Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/09/14

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Subject: [Leica] Re:Leica M8 hands on
From: leicachris at worldnet.att.net (Christopher Williams)
Date: Thu Sep 14 12:45:20 2006
References: <p0623090ac12f368b3f05@[10.1.16.144]>

Cool, rear synch on an M! I'm guessing the current Leica flashes work fine
on the M8?

Chris



----- Original Message -----
From: "Henning Wulff" <henningw@archiphoto.com>
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug@leica-users.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:31 PM
Subject: [Leica] Leica M8 hands on


> Well, DPReview has said that Leica has now officially announced the
> M8, posted pictures and spec so there's no point in being quiet any
> more.
>
> Tom Abrahamsson got hold of an M8 about a month ago, and shortly
> after let me use it for about 10 days so that I could evaluate it and
> do a write up.
>
> Firmware version was 0.23 so final image quality and some electronic
> operational items are certainly going to be different than what I got
> to use. Reasonably, I was asked not to post pictures from this
> camera. Various family members have gotten prints from it, but they
> really couldn't care much about which camera they came from. I took
> about 1600 pictures.
>
> I had a couple of interesting moments w.r.t. other people's
> reactions. A couple of times while walking around downtown someone
> came up and said 'nice camera' while sporting their own late model
> Leica's. I slipped my fingers over the 'M8' logo and held the camera
> back against my body, went into grumpy mode, grunted and walked past.
> Then we had a gathering at our house, and among others the neighbours
> were there. A friend of their son came to our door, asking for
> Christoph; I let him in and he saw the M8 on the counter and
> immediately oohed and aahed. Turn's out he's a photographer and while
> born in Vancouver now lives over the LeicaShop in Vienna. After that
> I 'disguised' it, but it still was recognized at times.
>
> So - the camera. It handles like an M, except your hands miss the
> grip that the wind level gave you. The extra thickness is easy to get
> used to, and the responsiveness is very good. Because of the firmware
> issue, the testing I did on it is meaningless, but there was nothing
> negative to my perception. The shutter, while certainly different
> than the rubber-curtained one on the film camera, is not particularly
> loud, either in firing or winding. I think the dampening they did on
> the transplanted R9 shutter had some effect. It doesn't have a high
> frame rate, but neither do the film M's and that's not important to
> me. The shutter travel includes a detent for locking the exposure
> that was a bit hard to find, but a lot better with one of Tom's
> softies.
>
> The covering is fine grained and a bit too slippery, especially since
> I missed the wind lever for holding the camera with the right hand.
> Some kind of molded bump like on the Hexar RF would be nice, but I'm
> not sure right now how that could be implemented in line with the
> desire to retain the 'classic' look.
>
> Frame lines were bright and useable, and came up in the pairs that
> you would expect due to the traditional lens mount activation. The
> frame for the 24 is reasonably visible  with glasses. It works with
> the Visoflex III, and it worked fine on the Aristophot I got
> recently, and I shot some pictures with the various Photars. I also
> put on my 17mm fisheye, and it looks like this:
>
> http://www.archiphoto.com/Various/Incognito.jpg
>
> All lenses that I tried, including 12, 15 and 21 CV; 21, 35/1.4, 50
> and 90 ASPH, and older 35/2, new 50/2.8, 50/1, 75/1.4 and 135/4
> worked, and worked well. I wouldn't hesitate to use any of them and
> there was no vignetting that wasn't visible on film as well. Those
> angled microlenses do their job, and erase one of the main objections
> I had re the RD-1, which was really not useable with lenses beyond
> the range of 24 to (slow) 75. Image quality was outstanding in
> general, the best were easily on a par or, in the case of wideangle
> shots, readily exceeded that of the best on the Canon 5D. My
> favourite lenses on the M8 were the 21 and 35/1.4 ASPH and 75/1.4,
> but I wouldn't hesitate to use any lens.
>
> Menus were fine, and quite direct. There is no 'dedicated' button for
> ISO (full stops from 160 to 2500), but since you can get at two
> different menus by pushing two different buttons, changing ISO's was
> very fast and efficient. There are also good user parameter save
> options, so after you set them up you can go from low ISO with -1/3
> compensation, colour, colour histogram, bright LCD screen, high
> resolution with DNG and fine jpeg with medium sharpening and low
> saturation to high ISO, not compensation, B&W, dim LCD screen and
> regular jpeg with higher sharpening in a very few button pushes. The
> dial that's concentric with the arrow pad is also very nice and works
> well.
>
> The little door to the left of the screen just has a connector for a
> dedicated cable, which I didn't have so don't know whether it's USB2
> or 1394.
>
> Mainly, it felt like an M, and within a couple of minutes of picking
> it up you could shoot with it like an M, and except for the sound,
> lack of winding and having more than 36 shots, it really wasn't
> different than an M.
>
> And that's good.
>
>
> --
>     *            Henning J. Wulff
>    /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
>   /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
>   |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com
>
> _______________________________________________
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In reply to: Message from henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff) ([Leica] Leica M8 hands on)