Please tell me. Is the M8 any good?

[crusius]

Have you worked with DNG's? It should be apparent that they are not 8bit files. The compression does throw out some information, but they are not 8bit.

They are 8 bit. Non-linear 8 bit.

http://kammagamma.com/articles/solving-the-leica-m8-dng-riddle.php

This has actually been discussed to death. The DNGs are 8 bits and the highlights are a very problematic area whenever you want to do anything with them.

RD-1 files are quite useable in a number of circumstances, but if you are interested in wider angles, or faster lenses you are much more limited.

With my 12mm I think I get enough wide with the R-D1 🙄

Faster lenses are problematic to focus only if you print big, otherwise it is not such a big deal.

Like I said, I think that the M8 is better when printing big or cropping, but otherwise you'd be hard pressed to find fault with the R-D1.

I think my point here is: yes, the M8 is good, but the 8-bit issue is the only thing that allows one to say that it is not "better" than the R-D1. It is an astonishingly bad decision by Leica, one that they can still correct by firmware upgrade. If it weren't for that, then I think I could safely say that for all intents and purposes the M8 is "better." As it stands, it is more in the "it depends" class: if you do not want to print big, arguably you are better served by the R-D1 and its RAW files that give you more room for manipulation/correction.

 

[JNewell]

Maybe it's just Friday and I'm cranky...but 'm gonna call BS on this "8-bit issue." I shoot 14 bit NEF alongside the M8 files. The M8 files compare very favorably. It's not an issue at all.

To the OP: if (1) you are not worried about the effect of the cropped FOV and (2) you don't need to shoot at high ISOs, I predict you will really like the M8/8.2. But there's a lot of room for YMMV here.

 

[crusius]

Maybe it's just Friday and I'm cranky...but 'm gonna call BS on this "8-bit issue." I shoot 14 bit NEF alongside the M8 files. The M8 files compare very favorably. It's not an issue at all.

You mean it was never an issue for you then. Good for you. But search around. Highlight manipulation is needlessly limited by this, and yes, it is a problem if you need to, well, do highlight manipulation.

For those who never have to do much of it, great. But the M8 is the only digital camera I know where "exposing to the right" is a bad idea, because it is exactly to the right that things get ugly. If you follow that rule on a low-contrast scene, and want to bump the contrast later on by bringing some of the highlights down, you're potentially screwed. If you *don't* follow that rule and add some exposure compensation later, then you will have more noise.

Does it matter every time? No. Does it matter? Yes. Does it matter enough? It depends on what you're doing with it, but the fact stands that it is a completely needless restriction that was, thankfully, solved with the M9.

As I said before, when answering about a comparison with the R-D1, the capability to enlarge more and crop more offset the 8-bit issue for me, because I print big regularly. But the fact remains that the 8-bit restriction is completely needless, and in the end wrong as it limits what you can do with the RAW file. They saw that and corrected it in the M9, and with good luck we'll see a firmware upgrade to solve it in the M8.

Edit: see another opinion here, which spells out some symptoms http://www.pebbleplace.com/Personal/Leica_M8_3.html in the "update" to the "dynamic range" section.

Edit again: yet another opinion, describing the symptoms I see more often than I'd like: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/31287-best-m8-dng-converter.html#post328638

 

[dng88]

Is it raw issue which meant that it is really or it is the histogram is looking at jpeg that give a wrong indication? I thought exposure to the right is always good. Any sample, please?

 

[crusius]

Is it raw issue which meant that it is really or it is the histogram is looking at jpeg that give a wrong indication? I thought exposure to the right is always good. Any sample, please?

No examples in this computer. But look at the links in my previous messages. The short answer is no: on every single digital camera out there but for the M8 exposing to the right as much as possible is good (avoiding overexposure, of course, and saving as a RAW file), the reason being that on every digital camera out there the brightest stop is the one with most "bit resolution".

In the M8 you better off underexposing a bit, while keeping an eye for shadow detail. The links go over this stuff in detail, it was really beaten to death a while ago, so no need to rehash here.

All the technical information is here

http://kammagamma.com/articles/solving-the-leica-m8-dng-riddle.php

but for the LUT table itself.