This thread, as contrasted to sean's review, stands as further proof of the adage that 'you get what you pay for'. :bang:
Criticism of Sean's site, his commercial approach, and references to his site by others is inane. No one who is seriously interested in rangefinders, and cruises the internet for their fix, can be unaware of Sean's site. Each of us makes up our own mind as to whether we wish to lay down our dollar to peek inside the tent. If anything, Sean should be concerned about the cheapskates getting the gist of his reviews from discussions (like this one ought to be) on free sites, by people giving away his punchline -- but he isn't. He participates generously and openly in this forum, sharing his privileged insights, and has never 'plugged' his pay site as far I can remember.
While I'm on a righteous roll --- anyone who is too cheap to spend $2-3 to read a long and interesting article on a photographic subject of interest has no business being on a "LEICA M8" discussion thread. This is a frickin' $5,000 camera. Anyone who buys it, or considers buying it, without digesting every intelligent word they can find (and there are a lot of intelligent words, articulately delivered, in Sean's review) *because those words cost a couple of dollars* is either a multimillionaire or an unmitigated moron.
Most people will spend three times more in gas and vehicle costs driving to the local dealer to look at an M8 than it costs (per review) to subscribe to Sean's site. If you can't figure out the relative economies involved, you are unlikely to be possessed of the grey-matter to say much of relevance on a sophisticated topic such as the relative performance of a high-end digital camera.
If you don't like Sean's approach, empirically don't agree with his results or just don't have the money, that's cool too. But don't criticize him. Or those who like his site or chose to talk about it. There's simply no rational basis for doing so.
As for image quality, I actually agree that the screen-renditions in Sean's review were pretty 'disappointing' to the eye. But remember that processing ima ges for web display is a whole separate art (like everything in digital). Some, like Michael Reichmann, imho, are exceptionally good at it. I personally don't care for the low level of contrast and sharpening Sean applies to his web images. The need 'punch' and 'snap'. But that means very little about the actual image quality -- much less than his words on image quality.
Not knowing Sean, I suspect he is a hard-core print-man, who most cares how an image looks in his hand, and could make his images look 'better' on the web. But that is a whole other discussion.
The bottom line is that he, like almost everyone who has touched this camera, feels the magic. That is great news, and now news that is more supported by actual experience (if not the web-jpegs to totally back it up)
When the first RFFer gets his or her M8 and spends a days shooting with it, testing it, processing files and writing thousands of words about it, I look forward to reading that, too.
- N.
