Leica M8 ---> Not Happy!

HAnkg said:
For me photography is about seeing and the most important component on a camera is the finder not the sensor. The sensor won't change the way I shoot. Seeing with an RF is just very different then seeing with a narrow DOF reflex finder. Of course this only applies to a narrow range of wide to normal lenses but in the niche an M finder works well in, it is worth it's weight in gold to me (with Leica pricing that's not a figure of speech).

True on the sensor side the narrow flange to sensor distance and the Biogon style wide angles of RF cameras were an advantage where as in digital they are a big minus. The lack of mirror slap has been made up for by IS and VR in camera or in lens.

So all that is left is the finder and the compact size. All the other advantages in IQ and handling that RF had in the film days are gone. But the finder and the compact size are still huge factors for some.
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IQ? It used the same film as SLR's.
 
hankg, well said. I thought digital RF could bring me a lot of joy. but short battery times and memory cards get me crazy when I go out for a few days. I have to take so many electronic crap while I could take only film cartridges and film body and lens. no more. What I could call, calmness in the mind in the preparation or action. Another big thing: you can snap quickly even the camera is not used for long time.

Still digital RF is a RF. Much more RF than Rollei 35SE which I have. I couldnt call 35se as real rf but m8 is surely more RF than that. 🙂 if you understand what Im talking about
 
Funny how this thread follows the exact same personality of previous digital threads. I guess I've been in the digital world in my studio for ten or eleven years. My first digital system was a Dycomed scanning back and then a Nikon D1. After owning and shooting the D1 and D1x I wanted to move forward to a full frame sensor. Canon introduced the 1Ds and Kodak introduced the 14N. Kodak made statements like this is the most advanced and "BEST" digital camera on the market. Believing the hype I placed my order for one and waited. I hadn't tried one but I knew from good old and trusted Kodak that it must be the "BEST". Well fortunately for me they were in a backorder situation and I had to wait for about three months before expecting delivery. Meanwhile Kodak had a digital seminar in my area and I went with my compact flash card and shot with the 14N. That was all it took for me to realize Kodak was full of BS. The first thing I did the following morning was to cancel my Kodak order and place an order for a 1D and 1Ds Canon. After receiving my Canons and following the discussions on Rob Galbraith's forum I became suddenly realized that there are groups of people that will defend the brand Leica, Kodak, Canon, Nikon or whatever, to their death. No matter whether the product is a fantastic machine or a total piece of junk there are folks that will defend it with their lives. The same post appear in this and other M8 / Leica or whatever brand threads that appeared in the 14N threads. If you're not familiar with the 14N or 14C it was a total disaster. Kodak introduced the camera and the majority of the users had multiple issues with image and camera quality. Basically all but a few cameras were unusable for professional work. Noisy images above 160 iso, banding, uneven color, incompatibility with specific lenses, slow write times, firmware issues, short battery life plus a long list of other problems. Does this sound familiar? Kodak promised firmware corrections that never came and finally they discontinued the camera and introduced a new and truly a "Best camera in the world" replacement. Meanwhile Kodak dropped support for the old 14N and abandon their original customers. To make the story short the new camera had it's own set of faults with little to no improvement over the original. Finally the "best camera in the world" died a slow and painful death. Kodak is out of the pro digital business thank goodness and they're peddling their chips to other manufacturers unfortunately. To me there's a parallel of the 14N and the M8. When they work they work well within strict limits but most or many have major issues. To me as a professional it's much like having a car that will only run 30 days a year and you don't know what day is the day it will run and will only make left turns and not get out of first gear and runs at 10mph if you're lucky. I know of no other people other than the brand loyalists that will tolerate the problems of some cameras, cars or whatever you want to discuss. Brand loyalty plays a bigger part than the actual function of the product. No thank you! I'm hot interested in drinking the CoolAid for this or any other product. The purpose of a camera is to record my vision and thoughts, not to occupy my time with workarounds and trying to get the machine to function properly.
 
We all know 50+ years ago Canon made top quality RFs that shared the LTM and are still quite popular. It seems to me with Canon's enormous financial resources they could produce a digital M mount RF if Leica eventually drops out or fails to soon update their digital body to at least compete with the current state of the art. Just a dream, but I see Canon as the only manufacturer that can pull this off as they practically lead the pack in digital photography development.
 
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Moved and Renamed

Moved and Renamed

I moved this thread to M8 Reported Problems, and also changed the title of it from Leica M8 - Garbage to Leica M8 - Not Happy.

As currently the best digital M mount rangefinder, and possibly the best for a long time if other manufacturers do not see fit to invest into our small niche market, the M8 generates more than its share of threads. However there is no need to insult Leica or by inference, happy M8 owners, when discussing the M8.

Stephen
 
I posted some time ago that the worst thing Leica did was to choose a chip from Kodak for the M8 and I got berated. As Don mentioned above, Kodak professional digital cameras have been plagued with many problems.
 
Ara Ghajanian said:
I don't care how many of you are offended, I need to tell the truth. I bought an M8 a few months ago. I liked it at first, but found a few things inexcusable. One thing in particular was the amount of noise in the photos. I found that 640 was the highest ISO I could set before noise made photos completely unusable. Even 640 was not very good. I sold it within a month and lost a few hundred dollars in the process.

I just purchased a Canon 5D. I took photos at ISO 1600 the other day with dim room lighting and there was no noise I could perceive in the images. How can a camera that presently costs $1899 produce images dramatically better than a camera which costs over $5000? I need Leica to explain this to me. I love their film cameras to death and would never stop using them, but the M8 is worthless to a professional.

Mind you, I AM a professional, not some amateur who doesn't know the difference between a prosumer and pro camera. I've used everything from Hasselblads to Mamiya to Nikon to Rollei. This camera is an insult to Leica owners and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Go ahead... flame me. I stand firmly by my opinion.
Ara
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Hello everyone,
This is my first post on this forum. I am a professional too; whatever that equates too really, as I will always be ready to learn from others whomever they are.
i use an M8 for my work, (and recently did a wedding with it, and I'm certainly not a professional wedding photographer) and as for the quality of the results, I find the camera really amazing. It produces great shadow detail and it very rarely loses anything in the highlights when shooting raw. My main point is this: Why is there this continuous complaining about noise? Did you people never use analogue cameras loaded with 1600 film? The next expectation is to always compare the M8 to the Canon 5D. Now I know this camera has broken new ground with its lack of noise at high iso speed, but really: the two cameras are completely different species. The 5D camera is big, clumsy and would be intimidating for the sort of work I do. It is also far too automated in that it continues to follow the modern camera evolutionary trend of producing something that almost makes the photographer unnecessary. I was pleased when Leica rumoured the development of a digital rangefinder. I was pleased that the resulting camera was small, used the usual little prime lenses, was quick, had manual, conventional controls, and was 'almost' quiet to use. It certainly retained its anonymity as a 'professional' camera, which is also useful. Surely, these are the points to consider when deciding which camera to buy.
I actually find the files quite free of offensive noise. I've supplied 1250 ambient light files to picture editors who commented on their quality. These were shot raw and turned into jpegs using Capture One, and these are picture editors so used to seeing pictures supplied by people using the usual D something/something D brands with everything flashed in anyway. I very rarely use 2500. After all, another reason for using a Leica rangefinder is so that you can use slow shutter speeds. Well, having said all that, I will quietly add, I just hope my camera remains reliable!
Regards,
jgw.
 
Ara Ghajanian said:
I don't care how many of you are offended, I need to tell the truth. I bought an M8 a few months ago. I liked it at first, but found a few things inexcusable. One thing in particular was the amount of noise in the photos. I found that 640 was the highest ISO I could set before noise made photos completely unusable. Even 640 was not very good. I sold it within a month and lost a few hundred dollars in the process.

I just purchased a Canon 5D. I took photos at ISO 1600 the other day with dim room lighting and there was no noise I could perceive in the images. How can a camera that presently costs $1899 produce images dramatically better than a camera which costs over $5000? I need Leica to explain this to me. I love their film cameras to death and would never stop using them, but the M8 is worthless to a professional.

Mind you, I AM a professional, not some amateur who doesn't know the difference between a prosumer and pro camera. I've used everything from Hasselblads to Mamiya to Nikon to Rollei. This camera is an insult to Leica owners and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Go ahead... flame me. I stand firmly by my opinion.
Ara
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Here is another thread that makes me laugh. The only person that is right on the money is ........FioreVelviamo.
He is right to question OP's level of professionalism as his comments ARE based on him calling himself a professional. "M8 is worthless to a professional" - he says - so let's see if he is one.
Yet, everyone jumps in being so politically correct - you are too rude, you can't say this, blah, blah - c'mon people - a professional should be able to take some critisism -after all he himself says that M8 sucks! So, what's wrong with questioning his credibility? Amazing - we always here are afraid to say ANYTHING to critique - and why? If someone's photos suck - they should be told so - maybe they can improve them. We are all (or most ) are here to learn.
Jeez - everyone is so sensative, talking laws and lawyers. Amazing!.
And as far as M8 goes - as someone already said - you don't like it - don't buy it. Most issues are known. I don't own one and am not planning to. But that's a different story altogether......
 
tmfabian said:
Agreed, that was a cheap shot.
However, if you like the 5d better use the 5d, I prefer the m8 and the images it produces far better than the 5d and owning both, I see very little difference in the noise quality between the 2, the real issue is that people don't understand how to read the meter in the m8 properly. I've said it before and i'll say it again, exposed properly, the m8 has very little noise.

all of these were shot at 2500iso(they ain't good, just a test after listening to people unable to expose properly complain about m8 noise, so they all pretty much have large areas of solid colors or darkness)
http://picasaweb.google.com/tmfabian/ISO2500
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I'd say you've proved your point with these shots. I'd also say that some of them, contrary to your disclaimer, are very good.

Harry
 
kittyphoto said:
Shutter is more quiet and less vibration.
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False, it is the very same shutter that it has always been. Unless you got a jump start on the $1,000 "Fix" for the embarrassingly loud and awkward sounding shutter, it is the same one.

I did a workshop with Eugene Richards at Look3 / Festival of the photograph a couple weeks ago. It was on photographing people.

I was trying to do a piece on displaced Black American families. Since there were daily deadlines to consider, I started with the M8, but the damn shutter made me put it away and pull out my film M's. It's not just loud, it sounds odd and it lingers, "Clack-screeeeech". Terrible. I almost got my ass kicked due to how audible it was.

But the film M's, damn near silent, brilliant images, my keeper rate went up 400% over the M8, even in low light where I was able to hand hold lower shutter speeds with my 35 1.4 due to lack of crop factor...with ASA 400 black and white film.

I also use the M8 in some commercial work, it is great at ISO 320 and lower, but 640 and above is tough, it creates more computer work..and even though I am a Mac expert, I would rather be a photographer, so JAAPV can praise his high ISO all he wants, I need to take pictures, not make them on a computer.

I am keeping my M8 now, but only because one of my camera bags put an odd textile mark on the top cover so I would not likely get more than $3000 for it. And it does fill the need for a digital option in my small M bag.

The M8 does put out some nice files, but I really do wish it was not rushed out to market like Leica has personally told me that is was.
 
Ben Z said:
Thanks Dan! I'm going to give that a try. I've been shooting everything at 160 and "pushing" it in ACR, then using Noise Ninja to clean up any residual noise I find objectionable, but I know I'm losing some quality in the process. I'm glad I waded through this cowpasture of a thread and found your post.
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I'll try it too. If it is not a huge departure from my proper workflow and it works, I'll be good to go.
 
jaapv said:
You don't have to shout to get Leica's attention. I had a conversation with Mr. Daniel last week and listened to his presentation, and the forums are intensively read in Solms.
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All the forums are checked and read several times a day by Leica USA and Solms. There is not a lot Leica can do about the M8 as it is now, it is what it is and that is all it ever will be.

But they have learned a ton and you can be sure that the M9 will not be a rushed product with the level of M8 flaws.
 
KM-25 said:
JAAPV can praise his high ISO all he wants, I need to take pictures, not make them on a computer.
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Good digital photographers must know how to use a computer and software to handle digital negatives. Just like analog photographers must know how to handle their film, and if they print (e.g. "make them on a darkroom") themselves, they need to know how to use a darkroom and chemicals.

Welcome to the 21st Century! 🙂
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
Good digital photographers must know how to use a computer and software to handle digital negatives. Just like analog photographers must know how to handle their film, and if they print (e.g. "make them on a darkroom") themselves, they need to know how to use a darkroom and chemicals.

Welcome to the 21st Century! 🙂
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Yep,

Been shooting digital professionally since 1995, I know how important it is to be able to post process. But I try to work with a lot of pre-sets so I can have a life. Some of those do work with M8 640+ files but sometimes they don't.

The M8 is fine, but it is a frustrating camera for those who expect the full Leica experience. It's gorgeous at ISO 320 and below, I will give you that.
 
There is a LOT more to image quality than a sensor. My M8 gives me access to some of the best lenses available. I also own some of the best lenses available for my 1DS2. They fall far short of Leica, Zeiss or even CV glass. The fact that my 1DS2 comfortably outperforms the M8 at high ISO is entirely negated for 90% of my shooting by th M8's optical superiority.
 
I carry my M8 and 3 lens in a bag that would never be able to fit just the body of one of those SLR with high IQ and a normal lens. Maybe I could carry one of those compact SLR bodies with pancakes but I would sacrifice a great deal of quality in my pictures. Carrying a large SLR is what made me quit photography for a few years. My M8 is what made me enjoy it again, simple, light and always with me... unlike the SLR which is always at home.
 
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