I am a current owner of both, now for a little less than a week. Take the following comments with a grain of salt as I am really enjoying the M8. I am trying to decide whether to keep the RD-1 now that I have the M8. It is interesting -- the cameras seem to do well with different lenses. Acceptable focussing accuracy (and by this I mean - don't need to fiddle - just focus and shoot) is as follows.
M8 - 50/35/75/90 Summicrons, Noctilux, 75 Lux, 50 Asph, 50 Summitar
RD-1 50/35 Summicrons, 40 Nocton, 50 Asph, 50 DR, CV 28/1.9
Back/front focus with M8 (preliminary): CV 28/1.9, 135/2.8 (w/goggles), 50 Summarit, Canon 50/1.5 (screw mount)
Both cameras like a J-8 with an adapter. Oddly the M8 doesn't seem to like the 40 Nocton wide open, jury is still out on the CV 35/1.2. The CV 15 is a blast on the M8, as it behaves like a true wide. I will be taking the 24 Asph out into the streets at lunchtime and see what's up there on the M8. The 50 Summitar is just plain fabulous on the M8. M8 won't mount the Dual Range Summicron -- or rather it mounts but won't focus; in contrast my RD-1 just loves this lens - bang on focus and a really nice look. My RD-1 just won't get along with the 75 Cron, the 75 Lux, the Noctilux, the 135/2.8 - these lenses really challange the rangefinder baselength of the RD-1 and I can work with them, but only by calculating focus error and then trying to compensate in the VF with a static subject -- not really RF photography at its best.
Now to the meat of your question: I have been using the M8 with the 1.25 multiplier permanently attached. It does very well in low light with fast lenses. I have some good low-light pix with the RD-1 and the Noctilux, but my image-to-image ability to focus is hit and miss. The biggest difference in how it feels to shoot with the cameras, for me, has to do with the buffer size. RD-1: 3RAW images and you're done until the buffer clears. With the M8 it's 10 pix.
M8 at its best (ISO 160, steady support) is capable of image quality I once could only get by moving up a negative size or two (think Hassie with 400 speed film). I really feel like I have moved up a level in terms of what my Leica glass can do. At higher ISOs I might go with the RD-1 -- I am still feeling my way with regards to noise suppression software on both cameras. Very preliminarily, my feeling is that RD-1 at 800 is equal to or better than M8 at 640, but the jury is really still out on this.
Build quality -- too early to tell really. I have an M2 and two M3's -- now those have build quality that has been proven by 50 years of service. Will either of these digital cameras (M8/RD-1) be clicking away in 50 years? I laugh at the thought of it, given the technilogical cul-de-sac we seem to be charging down pell-mell with digital. It is frickin' insane to think that today's digital cameras with their short product cycles, dependance on odd-shaped specialty batteries and specialty software, LCDs and tiny flat panels and image file compatibilty/grandfathering issues will have anything like the durabilty of manual cameras machined from brass. Of course, you need something to load into the M2, and blah-blah-blah. Rant off. Build quality on the M8 _feels_ superior to the RD-1, but neither of these babies is a Canon A-1, an F3 or an M3, if you get my drift.
Battery life seems marginally better on the M8.
So to conclude: deleriously happy with the purchase of the M8; but having said that the M8 and RD-1 seem to compliment rather than compete with each other. I wish I understood the RF compatibility issues in a way that made sense. Which lens works best on which camera seems random.
Overall, image quality nod goes to the M8, but it is evolutionary rather than revolutionary in the move from 6 to 10 MP.
Let me know whether you have other specific questions. As you can read from the above, I am working through these issues myself.
Ben Marks
