[Leica] New M8 + cold fingers + nighttime = a tough first day

[montoid at earthlink.net (Montie)]

The three night shots you posted, Ryan, look fine to me!
Think you're being a bit hard on yourself maybe? A diopter
will probably help for starters.

I guess if you bought a used Alfa or Ferrari, punched the
headlights out, then took it for high speed run in the "country"
at midnight, ya might run off the road once or twice???

Next stop, daytime practice?  ;-)

Montie


>>Well, I made it out there. My train got into Penn Station at 8PM. Once I 
>>got 
settled into my hotel and had some dinner, I set out to try my new (used) 
M8. Wow, what a difference from my Canon DSLR. I love the sound of the 
shutter. I feel like I am making something substantial with each click. Like 
there is work involved, lots of hard work, and then someone blows the 
whistle. 

My biggest problem seems to be with getting my eyes to focus in the 
viewfinder. I normally wear glasses, so those had to come off. The LED 
numbers seem blurry in there. And oftentimes, I found that the focusing 
screen just never seemed to be crisp. What do you guys do? Wear contacts? 
Get a corrective attachment? 

So, I tried shooting everything. It was dark, very dark. And it was cold, 
verrrrrrry cold. So, my enthusiasm wasn?t at 100%. Anything that was moving? 
ended up being blurry. I fiddled with the ISO settings, etc. But it was just 
dark. Plain ole lack-o-light. Now that I have to focus on (err) focusing, I 
have been trying to gestimate which focal setting to put the lens at before 
aiming. I was practicing getting faster at getting my subject in focus. To 
no avail? Most times, when I would bring the camera to my eye, I was hunting 
back and forth trying to find the right direction to rotate the focus ring 
at all. I was always headed in the wrong direction. So, that will take some 
practice. Static objects seemed to work a bit better. 

Of the 45 pictures I managed, only these 3 seemed to be acceptable enough to 
share:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsbardsley/sets/72157628934782221/show/

I?ll try again in the daylight. Hopefully some light will help me learn what 
I am doing wrong.

All in all, I am very happy with my new, and first, M8. Anyone got any tips 
on how to get the damn thing into ?Picture? mode so I can tweak the ISO 
settings? I don?t understand the menu well enough to do it consistently. It 
feels like I need to click my heels, face NorthNortheast, pray, and then the 
Menu button will bring it up. I don?t get it.

Click. Click. Smile.

Ryan
Boston, MA