One by one, they're moving over

[Keith]

I wasn't that interested in this thread and was just browsing through it when I read the attack on Ben. I don't necessarilly agree with a lot of things Ben or anyone may say but .... oh boy! That was over the top .... especially as he (Ben) said for someone who had just joined the forum.

Talking about jumping straight in the deep end!😱

 

[Kim Coxon]

Please keep the discussion on the topic and not on each other. 😉

If you feel a post is out of order, please report it.

Kim

 

[popstar]

Thanks for sharing this Jaap! I enjoyed reading the interview too. I've learned something today. Thanks!

 

[Bryan Lee]

Edit : Keep discussions of other members out of the posts.
Kim

I disagree with his behavior here but it does show just how contriversial the M8 has become and adds merit to my conclusion that Leica made a very bad move for themselves by releasing a camera associated with Kodak which was far from perfect on its launch. In a way its all good for me though because maybe now I can get a better M2 from one of the guys selling cameras to go digital. Thanks for the article by the way.

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/190378​

 

[rvaubel]

Back to Walter Odets for a moment 🙄

Walter is very well known in the world off high end watches. At the mention of his name I wondered if this was the same Walter Odets that I had known when I was into watches heavily. Let me just tell you, this guy knows watches. If any of you guys pride themselves on being gearheads, let my tell you, the watch guys make us look like kindergarteners. Plus he takes amazing macro shots of the watch movements that you wouldn't believe.

I truly hope that he comes on board because if he does, we will be treated with the most amazing photos of the inside of the M8. I know he will not be able to resist taking the damn thing apart.

Oh, by the way, his father was the playright and screenwriter Clifford Odets.

Rex

 

[furcafe]

I had just been wondering if they were related.

Oh, by the way, his father was the playright and screenwriter Clifford Odets.

Rex

 

[Ben Z]

I wondered the same thing, it's kind of an unusual name.

 

[jlw]

I don't think I have the credentials to declare him "great", as evidently others on this and the other Leica forum think they do.

I do have the credentials to declare him "great," or not. I've got two eyes and a willingness to think about what they see. That's all the credentials necessary.

Based on this powerful authority, and judging solely on what I can see on his website, I'd categorize his work as "interesting." But if he's "great," then there are at least 100 "great" photographers in every college photography program in the USA.

And I don't know, maybe there are. Maybe photography is a medium in which it's easy to be great. Personally, though, I feel the concept of "greatness" starts to lose its utility if you apply it to more than a fairly small proportion of the total number of people doing whatever-it-is. To look at it another way, how many "great" living photographers should there be at any one time?* A dozen? A hundred? Ten thousand? Ten million? I don't have an answer to that question, but I do know my preferences tend toward the lower end of the scale.

I will say that his work looks like the sort of thing that should be well-suited to an M8.







*However many you feel there should be, Ruth Bernhard died a couple of months ago, so now there's one less... :-(

 

[Tuolumne]

The good news is that no matter what you may think of the M8, everytime the dealers get them in stock they sell out. B&H is just out of their most recent supply. It went in about 36 hours. And that is good for photography, because whether you love or hate the M8, Leica's success is good for us all.

T.

 

[ywenz]

The good news is that no matter what you may think of the M8, everytime the dealers get them in stock they sell out. B&H is just out of their most recent supply. It went in about 36 hours. And that is good for photography, because whether you love or hate the M8, Leica's success is good for us all.

T.

If they get comfotable producing products that misses its mark, then it's not such a good thing for us.

Is this meet the status quo attitude good for us all?

 

[Tuolumne]

If they get comfotable producing products that misses its mark, then it's not such a good thing for us.

Is this meet the status quo attitude good for us all?

ywenz,
You're joking, right? The camera has teething problems and may have been released too soon, but what mark are you referring to? It's a state of the art camera. All engineering involves trade-offs. You may not like the ones Leica made. That doesn't make it a POS.

I don't spend alot of time looking at other people's photos online, but I was very impressed with the photos taken by one "captainvideo" with his Leica M8. You can see them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/captainvideo/

T.

 

[HAnkg]

If Leica fails it is likely to be a long time before you see a digital RF. The cost of entry is much higher then SLR's and the market is much narrower and more demanding. Eventually when technology makes it cheaper and easier someone like Cosina will jump in. There is no telling how long that will take as chip makers aren't exactly falling over each other to develop specialized solutions for the tiny RF market. If Leica succeeds a Zeiss or Cosina DRF is more likely sooner as Leica will have established/expanded the market for DRF. In business as on the front lines in battle the trail blazers take the fire for those that follow. It's often more profitable to be second or third in a new market.

In the mean time I'll happily be turning out images that are in the same IQ league as the 1 series Canons I used (and better then any 35mm color negative I ever used) with a Leica RF. Maybe I have been lucky but my camera arrived with RF dead on and everything working as it should. To me the biggest drawbacks of this camera are not the filters, shutter sound, sensor size -they have very little impact on my actual day to day shooting -it's the lack of an external analogue EV compensation and ISO control dial, the inclusion of those 2 items would make a real difference for the better. Other then that the trade offs for me are well worth the price of admission.

 

[Ben Z]

Well, in the spirit of those who believe the M8's need for IR filters is justifiable because certain filters were needed with film, then the menu-access to ISO on the M8 is a brilliant feature, since changing ISO with film meant rewinding and insterting a different roll 😀

 

[Sailor Ted]

I now prefer the menu selection of ISO as I can see it in all light and without the need for reading glasses. The more I work with my M8 the more I appriceate it's ergonomic choices. Also the auto advance is a real plus in fast moving shooting situations.

 

[x-ray]

ywenz,
It's a state of the art camera.

T.

There's nothing state of the art, cutting edge or innovative about the M8. The only thing Leica did was stuff a 1.33 sensor in a RF body. They didn't even make it work well. Mothing cutting edge here.

 

[Edward Felcher]

Would the M8 detractors prefer that Leica fail with the camera?

This will lead to no production digital rangefinder cameras and no evolutionary development of the system.

It will orphan all the Leica-mount lenses.

Why is there such an onslaught of criticism about this camera in particular?

Is it because for $5000 you expect perfection on every detail?

Remember, even 8-10 years ago, even relatively primitive digital cameras were selling for much more money, yet they were eagerly adopted by people who by voting with their wallets spurred on the manufacturers to steadily refine the product.

The first Leicas in the 1930's were met with storms of criticism. The relatively crude negatives were laughed at, the larger format photographers ridiculed it and called it a toy and an imperfect product.

Is there any point in continuously lambasting the M8 over every detail that does not suit you, or harping on every technical flaw?

What's the alternative? A dead market niche.

One wonders whether the Leica company in Solms represents some archetype that internally poses a threat to an unhappy consciousness.

 

[HAnkg]

Whether the M8 is 'cutting edge' or 'innovative' or meets someone elses minumum standards for a DRF doesn't mean a thing to me. It's a Leica RF, it produces images that meet my standards, I prefer working with it to the DSLR alternatives.

Plenty of DSLR users look at RF film and digital users and laugh. They can't imagine why anyone would want to use such an antiquated tool. They don't however hang around M8 forums (or M film forums), letting M8 users know what a POS their camera is in every thread just because they can't fathom why anyone would use it. The issues/trade offs/difficincies however you want to think of them are well known. They have been discussed ad naseum. Most have decided whether the camera is good for them or not.

At this point one would think that M8 threads would attract M8 users exchanging ways to use their cameras more effectively. Just as film M threads are populated by people interested in using film not by people looking to trash film users. Time to move on, get on with your photographic lives. Yes I know Canon users don't have to use IR filters, etc., etc., etc....

 

[spersky]

Edward,

You fail to mention the technical flaws in the M8 are huge and in many circumstances prevent even simple photography without hours of trouble shooting. Everyone wants a succesful M8, but sitting around and praising and excusing every flaw is not helpful at all.

Flaws include (not a complete list):

1) Numerous streaks and artifacts which might take hours to clean.
2) Horrible compatibility with various SD cards
3) lockups
4) Nightmarish color balance and color shift all over the place.
5) Horrible noise at iso above 640.
6) Week and weeks to get anything fixed.

What really amazes me is that the Leica crowd is a seemingly intelligent group of people yet they support and defend such a train wreck of a camera with arguments that hold almost no vailidity.

People have come to expect more from a digital workflow, yet leica has rolled back time 10 years to what it might have been like to own a Kodak Digital SLR.

I have no agenda to hurt Leica or support them, just do not try to insult the critics of the Leica M8 because you have some internal need to vindicate your purchase of a $5,000 lemon.

 

[Tuolumne]

There's nothing state of the art, cutting edge or innovative about the M8. The only thing Leica did was stuff a 1.33 sensor in a RF body. They didn't even make it work well. Mothing cutting edge here.

X-ray,
By your deffinition, no digital camera will ever be cutting edge. All digital cameras use non-proprietary, generally available sensors. It's like saying a computer isn't cutting edge because all it does is use an off-the-shelf chip from Intel. Duh! That's what it's supposed to do! That's not what makes a computer or camera cutting edge. The chip/sensor is a commodity. It's all the rest of the "stuff" that matters.

T.

Edit: Actually, I take it back. The M8 uses a highly modified kodak chip with micro-lenses that reduce vignetting from the short back-focus distance of the M-mount lesnes. No other digital camera uses that chip, I believe. You may not like the crop-factor; you may not like any number of other trade-offs that using that chip required. But it certainly is innovative, cutting edge, and even unique (in the true sense of that term - the one and only).

And fortunately, customers are voting with their pocket books and wallets to buy it and use it, rather than waiting to hear what a bunch of GAS bags (in the traditional sense of that term, too!) have to say about it to determine its fate. 😉

 

[furcafe]

Then please don't insult every M8 owner by implying that we're all irrational, defensive idiots for purchasing the camera. And please stop characterizing every flaw (many of which were quickly fixed) as "huge," "horrible," & "nightmarish."

Edward,

You fail to mention the technical flaws in the M8 are huge and in many circumstances prevent even simple photography without hours of trouble shooting. Everyone wants a succesful M8, but sitting around and praising and excusing every flaw is not helpful at all.

Flaws include (not a complete list):

1) Numerous streaks and artifacts which might take hours to clean.
2) Horrible compatibility with various SD cards
3) lockups
4) Nightmarish color balance and color shift all over the place.
5) Horrible noise at iso above 640.
6) Week and weeks to get anything fixed.

What really amazes me is that the Leica crowd is a seemingly intelligent group of people yet they support and defend such a train wreck of a camera with arguments that hold almost no vailidity.

People have come to expect more from a digital workflow, yet leica has rolled back time 10 years to what it might have been like to own a Kodak Digital SLR.

I have no agenda to hurt Leica or support them, just do not try to insult the critics of the Leica M8 because you have some internal need to vindicate your purchase of a $5,000 lemon.