The unofficial statement from Leica on M8

[blakley]

if color is going to be nigh useless, they may as well have gone for a monochrome sensor.


I know this board has its optimists, but being required to physically screw a metal ring into your lens barrel (and to have to repeat this process over and over depending on how many lenses you own and how many filters you can afford) just to correct a digital capture device is painfully ironic.



(M8, 35/1.4 ASPH Summilux, 1/180@f/4, Auto WB, B+W 486 filter, RAW processed in Capture One LE; post-processed in Photoshop - cropped, lightened, saturated. No WB correction or sharpening)

 

[Keith]

I don't see why anyone's ability/desire to own an M8 should have anything to do at all with what opinions they express about the Leica / M8 situation. I'm not making this a personal issue and I have no intention (currently) of owning an M8, but surely, hypothetically, a person has the right to make a judgement and pass an opinion on a product by a manufacturer who has already removed a large amount of money from their bank account. 🙂

I know there are a lot of doomsayers out there just itching to see what they perceive as a 'rich boy's toy' fail miserably in a market dominated by cameras costing half as much, but ... there's also a lot of people like myself with collections of Leica camera gear dating back to the thirties that have enough money tied up in them to buy a decent car!

The mere fact of spending $3500.00 on an M7 definitely gives a person the right to pass comment on the successor M ... whether they intend buying one or not! 😉

 

[ghost]

does anyone seriously think the ir design flaw won't deter enough buyers to make the m8 flop?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Apparently attention to detail does not extend to proper use of the apostrophe.

This reminds me of those dysfunctional families, where the wife that cleans, cooks, does everything to perfection, only to be told instead of what a good job she did, just how dumb and inconsiderate it was not to use the brown steak knives instead of the red steak knives. 🙄

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I think the point that Stephen and others are making is that it's easy to criticize when you have no stake in the outcome. On the other hand, I can see your point that one doesn't need to buy a duck to know it quacks.

True. I'll let the quacks quack all they want. When a number of solutions were proposed, the quackers went humorously silent. Some are simply ignoring facts and repeating the same filth over and over. Perhaps the quackers think that if they quack long enough, they'll turn the very thing they hate into quack?

quack quack quack (it's contagious)

 

[ghost]

none of the solutions really work, or do they?

 

[Nachkebia]

Who is the quack is deeply depending on viewfidner 😀

 

[egpj]

my point is that many people are likely complaining about a camera they don't have the ability to buy, or would not buy even if they could easily afford it, because they would not buy any $5,000 of any make.

it's like voting. If you are not registered to vote, you can't vote. on the other hand, you are welcome to any political opinion you have.

in the M8 world the only opinions that really count are the people who can afford and would buy a $5,000 camera IF they want to.

They will determine the success or failure of the M8 in the marketplace, not people who want to spend time complaining about a product they would never buy anyway, even if it were perfect.

Stephen

I have to disagree with you as well Stephen. I had an M8 on order and after all the problems started coming up I canceled and purchased the MP3 kit. That kit is a 1k more then the M8. My money goes to the quality product. I still spent the cash on a Leica product just not the flawed one.

I could be the only one that had the money and shifted away from the M8 but I doubt it.

 

[egpj]

As to the magenta issue, try this mental exercise -- Suppose that right from the time the M8 was officially announced, Leica had described it this way:

"The Leica M8 is optimized for black-and-white photography, with a sensor design chosen for maximum sharpness and texture rendering. Photographers wishing to use the M8 for color photography may need to employ a lens-mounted infrared cutoff filter for critical results."​

I'll bet that would have made real Leica nuts even MORE rabidly enthusiastic about the M8. They'd have cheered Leica's commitment to monochrome tradition and reveled in the esoteric complexity of IR cut filters. The occasional appearance of magenta blacks wouldn't have shaken anyone's confidence in the camera's overall quality; Leica buffs would blame the photographer for not following Leica's recommendations.


]

Truer words are rarely spoken.

 

[jlw]

none of the solutions really work, or do they?

Jorge's example pictures show that an IR cutoff filter really does eliminate the problem of magenta cast in black objects. (Some M8 owners have been griping about the cost of this solution, but I sense irony in the notion of someone who just bought a $5,000 camera that uses $3,000 lenses complaining about the extra expense of a $100 filter.)

The bleeding and green-blob problems have to have been caused by a defect in the sensor circuitry; if they fix the defect, that problem should go away.

 

[dreamsandart]

My first thoughts of the M8 was that this is great - the never going to happen digital M is happening - and at some point in the year 2007-2008AF (After Film) I would be getting one, but only when the 'bugs' of an all new product were taken care of - lets be realistic, new 'teeth' = 'teething'. I would have been surprised if there wasn't a few problems.

Reading the first very positive reviews had me wondering if sooner than later wasn't such a bad idea, the M8 may be better than anyone thought it could be.

Next, problems... Ok, time to just wait and see. Hope it all works out for everyones interests.

Now, with one major problem to be fixed at the factory and the other solution with a simple filter it didn't work out ideally, but it works. I just used an orange filter this past week to deepen-highlight some sky/clouds with B&W film, and I've taken to having a B+W MRC UV filter on a couple lenses most of the time this past year, no big deal if it works and with the M8 seems to be the case. The added offers of filters and a lens discount are very fair. In the end M8 buyers get the digital Leica they wanted and extras.

I'm still going to wait awhile, but the M8 and whole digital idea, problems and all have got me thinking more in an M8 direction.

 

[jaapv]

if color is going to be nigh useless, they may as well have gone for a monochrome sensor.

Who told you that? Some of the comments on my M8 shots are "glorious colour"

 

[Nachkebia]

The colors are so glorious even fuji got scared and said no no they will not put velvia back to production (sarcasm) 😀

 

[c.poulton]

The filter issue only comes into play if you are intending to shoot colour. I only shoot B+W nowadays, so if I could afford to the buy M8 (the jury is still out with me over the look of digital, compared with film) I would be more than happy with Leica's solution to this issue.

One easy fix for Leica would be to ship a free IR filter with every new lens bought - a minor cost compared with the overall cost of a new lens, then any new lens would be fully 'Leica M8 colour ready' - if you shoot B+W, fine, don't use the filter. Just my opinion.......

 

[jaapv]

Don't you dare use filters on your camera's, Vladimer - Your Fuji Velvia will be accused of "having severe colour cast issues"!

 

[RML]

Can I just ask why everyone is thinking that the IR "problem" only affects black objects? It can affect EVERY object of ANY colour. All depends on the materials used in the object and their IR reflectability. Even human skin can show up differntly than expected, and that can be seen even in B&W mode. Ever used a green filter to shoot a person? Similar thing with IR.

 

[Nachkebia]

I don`t care about colour cast on velvia, because it will still look deep, elegant, magical, powerfull, and amazingly alive!

 

[ghost]

Jorge's example pictures show that an IR cutoff filter really does eliminate the problem of magenta cast in black objects. (Some M8 owners have been griping about the cost of this solution, but I sense irony in the notion of someone who just bought a $5,000 camera that uses $3,000 lenses complaining about the extra expense of a $100 filter.)

The bleeding and green-blob problems have to have been caused by a defect in the sensor circuitry; if they fix the defect, that problem should go away.

do we have any samples that prove this, yet? all i've seen is a thread on leica-camera-user.com, and....

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/9637-new-m8-profiles-c1-instructions-4.html#post98571

 

[ghost]

Who told you that? Some of the comments on my M8 shots are "glorious colour"

the (relatively few) shots in color that i see on flickr are nowhere near "glorious". there's a definite preponderance of purple in photos of people in normal social situations.

 

[jaapv]

You are right, Remy an IR cut filter is a necessity on a considerable number of digital camera's and even from time to time on film. Heliopan did not introduce their "digital" filter line just for the fun of it.

There is a very interesting thread on the Leica Camera Users Forum (registration required) that compares the various problems and artifacts produced by the sensors of the Canon 1DsII and RD1, amongst others. I never realized the considerable sensor-flare and CA-like effects produced by the filtering on the sensor. It makes me very-very happy that Leica chose for the compromise they did and has me reconciled to the use of IR filters, as I am reconciled to the use of yellow filters etc on B&W film or 1A and pol filters on slide film. Tanstaafl.... But Leica bears the blame for a very incompetently handled introduction of what is likely to be one of the most sophisticated photographic tools the world has ever seen.