Pop Photo's Field Test Of M8 In Iraq

Hi,

Interesting real-life review. I loved the following:

> I imagine this wouldn't be a problem for users not wearing body armor.

I'm very happy to read that the M8 is actually very rugged: I don't want a camera that I need gloves for to operate. Particularly for an expensive camera.



Peter.
 
I'm still on the "fence"

$5,000 USD is still a lot of moolah - even if the greenback is diving and the Loonie is rising :D

I would, if I did get it, want to use it for weddings - I think the M8 with the Zeiss 25mm would be just right and close to being a 35mm field of view.

Dave
 
Hi,

Here in Belgium, the price is €4200. $5000 is €3700. Both quite a lot and a bit out of reach. For work I travel to Japan frequently and one of the main shops there sells the M8 for about €3400. Darn, that's getting interesting. Now, I made the mistake of looking at a price comparison site there and I found a shop that sells it for €3050. That's only as much as the OM-4Ti was selling for before production was stopped ! Darn, now I really want one !

RFF is bad for my financial health :(

How much does an LTM convertor ring sell for these days ? I'd like to use my Summitar for starters, before spending more cash on a pre-ASPH 35 Summilux.


Peter.
 
"The camera's ISO settings at 1250 and above were noisy but I never needed to use them because my lenses are faster than my Nikon's."

What BS.. 1250 is not all that high. I would imagine it is needed quite often.. and what if you want more DOF in low light? The author is obviously bought.
 
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ywenz said:
"The camera's ISO settings at 1250 and above were noisy but I never needed to use them because my lenses are faster than my Nikon's."

What BS.. 1250 is not all that high. I would imagine it is needed quite often.. and what if you want more DOF in low light? The author is obviously bought.
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That's my concern.

Seeing as how the camera has ISO settings up to double that (2500) I'm a bit surprised and disappointed by the fact that 1250 and beyond were noisy.

As I said earlier, my ideal situation would be to use it as a wedding reportage cam but what's the point if I shoot at ISO 1600 and get really ugly "grain" - not even nice film like grain but nasty looking stuff - In that case I should just stick with the M7 and my Canon 5D

Dave
 
dcsang: For a wedding huh? You can focus the RF that fast? I'm jealous..

High-tech AF all the way for me for event coverage, especially for a "one shot at it" type of event.
 
ywenz said:
dcsang: For a wedding huh? You can focus the RF that fast? I'm jealous..

High-tech AF all the way for me for event coverage, especially for a "one shot at it" type of event.
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I'm not even close to being ready for that.
But.. I do know that with the 35mm frame and if I can set it at f8 at ISO1600 I can usually have a good shot.

My concern has always been the focusing speed as well - I've been told by those that have done it in the past and can do it now, that it's not as hard as I fear. Easy for them to say mind you since they do have the experience.

For me, it would be like stepping back to 2001 and shooting with my dad's ancient Pentax SL.. I was so scared doing that...

Dave
 
ywenz said:
What BS.. 1250 is not all that high. I would imagine it is needed quite often.. and what if you want more DOF in low light? The author is obviously bought.
Click to expand...

That's a pretty serious charge to make against a journalist, especially on the basis of no evidence other than personal bias.

On the other hand, I'd be willing to believe that Leica USA wouldn't have lent two M8s to the writer unless they were pretty sure he would be sympathetic. It's a PR person's job to know stuff like that.

At least he disclosed within the text of the article that he received "loaner" equipment, so we can decide for ourselves how much windage we need to crank in. Lots of writers (this seems to be especially common among online writers) don't bother to tell you whether the equipment they review was purchased, lent, given, or what. Granted, the person who bought something with his own money may be even more biased in its favor than the person who's reviewing a loaner (this phenomenon has a formal name in economics: the "endowment effect") but the whole point of full-disclosure policies is to give the reader the info so s/he can decide how much credibility to give.
 
Most of those photos look underexposed to me and seem to lack any kind of "snap". Fairly blah in terms of color, contrast, or even sharpness. I know they are web JPEGs but I've seen images look much better than that on the web.
 
This image just looks bad.. technically that is.

050720071453366897.jpg
 
Unless you've grossly underexposed, ISO 1250 on the M8 is actually pretty good & what noise there is can easily be ameliorated w/Noise Ninja/Neat Image, etc. For shooting bands, etc., that's pretty much my default ISO setting.

Noise @ ISO 2500 is pretty bad, though, sort of like C41 grain @ ISO 3200 & above. From what I've seen, if you're looking for low-noise ISO 1600 & above, there's nothing on the market that can touch your 5D (other than the 1D).

dcsang said:
That's my concern.

Seeing as how the camera has ISO settings up to double that (2500) I'm a bit surprised and disappointed by the fact that 1250 and beyond were noisy.

As I said earlier, my ideal situation would be to use it as a wedding reportage cam but what's the point if I shoot at ISO 1600 and get really ugly "grain" - not even nice film like grain but nasty looking stuff - In that case I should just stick with the M7 and my Canon 5D

Dave
Click to expand...
 
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