May be old question; anyone have experience using the M8 with CV lenses yet?

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Just wondered if any of you lucky owners has been brave enough to try this gem with good ol' manual, non-coded CV lenses and what happened? (or NOT!) The reason I'm asking is cash flow; I MAY be able to afford the body come spring, but no way can I afford both the M8 body AND one of those 6-bit coded lenses. That's why I want to know! Thoughts? Catcalls? Suggestions? Boos? Hisses? 8o)
 
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Do you belong to the Leica Users Group? In the past week there was a glowing report from Ted Grant. He had used the C/V 35mm 1:1.2 Nokton lens on his new M8. He was very enthusiastic about the lens+camera combination.
 
No relation

No relation

Durn it! Otherwise I'd be somewhere around Savannah trying out a boat on the ocean instead of in the mountains north of Atlanta. 8o) And, no, I'm not a member of the Leica users group yet. Haven't felt the need to join when I can only dream about owning a Leica right now! Because of having to go back to school at 58, I'm forced to limit my film shooting and stick with digital for financial reasons, but my Olympus E-1 is starting to show its age and reach its limits for landscape photography. I LUST after an M8, have a couple of CV lenses (see my list below my signature) and that MAY be the way I'll get into Leica photography the way I want anyway-digitally. MY GAS may then allow a true Leica lens or two (the Tri-Elmar?) later.
 
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CV lenses I use (actually don't have the budget to use Leica M lenses yet):

CV Super Wide Heliar 15mm (FANTASTIC BARGAIN ON M8)
CV Ultron 28mm f/1.9 -- a bit big, and intrudes into the rangefinder framelines but fast and good image quality.
CV 35mm f/2.5 Pan II -- small, I'm using the vented lens hood--nice and sharp
CV 50mm f/1.5 Nokton -- great lens, shoots sharp wide open for me, a bargain.

I've used these lenses since 2004 on my R-D1 and they work well on the M8.

I'd love to get a 35 f/1.2 from them, seems like a great low light shooting bargain and the FOV is quite comfortable on the R-D1.

And don't worry about lens snobbery. A good picture is a good picture, no matter the cost of the lens. Sean Reid has reviewed the 28mm Ultron favorably and so have other reviewers. For the price it's a steal, as it's sharp enough, doesn't flare much (I've shot right into the sun with it) and it's much much cheaper than similar speed offerings by Leica or Zeiss. I'm sure if I sold my EOS 5d kit I could afford that Leica Macro M and eyes I've been lusting after, but there you have it!

(One note, interest of full disclosure--I also have an ancient Elmar F/4, looks uncoated or at least not modernly so. I bought it for something like $99 and it does a decent job at telephoto).
Ken
 
There are some strange quotes from Damien Demolder in his Amateur Photographer review of the M8.
"I can tell you the Voigtlander 35mm f1.2 wil not work, or at least focus at infinity, which is a shame. The 15mm Voigtlander f4.5 Heliar produced much less vignetting than it does on the R-D1s, but the pictures don't loolk very sharp."

He notes success with other VC & old Leica lenses, but gives no further info other than he will produce a seperate piece at a later date concerning unchipped and non Leica lenses.

So I'm not sure of the reasons and I'm not commenting on the standard of the review in general, just reporting what he is saying. Clearly Ken is having no problems with the VC 15mm. I have experienced a front/back focus problems with a (very) few lenses on the R-D1, while others work fine though.
 
The CV 35/1.2 will focus to infinity on the M8, but it's a scary experience. You can focus it to "almost" infinity with no problems, then it binds against something in the lensmount throat. The binding is "loose", though, and if you force it gently the lens will go all the way to infinity. I did this once (to confirm what another poster on LUF had said) but then took the lens off & haven't used it on the M8 since. I bet there's some thingy on the back of the lens that could be milled down fractionally to remove the binding problem - without any functional damage to the lens.
 
Nokton & M8

Nokton & M8

News of the 35mm 1.2 Nokton's behavior on the M8 warrents further investigation.

On the other hand, here is Ted Grant's summary of his brief experience with the Nokton on his M8:

Message: 6
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:13:14 -0800
From: Ted Grant <tedgrant@shaw.ca>
Subject: Re: [Leica] Wanted: Noctilux
To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
Message-ID: <002f01c715c8$2ff33920$a302a8c0@ted>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
reply-type=response

David Keenan said:
Subject: Re: [Leica] Wanted: Noctilux


> Save a mucho $$$ to buy gifts and get a 35mm Nokton f/1.2 instead.
> It's a sweet (no so little) lens.<<<<

David mon ami,
Interesting to read this, as I too have a Nokton Voigtlander 35mm Aspheric f
1.2 lens for the M camera.

I ordered it to use during our shooting of the book "Womwn in Medicine."
Unfortunately it arrived just after we'd completed our North American
medical women lives.

I used it the other day, like brand new out of the box, because it's been on
the shelf for what must be a couple of years. And I used it with an M8!! 🙂
Incredibly beautiful rendering and sharpness to die for!

Absolutely amazing quality! Quite frankly for the cost it's a sleeper lens
of incredible quality. I suppose the fact it's an Aspheric lens may have
something to do with how sharp it is.

I'd defy anyone to use it, then tell me it wasn't a Leica lens! ;-)
Certainly with an M8! Amazing!

ted
Click to expand...

Cheers!
 
MacDaddy said:
Just wondered if any of you lucky owners has been brave enough to try this gem with good ol' manual, non-coded CV lenses and what happened? (or NOT!) The reason I'm asking is cash flow; I MAY be able to afford the body come spring, but no way can I afford both the M8 body AND one of those 6-bit coded lenses. That's why I want to know! Thoughts? Catcalls? Suggestions? Boos? Hisses? 8o)
Click to expand...
The 6-bit encoding for lenses has a growing, grassroots activity for both Leica and non-Leica lenses... here's a link to a list, as a start.

From reports thus far, the coding is most helpful for lenses 35mm and wider where this inforamtion is passed to the camera OS as a means to abate the vignetting/color cast out of scope for the sensor. I have not needed it for the CV 40 Nokton and 75 Heliar... nor the Leica 35mm. With the 28mm... stopped down, not really an issue; opened it is faint.

Hindsight not needing a 1.25 eyepiece, that coding was announced last Spring, folks ought to have been clued to the in-camera adjustments possible /if/ the image was to attain "Leica Standards", but instead the cry went up that, erroneously, the coding is required to use a lens with the M8. CV and ZM lenses, and still others /may/ all be used(save those that drop the rear element too deeply in the body cavity), but wider angled FV may be "corrected" through coding and the in-camera algorithm added in processing, corrected of the notorious thin IR filter and ensuing cast of trolls /that/ has also exposed 😉

Good glass out there, the M8 can accomodate much of it without codes and filters...
unless you're using flash and snapping weddings often, etc.

rgds,
Dave
 
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