Just back from my walk and the R8's first outing with me. I used the 90/2 and 19/2.8 lenses.
Cons: it's certainly a heavy thing to carry.
Pros: I like everything else about it.
What impresses me most, aside from the stunning quality of the viewfinder optics, are the controls and ergonomics. This is a fairly complex, end of the last century camera. From a shooting perspective, it does 95% of what the latest whizbang digital does; obviously, it doesn't have the burden of the image processing lab in every digital camera, but the controls for that could be added with minimal intrusion. Yet for shooting purposes, any decent photographer can figure out the whole camera in 10 minutes without a manual. Every control is in the right place and easy to use, get to, understand, and remember. The viewfinder display is clean, simple, unobtrusive, and fully informative.
Why is this so difficult to achieve with our modern digital cameras? Why do we have magic wurlitzers like the Df with a control and a sub-control for everything it can do, or sleek pretty things with everything hidden beneath layers and layers of menu madness? The R8 achieves everything with an absolute minimum of controls, everything ready to your fingers, right where it needs to be... Why is this so difficult?
Just like my car, I couldn't afford one when new. But I'm delighted to find that now, when they dont cost much through simple depreciation of the years, owning one is every bit as excellent as my fantasy of it promised so long ago.
I'm off to get my test rolls processed. ;-)
G
