Support for Sean...

[didjiman]

Grow up..... Do your moms know you behave like this in public?

These ad hominem attacks should not be tolerated.

 

[halabar]

The defensiveness that I have seen on the part of the reviewers is part of the problem. A simple "Yeah, I f*cked up, should have seen that" would go a long way to calm the waters. The attacks are overboard, but so is the defense.

But really, the signs of the IR problem were there. Didn't anyone notice?... I didn't.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

I thought Sean's reviews were very good and the images especially the b/w ones better than most of the stuff i've seen posted so far on the net. Lecia have said they will address these issues and i'll still take the camera as soon as the next batch arrives in the UK. Can't see why people have to blame the reviewers like Sean who were given pre production models anyway.

I happen to like the way Sean makes his images and i respect him as a photographer in his own right so for me his reviews carry some weight.

It's no wonder he chooses to post more on LUF where his remarks are respected and valued. Enough said.

 

[haotong]

Simon, any idea when the next batch will be landing in UK? My dealer told me last week of November or first week December.

 

[J. Borger]

I happen to like the way Sean makes his images and i respect him as a photographer in his own right so for me his reviews carry some weight.

It's no wonder he chooses to post more on LUF where his remarks are respected and valued. Enough said.

Same here Simon.

It is sadley a fact of life: one day you are king ... next day you are pauper.
It happens to Sean .. it happens to Leica .. all within a couple of days.

People are so overreacting at the moment. It's about a day job to keep up with al the same repetitions of complaints. I am really loosing track how many of those people complaining and feeding these threads actualy used the M8 or even had the intention to buy one.

Simon, pick up that camera .. it is a fabulous working tool even at the moment: with the issues as reported.

What we may not forget: we need people like Sean and other experienced working photographers to help us put the issues in perspective, solve them or at least work around them and get things done in Solms.

Do not drive those people away from the forums with all the mourning and whining .. because this really will not help anybody!

Aside from the trolls feeding the threads from the M8 we are all in the same boat in the end: we want that M8 to work!

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

haotong - from what i've been told it's sometime in December.....
J Borger - yes i've followed your support of the M8 here on RFF and i'm sure it has great potential as a working tool.
i'm not back till just before Xmas so hopefully i'll have it ready and waiting
no one has one here in Bangkok to play with :-(

 

[ywenz]

I don't see them as attacks but rather criticism and they can surely be tolerated.

When a magazine that I purchase gives a highly positive review on a product that turns out to be fundamentally flawed, I'll no longer regard that magazine as a viable source for future product reviews. It has in fact, lost all of its credibility. It is no different in this case.

 

[mfunnell]

When a magazine that I purchase gives a highly positive review on a product that turns out to be fundamentally flawed, I'll no longer regard that magazine as a viable source for future product reviews.

Hmm. I wonder just how consistently you might apply this standard. For example if an automitive review of the experience of driving car X missed an engine problem that (a) they weren't testing for and (b) occurs in circumstances that didn't arise during their test, would you write them off too? Insist that the only valid report is one based on testing everything in all conditions?

I also wonder if you meet this "nothing ever overlooked, no mistakes made" standard in your own professional life, especially as you appear to make no allowance for (or grant no credit to) notifying others once the oversight or error is known.

...Mike

 

[dcsang]

I believe it was ywenz who mentioned it yesterday that the moment you start charging for your services, no matter what those services might be, you become a professional.

Professionals can handle criticism, both constructive and "destructive"; professionals also know that they can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time; professionals understand that there will always be detractors to their work (whatever that work may be) and professionals know enough to not worry about things and move on.

Professionals also have their cheerleaders and their naysayers. This is just the way of the world.

If any professional can't deal with that; there's an old saying "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".

Dave

 

[ywenz]

Hmm. I wonder just how consistently you might apply this standard. For example if an automitive review of the experience of driving car X missed an engine problem that (a) they weren't testing for and (b) occurs in circumstances that didn't arise during their test, would you write them off too? Insist that the only valid report is one based on testing everything in all conditions?

I also wonder if you meet this "nothing ever overlooked, no mistakes made" standard in your own professional life, especially as you appear to make no allowance for (or grant no credit to) notifying others once the oversight or error is known.

...Mike

You wouldn't expect a reviewer of a Porsche 911 to take the vehicle off-road and see how it performs there. Likewise, if a 911 owner takes the vehicle off-road where it bottoms out and gets damaged, a reasonable person wouldn't blame Porsche for such design limitation or that the automotive magazine didn't test drive the 911 in off-road situations.

I'm not talking about the need for a camera review to be so comprehensive that it covers every possible scenario that the equipment might be faced with. The most elementary function of a camera is that it takes pictures. If the purple cast flaw is visible in almost every picture taken by the reviewer(and it is), it should be the reviewer's job to recongnize these artifacts and report it to his/her audience. There is no way for me as a reader to know whether or not the guy in the picture was actually wearing purple that day. Couple that with the reviewer's mention that the color from the camera was *very accurate*, then there really is no reason for me to *speculate* that there are color flaws in the sample images. My trust was in the author and the author's reviews, it is no more.

 

[rami G]

I find the criticisms and attacks on Sean as well as on other reviewers really absurd. A reviewer, no matter how hard he tries, will always test the camera only in limitted conditions. I mean, really, Leica was quoted yesterday as stating that the magenta appears most noticably in black synthetic fabrics. Do we expect a reviewer to be a fashion designer as well? in the "black jacket pictures" the magenta was really very apparent, and also revealed that even in concerts people don't ware wool suits anymore... In Sean's pictuers it was not noticable at all. Obviously, after knowing that it is there, we all saw it easily. To understand why you have to learn psychology of perception, not photography. And about the claim "from now on I will know how to read his reviews" (quote from yesterday on a different thread), well, that's good. That's smart. A review is just a review. it is an attempt, by a rather experienced human being, to answer as many questions as he canin a very short and limitted period of time. That is the nature, by the way, of any type of scientific knowledge as well. There is nothing special about the present case.

 

[Benjamin Marks]

This tempest is sloshing over the edges of my teapot.
Ben

 

[Ben Z]

When someone puts up a pay-subscription website and promotes it across the internet, he is not just offering an opinion, he's selling a product. Therefore he shouldn't be surprised that people are unhappy when his product doesn't perform, and if he hopes his venture will be successful, he needs to react to those issues in customer-service mode, not personal defensiveness. Some humility, an admission of having missed the issues, and a promise to learn from the experience and do much more thorough investigative testing in the future, are all means of positive damage-control aimed at healing the wound to customer confidence. Defensiveness may feel more personally satisfying in the moment but will have a long-term negative effect on standing and credibility.

 

[Socke]

In this thread on a Flickr Group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/pndissidentcafe/discuss/72157594336696882/
which is mostly unrelated to the M8 Mike Spinak gives a hint:

"The M8 has an Achilles heel, a fairly big one, and I wish I could tell you about it. Ask me in a few weeks, when this camera hits the market, or look for comments from other users who may have been more loose-lipped about what they mentioned."

Don't know if it's the IR issue or blooming/banding.

 

[varjag]

So they knew it.

 

[ywenz]

Even though you can tell he's not a Leica shooter, but very useful words... he should have also posted that here 3 weeks ago..
http://www.flickr.com/groups/pndissidentcafe/discuss/72157594336696882/#comment72157594338915690

 

[KM-25]

No one who is not already lauded a star in the real world should be vaulted to stardom on internet. It is kind of distorted, sick even.

The reviews a camera gets by non-top end not very well known photographers on the internet has about a 10% impact on my decision to purchase the gear or not.

This is based mostly on principal that is derived from the first sentance.

I never buy into hype, especially the worst kind: Net-hype.

Look, I am not bashing anyone, I am just saying that this internet hype stuff, all of it, it can go too far and here it clearly has.

There was too much hype and not enough pro level photos with the reviews.

There was too much hype and not enough pro level photos with the complaints of banding, blooming and magenta-ing.

There was the unusual and incomplete relaying of an un-official statement by Leica in a seemingly official manner by an un-official Leica reviewer that caused an official hype driven cluster-fluck.

Do you see where I am going with this?

 

[lxlim]

It is our experience that trains our judgement.

Our judgement have different priorities and a natural tendency to ignore or discard what others may hold as essential.

When I read a review by Sean I need to use as a yardstick other reviews he has done and compare to my personal experience. I don't trusted anyone's recomendation without a great deal of additional personal hands one testing especially with expensive items like an M8. And even when I feel that Sean's views are 100% my own.

Due diligence is a personal responsibility. Especially for things that are important to us.

Its an M8 Leica problem that slipped past all the testers but thats reality.

I'm a Canon user who was considering using the M8 for exactly the conditions that the Leicas are good at but the M8 has shown problems in.

So the question for me is should I invest in Leica perfection. After all, every camera I've own up till now has had problems, defects, etc Horseman, Sinar, Rollei, Contax, Nikons, Canons, Mamiyas.

Is there value in the professional level reviews like Michael R and Sean? Is there value in the mini personal reviews that brought up the issue of banding, green blobs and IR?

I value the community input in this forum. It speeds up and refines my decision making which is my personal responsibility. So Leica is not perfect. Whats new?

When I am pissed off I want someone to blame especially if I have not done my due diligence. Lets not get on our high horse and point fingers, enact greek tragedies. I don't know anything about Leica history but what is Leica's record in bring out perfect, defect-free cameras that pleased everyone?

Tired after a 2 week job, so a belated apology if I offended anyone.

Alex

 

[kshapero]

I don't see them as attacks but rather criticism and they can surely be tolerated.

When a magazine that I purchase gives a highly positive review on a product that turns out to be fundamentally flawed, I'll no longer regard that magazine as a viable source for future product reviews. It has in fact, lost all of its credibility. It is no different in this case.

Ywenz, with all those muscles bulging in your avatar, I am inclined to agree with anything you say, anything!

 

[lxlim]

Ywenz, with all those muscles bulging in your avatar, I am inclined to agree with anything you say, anything!

ROTFL 😀. Very funny!