[Leica] Best flash for M8?

[don.dory at gmail.com (Don Dory)]

Frank,
With infinite respect for your abilities in photojournalism and general good
humour,  you are completely off base about the shutter on the M8.  This
sensor in the M8 works as an analogue light collector with an A/D converter
downstream.  The shutter opens, the sites on the CCD collect light, the
shutter closes and the microprocessor collects the information from the A/D
converter.  Simplified of course; there is a amplification circuit, a
buffer, and some pretty sophisticated programming to adjust the information
coming off the sensor into something that resembles an image that the human
mind will interpret as a picture.

With any of the current CCD or CMOS sensors try to use B and very quick
fingers with a hat or lens cap as a sensor, you will almost always have a
blown image unless you are in the coal mine at midnight.  The sensor in the
M8 works in some way just like film in that at a given level of
amplification there is a 5 to 8 stop range where the information is not
white or black.

Cheers,
Don
don.dory@gmail.com

On 12/26/06, Frank Filippone <red735i@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> OK.. I went there and read the following under M8 tech specs at the Leica
> USA site....
> ---------------------
> To  quote.......
> Shutter:
> Micro-processor controlled metal-blade slotted shutter with vertical
> movement.
> Shutter Speeds
> In automatic mode (A) steplessly from 32 s to 1/8000 s. Using manual
> setting 4 s to 1/8000 s in half steps.
> B for long exposures of any duration.
> Shutter action optimized for minimum noise. Driven by an electric motor
> --------------------
> Having read that, I will repeat that the shutter in the M8 is only for a
> dust ( and overload) sensor cover.  It does nothing for the
> exposure.  Let me explain.....
>
> The sensor is gated fully under electronic digital control.  It has
> nothing to do with a mechanical part anywhere in, round or under
> the camera.  It is both easier to do it this way, it works, it needs no
> calibration, and it is cheap to make.  It is totally
> electronic.
>
> The shutter COVER, or what you might call a shutter, does not do anything
> to the exposures.  If it did, Leica would have to make an
> infinitely variable shutter accurate to 1/8000 of a second, and keep it in
> calibration.  Ain't going to happen.  Nikon proved that
> in the 8008 and other cameras.
>
> I think it is important that users know what they are getting in an M8 or
> other digital camera  ... this mechanical shutter is
> probably ( maybe, maybe not) timed to open and close in some relationship
> with the exposure.  It does not matter how long the
> shutter is open; as long as it is long enough for an exposure to be
> recorded.  It can be a LOT longer    the light is gated by a
> digital signal, not a mechanical device.  Very similar to the baffle
> shutter in a Hasselblad 500 series.
>
> Notice carefully that Leica never claims that the shutter speed is
> mechanical nor do they claim the shutter is timed for any time
> duration...   They claim the shutter is a vertically moving metal blade
> slotted shutter.  The shutter speeds are the ones that are
> timed with specs on them.  There is a big difference between the shutter
> speeds that affect the exposure, and the shutter that only
> covers the sensor.  What I called a baffle.
>
> dPreview does not add any information.  I am sure they are nice guys, but
> technically,  anyone that claims the reason a M8 can have
> higher synch speed than a M7 is because of a different shutter is just
> plain not correct.   The synch is digitally controlled as are
> the gating functions of the sensor.  There is no mechanical association in
> a M8.  There is in any previous film oriented M ( or
> LTM)..
>
> BTW, if you owned a M8, you could easily prove me wrong....   Try the
> shutter at different speeds with no lens.  You should see the
> light baffle open and close faster with increasing speed, like a real
> shutter does.  You do not have to be 100% accurate, you only
> need to note if the thing stays open longer with increasing exposure
> time....  It should be pretty obvious.
>
> If there is some evidence that the M8 has a mechanically timed exposure, I
> still have not seen it......If you, or someone else on
> this list,  own a M8, check out the shutter /baffle/ whatever you want to
> call the thing that moves out of the way to allow the
> light to hit the sensor. Then we have some form of data that is not
> marketing speak.....
>
> I would promise to eat a bug if I am wrong, but Cal Worthington has
> already done that one.....
>
> Frank Filippone
> red735i@earthlink.net
>
>
>
>
>
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