But, what are you doing now?

[dof]

What now? Keep shooting and use the best tool for the image at hand.

I got the M8 last May and have had a good experience with using it. I do find the changes to the frame lines to be a poor choice on Leica's part. I've taken to using a 40mm lens, which shows the framelines for the 50mm as a kind of friendly retaliation against the camera. I may fell differently if I didn't like the way the lens draws and how ergonomic the whole thing feels as much as I do. Additionally I've always welcomed cropping as yet another tool at my creative disposal and can work around what I view as their shortcomings that way.


Having done some analysis of my shooting from last year - I found that while I shot, or at least kept, more digital images than I did on film, my year-end list of favorites had a ratio of four-to-one in preferring film to digital.

Interestingly I found that shooting with the digital camera had a freeing affect on my film shooting habits - I am more likely now to incorporate a more free style of shooting along with my more contemplative patterns. If anything having the M8 has taught me to appreciate what digital can offer. However it's also taught me that my heart belongs to Tri X.

Far more so than megapixel counts, the ability to produce high-quality images at high-ISOs is the one promise of digital technology that holds the potential to lure me away from film.

The M8 does provide good quality here, IF the exposure is spot-on. But in my experience, having plenty of available light is rarely the reason to want to shoot at the upper end of any sensor's ISO range. The M8 images look good to great and have a pleasing character up to 640 - however I use the higher ISOs strictly because I have to.



-J.

 

[Dante_Stella]

What are you doing to compensate for these issues in your photography? What problems are you finding effect you the most and how are you solving specific problems? And, if you are an old time M user, does this involve turning to other digital cameras than the M8?

When I use my M8, I just get right up at the subject and shoot it. That solves the frameline issue... 🙂

Actually, I've found that the GR Digital II and the Kodak 14n complement the Leica well. The GR is pocketable, and the Kodak works better for wideangle and tele shots (17-35/2.8 and 70-300/4.5 VRII). Both have a look that is "close enough" to the Leica's. Both have compositional grids that are much easier for me to align than external finders. The Kodak has a monster dynamic range and can be overexposed with some impunity. And frankly, the 17-35 Nikkor is amazingly well corrected, it has very low vignetting, and the ability to zoom in the wideangle range is immensely useful.

Lately, I've really been into shooting my Noblex 6/150 and depleting the world's supply of Tri-X 120. In consumption, it's undeniably the Hummer of film cameras.

 

[Pablito]

The fact remains that the M8 is very expensive. If you can't afford it, then you don't stress about it. While the M profile may be more discreet in working situations, those of us who must use dslr's when we shoot digital must simply do what we gotta do even if we'd ideally prefer the advantages of an RF camera. For what it's worth, I have found working in sensitive situations over the years that how you move and how you hold yourself is much more important than whether you are using a small M or a big SLR.

 

[Bill Pierce]

I know this is strange, but one of the things I've been doing with the M8 is shooting available light at conservative ISO's with the camera on a tripod. It's amazing how many good shots you can get even with a shutter speed of a 1/4 or 1/8 of a second. The moments when people pause, hold still and even, some times, think are often quite good.

The tripod stunt is one that I picked up shooting shooting 64 speed Kodachome for the magazines when that was the highest speed transparency film that really delivered quality. Normally I used a very small Gitzo or Linhof tripod. But I also used a Leica table top tripod for night time demonstrations and bombings in N. Ireland and in Moscow's Red Square where "tripods aren't allowed."

The little tripod, table top or otherwise, is not only good for the M8 - but works well with the small sensor pocket digitals that really do their best at low ISO's. Just remember table top tripods can also be pressed against walls, telephone poles and a number of other things that wouldn't work if you didn't hold the tripod in place with one hand and operate the camera with the other.

Bill

 

[Jason808]

i am going back to film. A digital camera costing in the 3+ grand is absurd when digital is about constant obsolescence.

We had that during film (look at the number of AF cameras in the 90's) It's just whether or not we chose to participate, and the differences in gear may not have been meaningful to most people because the recording medium was still film yet the advances (faster AF, metering, etc.) just didn't apply to the average user.

I think digital matured to a point several years ago (about the time the 6MP DSLR was the norm) that it did (and still does) about 90% of the things 90% of the people want done. I still shoot with a Nikon D70 I picked up used and take regularly to hot, dusty places each weekend. Aside from a slightly wonky color LCD, it works fine and is still my go to cam in bright light because of the 1/500 sync. My D80 also sees the same conditions and I'm on year three with that - shooting action most of the time.

I'm sure someone's got some story about the latest digigear blowing up and injuring them and their family and the neighborhood for life and leaving a contaminated zone for the next 200 years, but I'll guess the average buyer is getting good mileage out of their gear.

It only is if you choose to keep buying or you can't do your work with what you have. If you can't do the work you want with the gear you have then is it that you're just out-shooting your camera or is the only thing that differentiates your work from others the technology? Yes, new technology can take you places, but ask if you really need to go and if so, can you get there with what you have? Despite what the marketing people tell you, I'll bet most people can.

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Harry -

I'm still using my Speed Graphic, albeit, often with some Zeiss lenses that don't usually end up on a Graphic and will never couple to the rangefinder.

Bill

The Speed Graphic feels to me like the ultimate quality hand-held camera from a different era (especially if flashbulbs are still available). Are you using it as a no rise, no tilt field camera, anchored to a tripod with a focusing cloth thrown over?

On the original question, I'm using M8 or M8.2 for essentially everything I need, but haven't given up the M2 yet, and recently purchased an XPan. I even reinvested in a tank, reels and chemicals, which had been long gone.

scott