M4streetshooter
Tourist Thru Life
How do you find the M8 frameline accuracy? I'm getting ready to buy one again and was just wondering how accurate you find the framelines. Any replies very much appreciated...thanks....don
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
Depends on how used you are to rangefinders. They are accurate on the M8 when focussed at 70 cm and get progressively more loose towards infinity, because of the change of the focal length of the lens when focussing. At infinity you must add about 20% mentally. i.e. use the 50 mm lines for the 75 for instance. This is more than on older M camera's as they had accurate framelines at 3 meters, cropping too tightly close up. No big deal, once you get used to it. Even so, for street shooters they can frame more tightly, as the action is visible "coming in" from the sides outside the frame.
Ben Z
Veteran
Leica always stated the framelines (prior to M8) were set for the closest distance the lenses can focus (70cm up to 50mm, 1m for 75 and 90, 1.5m for 135) plus the amount normally cropped by a cardboard slide mount. So my impression from using the M8 briefly was that Leica just lowered the magnification but didn't change the framelines' respective proportions, they just forgot that with digital nothing is cropped by a slide mount, hence the appearance of a greater difference between framelines and capture. Either way, my 20D doesn't show fully what's captured either, except unlike the rangefinders what's outside the viewfinder is blocked from my view. Would that I could afford (and could carry) the 1DS. I love my old Nikon F for it's 100% viewfinder! All told as Jaap says, once you get used to it and know instinctively how much outside the framelines you get, it becomes a non-issue. Used to be, a lot of people claimed they could just use the M framelines as is, but I think that was because by the time they got the film developed they forgot exactly what they'd framed 
M4streetshooter
Tourist Thru Life
Dunno, I've used M's for over 40 years and, well like you guys said, I just am used to it.....now I'm on a Epson R-D1s and not really happy with the framelines. I am getting an M8 in a few weeks and am hoping for somewhat more accuracy......
eef
Established
M4streetshooter said:
I have a related problem, after switching from the RD-1 to the M8 I usually have too much stuff all around my subjects. Is it the frameline accuracy, or the difference between 1.3x and 1.5x? Did I overlearn the RD-1? Maybe I will learn what a 35mm lens on the M8 captures if I use it enough.