Pavel+
Established
NICELY put! 
.... and so very true.
.... and so very true.user237428934
User deletion pending
With my DSLR it's possible to change ISO without taking the camera from the eye. With my M8 it's not possible without looking at the display.
And the functionality is inconsistent: press menu and you see the menu. Press menu again and the screen goes black. Press play and you go to replay. Press play again and the screen goes black. Press the set button and you see the set-menu. How do you close it? Pressing the set button again? Boom. Every time I am confused by this.
So much about the good design of the M8. The basic stuff (aperture, time) is the same as in every M. But what belongs to a digital camera is not so well designed. My opinion.
Jay gave me a copy of this photograph taken with his M8. It is of an IED destroying a vehicle in his Convoy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70355737@N00/3020792025/
I had our Photographic department frame it for me, and it's now in my Lab. The photographers had a lot of questions on how it was made, thought it had to be a still from a high-def video.
Nope, taken with a Leica M8. The three men in the vehicle that was hit walked out of it. I have to tell that to the people looking at it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70355737@N00/3020792025/
I had our Photographic department frame it for me, and it's now in my Lab. The photographers had a lot of questions on how it was made, thought it had to be a still from a high-def video.
Nope, taken with a Leica M8. The three men in the vehicle that was hit walked out of it. I have to tell that to the people looking at it.
bolohead
Joel Cosseboom
It looks to me like the Nikon and Canon guys got tired of beating each other up and decided to gang up on the M8. Take it with a grain of salt.
Speenth
Emmaiter
What's this all about? The M8 has been around long enough to pick up fans and some fearsome critics. So what?
Those of us who own and enjoy our M8s do so for many reasons - sometimes its because the extraordinary imaging potential of the thing is occasionally revealed and sometimes its because its just nice to behold. In between these extremes, it functions well as a camera and it makes the owner feel good.
But, it is an easy camera to criticise. One poster in your infamous thread says; '[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Exactly why do you need a sapphire crystal for the LCD cover? That's the same kind of crystal used for my Tag Heuer watch but the difference is, my watch lasts for decades while this camera will probably be obsolete in a few years if the electronic hasn't failed by then. That just strengthen my point of this camera being a luxury item.'
[/FONT]
This is a fair point and at the heart of why Leica attracts such vicious criticism. Its punted to the rich brigade, rather than to discerning photographers, despite its enviable photographic credentials. It's sad that Leica has a long tradition of putting lenses in thermidors, or bejewelling workaday cameras (or painting them white) for the bling brigade. If they did not do this, the marque would not be so targetted by the mockers. That's all there is to it - in the end, its all about greeneye.
Those of us who own and enjoy our M8s do so for many reasons - sometimes its because the extraordinary imaging potential of the thing is occasionally revealed and sometimes its because its just nice to behold. In between these extremes, it functions well as a camera and it makes the owner feel good.
But, it is an easy camera to criticise. One poster in your infamous thread says; '[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Exactly why do you need a sapphire crystal for the LCD cover? That's the same kind of crystal used for my Tag Heuer watch but the difference is, my watch lasts for decades while this camera will probably be obsolete in a few years if the electronic hasn't failed by then. That just strengthen my point of this camera being a luxury item.'
[/FONT]
This is a fair point and at the heart of why Leica attracts such vicious criticism. Its punted to the rich brigade, rather than to discerning photographers, despite its enviable photographic credentials. It's sad that Leica has a long tradition of putting lenses in thermidors, or bejewelling workaday cameras (or painting them white) for the bling brigade. If they did not do this, the marque would not be so targetted by the mockers. That's all there is to it - in the end, its all about greeneye.
JNewell
Leica M Recidivist
The answer to the critics: spend a few bucks to rent one for a day or two. Compare the images. You will be convinced.\
The thing is, even so, and I am a very long time M user, it is not a universal tool. It does a few things brilliantly, but there are many photo needs is simply doesn't address. That is not an image quality issue, but it may be an economic issue.
The thing is, even so, and I am a very long time M user, it is not a universal tool. It does a few things brilliantly, but there are many photo needs is simply doesn't address. That is not an image quality issue, but it may be an economic issue.
I'm thinking of picking up an M8 fairly soon, prices are below $3K.
Rather than the saphire thing upgrade, I was thinking of the plastic protective sheet made for the Nintendo DSi. If it can stand up to an eleven year old pounding Bowser II with a stylus, it can stand up to anything.
Rather than the saphire thing upgrade, I was thinking of the plastic protective sheet made for the Nintendo DSi. If it can stand up to an eleven year old pounding Bowser II with a stylus, it can stand up to anything.
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MCTuomey
Veteran
Exactly what I did, cut to fit. Sapphire, schmapphire. Cameras with gemstone adjectives are for sissies or their kin, the fondlers. "Jewel-like" in reference to a camera means what? You sport it? :bang:
A bit more seriously, ya gotta love the speed of digi depreciation. makes life good for the bottom-feeder in me.
good luck with your choice, brian.
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mikemyers
Established
The guy over there has gotten strangely quiet all of a sudden. Anyway, I just posted the following over there:
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I'm not sure if the following will help you or not, but I think it's worth a try.
I took your information and simplified it into a list of twelve items. I don't think I left anything out. I separated those into six possible problems with the camera, and six more things based on your personal preference.
I'm not going to talk about those last six items. Phil Askey at www.dpreview has a full review of the M8, (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leicam8/) and a lengthy discussion about the menus and buttons. His impressions were quite the opposite of yours "The rear of the M8 may be busier than any previous M series but compared to most digital cameras is a wonderful lesson in simple clean design. We have a column of five buttons down the left side of the LCD monitor, the menu button on the right and the control dial and direction buttons." I'm not going to say you're "wrong", as likes and dislikes are a matter of personal preference, but my own impressions are that Leica did a great job of taking away the complexity that Canon and Nikon are constantly adding to – just look at the back of one of THEIR cameras! Anyway, let me move on to your list, and make a suggestion:
You listed the following things you felt were problems:
2 sec startup,
obvious shutter lag,
buffer time
crappy rear screen
no support for DNG-only B/W viewing,
inability to change the brightlines manually
You also mentioned the following things that you didn't like
bad menu design
senseless button designations
ISO change buried in menus,
the camera feels unintuitive
lack of userfriendliness
technological performance
I compared your problems with some reports, especially the one from www.dpreview.com.
• You are upset about a two-second start-up time, but for dpreview startup was half that, one second, and time from "off" to "first shot" was 1.1 seconds. You can also select when, if ever, the camera goes into "sleep mode", and as with Nikon, you can simply leave the camera in the "on" position as you walk around.
• You have "obvious shutter lag" while dpreview noted that there was virtually zero shutter lag, and pictures were captured as soon as they pressed the button.
• You had a problem with buffer time, that didn't seem to be a problem for dpreview or others.
• Your camera has a crappy rear screen, while dpreview simply noted that when you go out in sunlight, you have to turn up the screen brightness.
I don't know what you mean by "no support for DNG-only B/W viewing" or by "inability to change the brightlines manually". I don't know why anyone would want to do that manually, but I guess it's important to you. Anyway, I don't know enough to comment.
After comparing your problems with what dpreview found, I think it's highly likely that you have one of two things going wrong.
Possibly your camera is broken or defective. That would explain the long startup time, the delays, the shutter lag, the buffer problem, and so on.
I think it's much more likely though that your memory card might have a problem. That would also explain the above.
If it's the memory card, it's very easy to fix – take the card out of the camera and put it into a card reader attached to your computer. Do a "full format". (Do not do a "quick format, which is not the same thing at all.) Formatting the card in the camera, or doing a quick format on your computer would take a few seconds, but will NOT fix any problems. Doing the full format on your computer will take forever, and either your card will be as good as new when it's done, or you'll have received an error message telling you the card is no good.
This won't help you with the personal likes and dislikes, but it might very well fix some of the problems you're having.... and it will be a whole lot cheaper than sending the camera off for repairs. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I'm not sure if the following will help you or not, but I think it's worth a try.
I took your information and simplified it into a list of twelve items. I don't think I left anything out. I separated those into six possible problems with the camera, and six more things based on your personal preference.
I'm not going to talk about those last six items. Phil Askey at www.dpreview has a full review of the M8, (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/leicam8/) and a lengthy discussion about the menus and buttons. His impressions were quite the opposite of yours "The rear of the M8 may be busier than any previous M series but compared to most digital cameras is a wonderful lesson in simple clean design. We have a column of five buttons down the left side of the LCD monitor, the menu button on the right and the control dial and direction buttons." I'm not going to say you're "wrong", as likes and dislikes are a matter of personal preference, but my own impressions are that Leica did a great job of taking away the complexity that Canon and Nikon are constantly adding to – just look at the back of one of THEIR cameras! Anyway, let me move on to your list, and make a suggestion:
You listed the following things you felt were problems:
2 sec startup,
obvious shutter lag,
buffer time
crappy rear screen
no support for DNG-only B/W viewing,
inability to change the brightlines manually
You also mentioned the following things that you didn't like
bad menu design
senseless button designations
ISO change buried in menus,
the camera feels unintuitive
lack of userfriendliness
technological performance
I compared your problems with some reports, especially the one from www.dpreview.com.
• You are upset about a two-second start-up time, but for dpreview startup was half that, one second, and time from "off" to "first shot" was 1.1 seconds. You can also select when, if ever, the camera goes into "sleep mode", and as with Nikon, you can simply leave the camera in the "on" position as you walk around.
• You have "obvious shutter lag" while dpreview noted that there was virtually zero shutter lag, and pictures were captured as soon as they pressed the button.
• You had a problem with buffer time, that didn't seem to be a problem for dpreview or others.
• Your camera has a crappy rear screen, while dpreview simply noted that when you go out in sunlight, you have to turn up the screen brightness.
I don't know what you mean by "no support for DNG-only B/W viewing" or by "inability to change the brightlines manually". I don't know why anyone would want to do that manually, but I guess it's important to you. Anyway, I don't know enough to comment.
After comparing your problems with what dpreview found, I think it's highly likely that you have one of two things going wrong.
Possibly your camera is broken or defective. That would explain the long startup time, the delays, the shutter lag, the buffer problem, and so on.
I think it's much more likely though that your memory card might have a problem. That would also explain the above.
If it's the memory card, it's very easy to fix – take the card out of the camera and put it into a card reader attached to your computer. Do a "full format". (Do not do a "quick format, which is not the same thing at all.) Formatting the card in the camera, or doing a quick format on your computer would take a few seconds, but will NOT fix any problems. Doing the full format on your computer will take forever, and either your card will be as good as new when it's done, or you'll have received an error message telling you the card is no good.
This won't help you with the personal likes and dislikes, but it might very well fix some of the problems you're having.... and it will be a whole lot cheaper than sending the camera off for repairs. [/FONT]
If the M8.2 was $799 instead of $6000, nobody would be having this discussion. Everybody would own one and like it.
Al Kaplan
Veteran
$799 and a full frame sensor that would work with existing non-retrofocus ultra-wide lenses? Count me in!
user237428934
User deletion pending
So dpreview is always right and someone with a differing opinion is wrong ??
mikemyers
Established
That's not what I said, or meant. Still, who would you think I'd trust more, Phil Askey who's spent forever gathering all the information on a particular camera, and an ordinary user who's had one for a few weeks and may or may not know how to use it? For that matter, we don't know if was new our used.
To answer your question, I'd trust dpreview more than an average camera owner, unless I felt that other person was equally qualified. As I see it, they've hardly ever (ever?) been wrong about most things, but some cameras they've liked during their test later were found to have reliability issues (until the company fixed the problem).
PatrickT
New Rangefinder User
Maybe I'm wrong, but the original poster over at FM is just giving his thoughts on the camera. His style is perfectly suited to that of a Rangefinder camera so he thought he'd give it a try. Turns out, he doesn't like it all that much (so far). His main complaints are that there are things wrong with the camera that no camera above $3000 should have. It's a legit complaint, IMHO. Don't bash him for his opinion. There's just as much fanboyism here with respect to RFs (obviously) as there is over at FM with respect to DSLRs. And that's perfectly understandable.
Me, I use both (5D and film RF). Based on his complaints of the usability of the M8, I would never buy one (especially at it's pricepoint).
So shoot me.
Me, I use both (5D and film RF). Based on his complaints of the usability of the M8, I would never buy one (especially at it's pricepoint).
So shoot me.
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JNewell
Leica M Recidivist
Pleading guilty to furthering thread creep, I am reminded of the dictum that "the plural of anecdote is not data."
JNewell
Leica M Recidivist
I am a nearly life-long M user and watched the whole thing unfold - thought I'd never do it. Rented one and was blown totally away.
willie_901
Veteran
I might have no complaints at the price level of $900.
mani
Well-known
No-one is forced to buy one at any price level.
I'd say this - as someone who waited two years, bought an M8 then returned it then bought another one, and has been a vocal critic of Leica quality-control during that period, having owned the camera now for the last six months I can categorically state the following:
1. the original post at FredMiranda was purely and simply factually incorrect. Saying that the M8 suffers from "shutter lag" for instance is just a lie, pure and simple. Many of the other statements made are not factually correct, either.
2. The camera is just what you make of it - no more nor less. In my own experience, it's a far better camera than I ever expected it could be.
3. There's an enormous amount of BS that people just throw around as 'facts' on internet forums (yeah, 'fora' I know) - this thread is a classic example of people saying stuff without any factual basis whatsoever (ie: the M8 uses the same chip as Pentax or Sony etc).
4. If you don't want to pay the actual price for an M8, either steal one or save. Don't come on to a forum and set your own fantasy price that you personally think it's worth. No-one else is interested.