There's an entertaining thread somewhere on Phil Askey's site in which somebody compared a Nikon D200 to a $500 Canon P&S, and the Canon did slightly better. Of course, to get it to do slightly better, they had to shoot jpgs, didn't do any post-processing, etc. In other words, they had to pick the lowest common denominator between the two cameras. The comparison, of course, was ridiculed -- if you force two images to look alike, then, they'll look alike. That's the problem with most of the M8 shots we've seen. They're .jpgs, and/or they were taken illegally under mixed lights of uncertain subjects, or they were taken with early firmware by people out hiking through the mountains, and never do we know how good the photographers were, or how good or appropriate the post-processing. That's why it would have been nice for Leica to turn a late-version camera over to a serious professional for some serious shots in specified conditions. That's something close to what I'd expect Sean Reid to do in the next week or so, and I'm anxious to see the results. I do hope he'll post a RAW image or several images that we could download and post-process ourselves through our own software. I already subscribe to his site, but I'd be willing to pay a couple extra dollars for the privilege of a download...I followed much of the DMR discussion on the FM site with Guy Mansuco and others arguing the differences between the DMR and other cameras, and, without owning one myself, I became something of a believer. My own assessment is that the M8 shots will look very much like the DMR's. For insecure Cannonites, this does not mean better than a 5D or 1DsII -- just different. Your cameras are perfectly good.
JC
