here on RFF. In my case I probably use the SLR more often than the M8. The M8 is my travel camera primarily, and if I didn't find plenty of use for it there, I would probably sell it also.
 
D300 and M8

D300 and M8

Hello, I also bought a D300 with the 24-70 2.8 lens,in addition to my M8,
because of the speed issue.
I contemplated selling my M8 , have not gotten around to it and may keep my M8 as I like that camera very much and would probably regret selling it.
The D300 is also a great camera, very good image quality,very fast and can be used at 1600 ISO without any noise issues.

Best Regards

Peter
 
I'd switch to film and use the 21mm Cosina snapshot lens for the kid. Or try zone focus in bright places with lots of dof. I have not used an autofocus lens in a long time, but when I was using autofocus it was a lot slower than the above two options.

Here is another idea: keep your M8, stop down, use a faster shutter speed, zone focus, and use a flash.
 
Last edited:
feenej said:
I'd switch to film and use the 21mm Cosina snapshot lens for the kid. Or try zone focus in bright places with lots of dof. I have not used an autofocus lens in a long time, but when I was using autofocus it was a lot slower than the above two options.

Here is another idea: keep your M8, stop down, use a faster shutter speed, zone focus, and use a flash.
Click to expand...

Nah, AF systems are pretty damn fast these days, almost unnoticeable. Even my D70 which is an older camera can AF in a mili second.

I think the thing is with kids, that I've noticed anyway, is that they are moving ALL the time, and its so hard to get the lines to match up anyway, i.e., it takes full attention, that right when you do it they take a step forward or back, and boom you're out of focus again. It can be really frustrating.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom