How many of you will buy the M8 or Digital M

How many of you will buy the M8 or Digital M

  • I have my unit pre-ordered already.

    Votes: 122 15.1%

  • Need more cash

    Votes: 141 17.5%

  • Will buy it for sure sooner or later

    Votes: 234 29.0%

  • Not interested or have no plans to get one.

    Votes: 311 38.5%
  • Total voters
    808
I had a roughly similar experience-----no bargain about to disappear, but strongly thinking about what a "bargain" film could be. Then, there's the lenses. Well, I worked with film for a few months, and realized that I'd already had a large "investment" in many years of working with PS. I'm very happy with the M8.

My bought my 4 CV lenses as "place keepers." Assuming that I'd get use to the widths and see where and if I wanted to make a larger investment in selected "better" glass. I'm not at that point yet.

Martin
 
KM-25 said:
I'll pass thank you. I have a pair of 5D's for digital .

I just got my first Leica Friday: M6 Wetzlar w/ 35 2.0 ASPH. Now why would I want to put a silly little cropped chip behind that glass when there are tons of great films out there?


.....Including my 800 rolls of Kodachrome..😀
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Updates to all of this...

One of the 5D's is going to be sold since all I want to tote around are my M8 and MP-3. Sold the 35 asph for a 28 Summicron and have a 50 LHSA asph to go with the MP-3. Still have an M6TTL and an M3.

Now have 1,600 rolls of Kodachrome..

My how things change in a year...🙂
 
I'd rather buy the new soon to be announced M9 because of its full-frame sensor. Or maybe I buy a cheap second hand old M8 instead, in spite of its narrow view sensor, that is.
 
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Ben Z said:
Is it ok if I change my original vote? Because I just bought one 😀
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Ben,
Change is good, congrats. Our earlier exchanges testy, I sincerely do hope you enjoy your new gear. On that note, the M8 is, ah, sensitive/touchy, but in a good way,IMO... my friends do not understand what I can "see" in a "snapshot": "OK," I ask, "what can your digital camera do with this?" My point has always been that this kit is at home in hand and can bring it too... it instructs the user, and not because Leica knows best.

Oh, and CV glass rocks... and in Zeiss-guise too.

Go play, but bring film kit should the battery die(got glass?Heck yea!). My M8 back-up is an M4, always ready, as always!

rgds,
Dave
 
Like many folks here, I could actually buy an M8. I have some M series lenses and some great M film bodies. The M8 is I admit extremely attractive.

However the M8, like all digital cameras there is, in my mind at least, it's impending obsolesence. All we need is a new sensor to hit the market and the thing is history. The marvelous analogue Ms are still out there still going strong many after 50 or so years.
The M8 is gonna have the cachet of an old toaster after a few years. I need value for my money.
 
literiter said:
Like many folks here, I could actually buy an M8. I have some M series lenses and some great M film bodies. The M8 is I admit extremely attractive.

However the M8, like all digital cameras there is, in my mind at least, it's impending obsolesence. All we need is a new sensor to hit the market and the thing is history. The marvelous analogue Ms are still out there still going strong many after 50 or so years.
The M8 is gonna have the cachet of an old toaster after a few years. I need value for my money.
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not necessarily the case. it's only obsolete if you want the latest/greatest. I'm using a betterlight scanning back that was released in 1994. Nothing's come out that's been better.no problems with it yet. i have a friend that's still using his Fuji S1 (bought in 2000) with no problems. He's happy with the quality of image, and the output hasn't changed from the camera since he bought it. I'd fully expect an M8 to at least last 10 years of good solid use.. and it's going to deliver a 10mp image then the same as it does today. The M7's you buy today won't be lasting as long as the M3's .. they're more complex, more electronics, so you'll probably be replacing one of them about the same time you need to replace the M8.
 
literiter said:
However the M8, like all digital cameras there is, in my mind at least, it's impending obsolesence. All we need is a new sensor to hit the market and the thing is history. The marvelous analogue Ms are still out there still going strong many after 50 or so years.
The M8 is gonna have the cachet of an old toaster after a few years. I need value for my money.
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Perhaps if the M8 sensors were exchangeable in the same way as the firmware...:bang:
 
nrb said:
Perhaps if the M8 sensors were exchangeable in the same way as the firmware...:bang:
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This would have to be the answer. Please make something for my M2 and M4-P as well
because the M8 seems to have a few problems these days. Wot?.

When I got my Leica stuff I was never worried about it's redundancy. I'm still not. But when I hear dialog from so many photographers on ditching their older gear, (usually at a loss, these days) to finance their new Digital equipment which seems to have a best before date I get a little twitchy.
 
collum said:
not necessarily the case. it's only obsolete if you want the latest/greatest. I'm using a betterlight scanning back that was released in 1994. Nothing's come out that's been better.no problems with it yet. i have a friend that's still using his Fuji S1 (bought in 2000) with no problems. He's happy with the quality of image, and the output hasn't changed from the camera since he bought it. I'd fully expect an M8 to at least last 10 years of good solid use.. and it's going to deliver a 10mp image then the same as it does today.
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I'm not sure I'd feel the same way about the Fuji S1 or Canon D30, but certainly there is a much smaller increase in image quality between the 20D and the 40D, and will likely be even smaller between it and the 50D and so on. Until and unless there's a revolutionary advance in sensor technology I think that we won't see the kind of true obsolescence we saw between the first couple of DSLR generations...and even then, current image quality is so good the question becomes, how much better can it get that our eyes will be capable of noticing? Of course some people won't see it that way, and will suddenly be repulsed at shooting their current camera until the new one is in their hands 😀 So much better for the rest of us to take that "obsolete" last-generation camera off their hands for a pittance 😉
 
Ben Z said:
I'm not sure I'd feel the same way about the Fuji S1 or Canon D30, but certainly there is a much smaller increase in image quality between the 20D and the 40D, and will likely be even smaller between it and the 50D and so on. Until and unless there's a revolutionary advance in sensor technology I think that we won't see the kind of true obsolescence we saw between the first couple of DSLR generations...and even then, current image quality is so good the question becomes, how much better can it get that our eyes will be capable of noticing? Of course some people won't see it that way, and will suddenly be repulsed at shooting their current camera until the new one is in their hands 😀 So much better for the rest of us to take that "obsolete" last-generation camera off their hands for a pittance 😉
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I agree.

The big jumps in resolution are finished; this is slide from a scaling argument that I made at a recent seminar.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c76/keithwms/snapshots/megapixels.jpg

Of course there will be incremental improvements in photosensor size, giving less noise at higher ISO, and eventually that may push us beyond the Bayer architecture. But the res figures are already basically lens limited at useful apertures so... there's no real reason to go beyond ~22mp with the 35mm frame size. I suppose that Canon and/or Nikon will probably go to a ~26 mp 4:3 frame and that will be the last of the 35mm dslrs. I would argue for a square sensor so that one can shoot 35mm full frame without rotating, or shoot nice squares, but it looks like 4/3 is winning the argument in the long term, as perhaps it should. Anyway after that, there is medium format....

I do think there will be a complete change in the viewfinder methodology, after which SLRs will no longer be made, but that is some years off.

So is a digital a good investment today? Yes, I'd say it is a much better investment than it was a few years ago when we were at the very beginning of that scaling curve.
 
Tuolumne said:
ISO quality as good at 6400 as today's 200 will be the next leap. You'll be seeing photogs throwing away their old digital gear with both hands when that happens.

/T
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Pretty stupid if they did, when do you need ISO 6400 when you come to think about it? ISO 64 did fine for what is it? fiftyfive? years... It is more relevant for DSLR cameras anyway, with their slow zoom lenses. An RF with a fast lens has gained three ISO jumps already.
 
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jaapv said:
Pretty stupid if they did, when do you need ISO 6400 when you come to think about it? ISO 64 did fine for what is it? fiftyfive? years... It is more relevant for DSLR cameras anyway, with their slow zoom lenses. An RF with a fast lens has gained three ISO jumps already.
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You are totally unbelievable man... really.

You have an answer for everything that puts the M8 under any kind of scrutiny and even beyond that as demonstrated here.

Fist of all, I shoot ISO 64 almost daily in Kodachrome. I also have shot ISO 3,200 with 1.4 glass from a helicopter in full moonlight. You can't do the latter with Kodachrome or with the M8 even with a noctilux and a Kenyon Gryro. You need high ISO.

If you give me a camera that could do ISO 6400 as clean as 200 now, the LAST thing I would do is say: "when do you need ISO 6400 when you come to think about it?"

I'll tell you when: "When my imagination runs wild bro!"
 
Yes, definitely yes.

While I recognize the advantages of film, as a Generation Y full-time student with limited access to shoddy darkrooms, the advantages of digital easily override the advantages of film.
 
I posted this yesterday in another thread. I'm leaving home to pick up my camera now. I've been saving my money for this for a long time.
Last week I attended a sombre event. An aunt was buried. I traveled by bus overnight and spent the day with the family. I shot 3 rolls at the funeral and the reception with my M6. I wanted to recall the day. I felt comfortable. I would not have done it with any other camera. That family gathering decided it for me. This morning I took all my lenses to the dealer and tried them out on an M8. After an hour, I put down the deposit. I should have an M8.2 in my hands at 2 pm tomorrow.
 
I picked my M8.2 up this afternoon. I've only had the battery charged for a couple of hours, walked around with it and it already feels like an old friend. I'm very happy. The money? Yes, it's a lot, but when I think about it, I quit smoking a long time ago, I don't drink much, and I'll save a bundle on lab fees, so without doing much calculation, having saved and spent the money, now that I have the camera, I think it was money well spent. It's not an issue any more. I have the camera and I'm very happy. I 'd like a digital back for my V Hasselblad.
 
Ah, M8.*

Ah, M8.*

(Notice, now, we're clearly in the aughts: If these were the 70s, it would be "M 8-2")

With that observation out of the way, I feel compelled to say that an M8.* would be kinda neat.

If it weren't pushing six grand.

For what it's worth, my Nikon Coolscan V churns out scans of 35mm negs that are about 23 megapixels - whether I shot the frames with a Fuji disposable, a Canonet, or M6.

Correct me if I'm misguided, but I personally would rather have the high-falutin' 6k 'hair-shirt tech' OUTBOARD, where it sits on my desk, (the scanner) out of danger from being dropped or flooded with coffee.

/just an idle thought
 
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