Erwin Putts M8 test report

Chuck A said:
After some work the M8 image has a more 3D look with much more depth in the midtones. Certainly we can't tell its overall image quality by one sample, but I am surprised that Mr Putts didn't pick up on this. To be honest, I don't think that he likes the idea of a digital M abd this colored his review.
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I totally agree. It is very important to highlight this because most (if not all) of DSLR produce flat pictures, without subtlety in tones ... for instance, PBase is full of those digi flat and vulgar pictures. BTW, softness is not bad at all, it's precisely what lacks DSLR pictures. And as it has already been said, the most important in digi photography is the possibilities offered by post-processing ... I'm far from being an expert, but it seems to that it is a nonsense to compare raw digi pictures.
If the RD-1 is already much much better than any DSLR, I expect the M8 to be better than the RD-1, even just slightly.
Best,
Marc
 
Well said!

Well said!

Chuck A said:
...Using a rangefinder is different than using an SLR/DSLR ...
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Chuck,
Well said! Some people will never get what you are saying. I have the 5D and I am embarrassed to bring it to dinners and gatherings.

Those SLRs are like the SUVs. :bang:
 
raid amin said:
Why would anyone leave behind the M system and change over to somnething like the M8? If you want advanced digital photography, something like a Canon already offers a great product with great lenses.
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BECAUSE IT'S A BLOODY RANGEFINDER!
 
CameronDavidson said:
Ok Folks -

Who is Erwin Putts? (Question the source...)

Why would he even consider testing a prime Leica lens against a Canon zoom?

He does not spell check his review? That says quite a bit to me about lack of attention to detail. (nothing personal here.)

If you take a look at his photography - highlights are blown out and the files are in dire need of spotting. I have no idea who this gentlemen is and do not mean to denigrate his review or his work.. However, I do not feel that it is realistic and I question the ability to test a prime lens against Canon zoom. (I use Leicas and the 1DsII kit with L lenses.. The Canon L primes are very good. )
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And that's your first post! Wow, I'm looking forward to your next ones! :)
Welcome Cameron! :angel:
 
His site is now down. Also, I was under the impression, from other reviewers, that all journalists are under NDA's concerning images due to use of non-production firmware?

-grant
 
I think he's brilliant. and he says,

"You might start a war about the differences in resolution: for me the analysis of this level of details is input for the theoretical discussion and has limited practical value. See the model pictures. You will be hard pressed to get these details on the printer."

How did this review even get out? I bet it wasn't meant to. The website is not even up anymore, and earlier most links were not active. It clearly was not ready for primetime.
 
hhmmmmm...........

Link now says 'not found on this server', and I can't get any access at all to his site. Must have pulled it.

There was definitely an embargo on posting images or parts of images taken with the M8. I was happy enough with the quality (and compared it to my 5D), but it would truly be unfair to do a detailed comparison since the firmware I had was v0.23, and some things were definitely not optimized.

Henning
 
Haaahaaaa

Haaahaaaa

Originally Posted by raid amin
Why would anyone leave behind the M system and change over to somnething like the M8? If you want advanced digital photography, something like a Canon already offers a great product with great lenses.
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sunsworth said:
BECAUSE IT'S A BLOODY RANGEFINDER!
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Thanks Sunsworth! :D
 
The page is back - minus all the samples shot with beta firmware and the comments baed thereon. Basically just a "body" review, now.
 
While I couldn't resist playing with the file Puts posted those images from a preproduction camera don't tell you anything about what the M8 will do. Hopefully the signature of the final releases image capture will be appealing. While the M8 will not out resolve Canons top of the line (well maybe on the very wide end where the Canon lens line is weak) that's not the whole enchilada.

Melvin Sokolsky became an icon of fashion photography shooting 8x10. He can afford to shoot whatever he wants and a few years ago he switched from large format to Canon 1 series digital, he prefers the look from the 1Ds over the output from higher resolution medium format digital backs. Now the 1Ds doesn't out resolve 8x10 or Phase One P series but the whole package -the freedom it allows him while shooting, the fingerprint of the image capture and what he can do in post works for him.
 
The pictures published by Erwin shouldn't form the basis for any kind of debate over the M8's file quality. They are not representative of what the camera can do and much of his review will be discredited over the next couple of months. So now you have Phil Askey's response and my own.

Sean
 
sreidvt said:
The pictures published by Erwin shouldn't form the basis for any kind of debate over the M8's file quality. They are not representative of what the camera can do and much of his review will be discredited over the next couple of months. So now you have Phil Askey's response and my own.

Sean
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Sean,

Thanks for offering a voice of reason. I could care less about the "leaked" test images but what I am more concerned about was what Erwin said about the shutter having lag. What are your thoughts regarding the lag? Are we talking lag like Canon 5D like lag since it is electronic versus a manual M body where the lag is nonexistent or is it something worse than that. Any info you may offer regarding this would be much appreciated.
 
Thanks. There's no problem with shutter lag in the M8. Whatever the difference may be between the M7 and M8, in this respect, is inconsequential in real life. As I said in my review, shutter lag with the M8 is essentially non-existant.

Cheers,

Sean
 
sreidvt said:
Thanks. There's no problem with shutter lag in the M8. Whatever the difference may be between the M7 and M8, in this respect, is inconsequential in real life. As I said in my review, shutter lag with the M8 is essentially non-existant.

Cheers,

Sean
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That was fast...just what I was hoping to hear.

Thanks...you rock :)
 
sreidvt said:
The pictures published by Erwin shouldn't form the basis for any kind of debate over the M8's file quality. They are not representative of what the camera can do and much of his review will be discredited over the next couple of months. So now you have Phil Askey's response and my own.

Sean
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Sean

What I find amazing about the Erwin's M8 photo of the girl in the rope dress, is the dress and eyes were not in the same focal plane! The eyes were actually OK and although still processed by a beta software looked better than the 5d. The rope dress was simply out of focus. Yikes.... Erwin's methodology is so sloppy it defies description.

The Moire pattern test, which was in better focus, actually looks to have the same or better resolution than the 5D but is obscured by heavy, color moire artifacts. Wow, what does he expect of a sensor with no moire filter being tested by a chart that reveals moire artifacts more than any other. And we don't even know if the camera moire reduction software is even active.

Despite all the crap, there was some useful information to be gleaned by the photos, no thanks to Irwin. But to the folks that aren't used to looking at bad tests, they may come away with the wrong interpratation of the quality of the Kodak sensor.

I think the results are actually encouraging, and await patiently the results of qualified reviewers like Sean

Rex
 
fgianni said:
The question, for us RD-1 users, is how much better is the M8 (no doubt it is better, at least from a pixel count point of view)
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Whoa! As another R-D 1 user, I had been thinking the M8 was everything I ever wanted, and was scheming how on earth I could manage to buy one.

But now after reading Erwin's review (even the expurgated second version) I'm not so sure!

Yes, 10 megapixels would be great, and having framelines for 75mm and 90mm framelines would be nice. And as Sean Reid has pointed out, some of Erwin's initial negative comments were about characteristics that are partly determined by the firmware, and the test camera's firmware wasn't final. (These comments have been snipped from the reposted version of his review.) Perhaps the release-version firmware will be better. Still...

-- No exposure compensation dial? I use exposure compensation a lot. Having to dive into the menu system to get it would be a huge pain. There's no way to fix this in firmware.

-- There's some controversy on whether or not the M8 has more shutter-release lag than a mechanical M -- but there's no doubt that it needs a three-stage shutter release so it can incorporate the meter-on, AE-lock, and shutter release functions. Maybe going through all those stages caused the lag Erwin originally thought he was feeling (before this remark was expurgated from his review.) Meanwhile, other reviewers have noted that pressing the release just enough to lock AE can be touchy. I can't help thinking that the R-D 1's separate AE lock button is a better solution.

-- The original version of Erwin's writeup (before he removed anything firmware-related) noted that he was getting only 200 shots per battery. Crikey, that's not very good -- I'd need three batteries to get through a typical shoot. The R-D 1 is a bit of a battery hog if you turn instant review on, but if I leave it off I can get through a long shoot on one Epson battery. Let's hope Leica's final firmware is less power-hungry.

-- Holy cow, once the buffer is full it takes a full minute to empty it?!? This also was excised from the second version of his review. Again, I hope the final firmware does better -- no photographer is going to want to spend that long sitting in the "penalty box." I'm sure they can improve on this, but I still suspect there may be a speed penalty for choosing the computation-intensive DNG format for raw-file storage.

-- Leaving out the anti-aliasing filter sounds like a great way to get finer detail...until you look at the "Siemens star" photo in Erwin's test (again, removed from his reposted review.) The center of the star was pretty badly artifacted. I wonder how this is going to play out in photos of finely-detailed real objects with regular patterns in them, such as fabric textures...? Kodak's DCS14 SLR also dispensed with the antialias filter, and I recall some reviews noting problems with moiré patterns in such subjects. Again, since the M8 uses software-based antialiasing, maybe the final-version firmware will be better than in Erwin's now-removed test shot. But what if it's not? Leica's notion of the best tradeoff between fine-detail rendering and moiré avoidance may not be the same as my notion.

-- Come on, a $4800 camera and they can't spring for a PC outlet? (And before you ask "Why would anyone need a PC outlet on an RF camera?", let me answer by saying that an RF is great for studio shooting with an AC-powered electronic flash system; one big advantage over an SLR is that you can SEE the flashes go off through the viewfinder, which makes it a lot easier to coordinate action shots.) Sure, you can put a slave trigger in the hot shoe, or use one of those cheesy hot-shoe-to-PC adapters, but it still seems a little chintzy.


So, one good thing about all this is that it makes me feel a bit better about the fact that I'm going to be sticking with my R-D 1 for quite a while! If I encounter some bucks-up photo snob who wants to know why I haven't traded for an M8, I no longer have to say, "Because I'm too poor"; instead I can say, "Yeah, it sounds good, but for the way I shoot I really kinda need a hardware exposure compensation dial and an AE lock button."

PS -- Another loss from Erwin's original writeup: You no longer get to see the test photos of his striking but dour test subject. Wonder why she always looks so annoyed in his pictures of her? Maybe she doesn't like the tarty way he makes her dress up...?
 
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