[Leica] My M8 is ready to ship

[jplaurel at spectare.com (Jim Laurel)]

Hello everyone,
Good to see the good old LUG is still kicking.  I've been away from  
photography for a while working on my startup company: Twango.  The  
little photography I've been doing over the last year or so has been  
with my 1Ds, which is a beast of a camera.  On my last trip, it spent  
most of the time in the hotel safe, while I carried the little C-Lux1  
in my pocket.  Plus, the 1Ds has gathered enough sensor dust to start  
a sizable hobby farm and I have never been able to clean it all out.   
I've ordered one of those Arctic Butterfly things in a last ditch  
attempt to make the thing usable again.

I put my order in for an M8 some time ago and just got the call that  
my number is up.  It's one of the new batch with all of Solms' finest  
German-engineered IR/WB/color cast band aids in place.  Now I have to  
decide whether to actually take delivery of the thing.  I've been  
reading some of the threads here, on dpreview and on the Leica site  
and the situation doesn't seem encouraging.  I have gone from  
enthusiastic anticipation of this new camera to utter disappointment.

Many of you know me from years past here on the LUG and how much I  
enjoy photography with the M cameras in general.  I'm tempted to take  
my M8, but it's difficult to get a rational viewpoint out on the  
net.  You ask some hard questions and the fanboys jump in on you,  
accuse you of trolling, etc.  I am hoping that my old friends here on  
the venerable LUG will be able to help me decide.  You folks are the  
only ones I can trust for sage advice as I haven't had a chance to  
use an M8 myself, except for a few minutes at the dealer one night.   
The test DNGs I shot looked ok, but the JPGs, even at the highest  
quality setting were horrible.

Thanks for any comments or advice.  I think at this point, I'd even  
like to hear B.D.'s opinion.  ;-)

My very best regards to the LUG family,

--Jim Laurel
Co-Founder, Twango
http://www.twango.com/jim