new m8

i was thinking about buying a canon 5dmkii or a (used) m8. since i have a leica m6 and wanted to switch to fullframe digital, the canon was an option. well i went for the m8 and i'm happy i did. i read thousands of pages about image qualitiy and couldn't make a decision. finally i made it simple and asked myself, if i had both the canon dslr and the m8, wich one would i take with me and every time it was the m8.

i'm a mac user and have aperture 2.2 and ps cs4 wich is an excellent combination.
 
john is right about color management for printing. i personally prefer lightroom for file management and most edits (you can burn-dodge and i find it simpler than in photoshop...) and then just export to ps for printing or more specific edits.

i expect, though, that they'll improve the (currently non-existent) soft-proofing in LR in the near future. With the fancy inkjets around and tons of papers to choose from, it seems silly to leave that feature out for much longer.
 
If you can afford the M8 buy it, anything else you buy will not be the same.
Once you pick it up to the moment you see the first results you'll not be disappointed.
If you are like me and you eyes are not as sharp as they were, or your handling is slow (8 thumbs and only 2 fingers) then you need to be fully aware that you cannot be as fast with a manual camera as you can be with a dim witted dslr.
To that end I sadly sold my M8 - and I miss it like a good mistress.
I felt less self conscious with a lot of $$$ of Leica gear round my neck than i do with half the price of Nikon gear, but my % capture rate is higher with the Nikon .. age .. who needs it?

As for software - I'm an Aperture fan - with the Nik plug-ins.

I don't need more - i guess really i prefer film and all the bodges you can do with post processing leaves me cool. so for me ' less is more'

good luck, be brave, you will not regret it.
 
Photoshop is hands down better for everything but file management. I personally import and manage w lightroom and go though ps for output.
 
thanks for the input everyone. I scan every frame I shoot and shot several hundred feet of 35mm last year, so I have my own file management, storage and backup program for years now as a film user, none of this is daunting going over to digital, nothing for me, changes.

I had no idea that you could just use photoshop directly. Im not too sure why anyone would not want to do that but I guess photoshop can be a little daunting if you havent studied it for a while.

I wish I was more excited about the M8, especially after spending all that money but I guess I'll see when it gets here.

Is there anyplace on line that charts lightroom's features against cs4? Im suprised that the adobe site doesnt have an easy to reference feature set comparison between the two. Im still unclear as to why you'd bother with lightroom if you have photoshop. Can anyone shed any light on that? Is it just faster for you since it has less features to navigate through?

thanks
 
The reason why they don't really compare them, is because they are not the same type of application. Photoshop is really only for doing edits of digital images. Lightroom is for managing digital images, and doing most of the edits that photographers want; level adjustments, cropping, cloning dust spots, and so on.
 
I don't really know of any charts that outline the differences. Possibly because the "feature sets" of both of them are about the same. They can both do pretty much exactly the same things. The difference just lies in how it's done. I could do most everything I want to in Photoshop, but it's so much easier and faster in LR/Aperture that it doesn't make sense to me to use Photoshop except for in cases where it's really necessary.

It's hard to understand the difference from just reading words on the web though. It's really the little things that make it a great piece of software, much in the same way that it's the little things that make rangefinders nice cameras to use. I would suggest you download the trial of LR and test it out, importing some scans to get a feel for how things work. Then when the M8 arrives, import a set into both apps and go through the entire editing process twice. I think that you'll find a preference for one or the other.
 
Bassism said:
It's hard to understand the difference from just reading words on the web though. It's really the little things that make it a great piece of software, much in the same way that it's the little things that make rangefinders nice cameras to use. I would suggest you download the trial of LR and test it out, importing some scans to get a feel for how things work. Then when the M8 arrives, import a set into both apps and go through the entire editing process twice. I think that you'll find a preference for one or the other.
Click to expand...

this is probably the best advice.

How do you manage, catalog, keyword, rank, color code, flag your images in photoshop?
Click to expand...

I dont do any of this stuff, maddening to me. Im all on folder management. We'll see what lies in the future.
 
If you can get past your current addiction to folders, then asset management programs like LR can allow you unprecedented access to your work.

Non destructive editing requires more discipline in PS and for most jobs LR (or Aperture for that matter) will take hours less than PS. This is the reason that so many pros, myself included, rely on it.
 
Aperture is not much of an investment, and the organization of workflow is automatic in a sense. I just export form Aperture and make fine corrections or do the heavy layer adjustment in PS. As an aside, may of the sharpening and digital work I used to do...I don't need with the M8...
 
WoolenMammoth said:
Is anyone using the bundled leica software or going directly to third party?
Click to expand...

Capture One LE is what comes bundled with the M8. You can upgrade to the latest version with the same license code that comes with it. A lot of people like it. I like the "Pro" version better than LE because it allows you to do batch operations. But although it's been "streamlined", it is not for those who aren't technically inclined.

Lightroom is far better in this regard. Performance-wise, you better have an eight-core Cray supercomputer. Ok, I'm exaggerating, but Lightroom is still riddled with performance issues here and there, but is very usable now.

I've seen Aperture at work and it is far better performance-wise, but I didn't get to use it, so I don't know if the noise reduction algorithm is as good as Adobe's. This is the main reason why I'd stick to Lightroom.

I've seen people jump through a lot of hoops, and they really shouldn't if they embraced Lightroom. But again, you better have a super-fast, pumped-up computer to use Lightroom satisfactorily; in the past few years, Adobe has decided to take the Microsoft route and bloat their code.
 
Its interesting to see you say that... Last time I used aperture (version 1) it was horribly brutally slow. In particular, rotate was basically unusable. That was the reason I actually switched to lightroom, which was very snappy on my hardware at the time.
 
dfoo said:
Its interesting to see you say that... Last time I used aperture (version 1) it was horribly brutally slow. In particular, rotate was basically unusable. That was the reason I actually switched to lightroom, which was very snappy on my hardware at the time.
Click to expand...

... however, I remember when I upgraded to LR 2.0 on my macbook it also got horribly slow. On my macpro it works nicely 😉 Ok, perhaps I agree with the OP! OTOH, LR 1 still works nicely on slower hardware.
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
Capture One LE is what comes bundled with the M8. You can upgrade to the latest version with the same license code that comes with it. A lot of people like it. I like the "Pro" version better than LE because it allows you to do batch operations. But although it's been "streamlined", it is not for those who aren't technically inclined.
Click to expand...

You don't need C1 Pro for Batch processing. You can develop/export multiple files at ones with the "normal" C1.
 
I droppped a thousand dollars today

I droppped a thousand dollars today

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.
 
it's not about photoshop being daunting. it's that using a program like lightroom speeds up one's workflow to a degree that no amount of photoshop know how will equal.

that said, if you are a m film shooter - buy the m8 and fix the frame lines and you will be thrilled. then you can decide if you want to use lightroom or photoshop.

ps. photoshop does not actually open dng files - it's adobe camera raw plug in that does. and then it goes to photoshop - which is why lightroom speeds up workflow so much - in my opinion.
 
I had a 5D when the M8 came out. The 5D made me happy when it had Leica R glass on it. Most Canon glass left me cold. Once I got the M8 (in November of 2006), the 5D sat. Finally, I sold it. The 5D is a fine camera and can do things that the M8 can't, but it doesn't have the M8 magic.
If you are on a Mac, you will really like Aperture for Raw processing and cataloging. I've had a filing system in place for years, but using Aperture sure makes sense.
Capture one LE should come with your M8. C1 is superior for processing high iso files on the M8. As has been stated here, you can upgrade to the current version free of charge. I put my Raw files in my file structure, read them into Aperture and keyword. I use Aperture to process. If I have any really nice files, high iso, or am doing a job, I process those files with C1.
I take all my files into CS3 for final work no matter where the raw file was processed.
Buy the M8-- you won't be sorry when you see the result.
 
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