[Leica] M8 on a trip

[clive.moss at gmail.com (Clive Moss)]

I am back from my 1st trip with the M8. I had some trepidations about 
taking new equipment on a major trip. Several things went wrong - none 
caused by the M8, however.

Problem #1
==========
I bought a 2MB Promaster SD card from Helix the day before I left. It 
seemed to work properly - but after a couple of days I noticed that a 
few images were blank on the review screen on the camera. When I tried 
to download it to my Epson 2000, the Epson reported "Disk Full" when it 
came to the bad image. I deleted the damaged images (none important), 
and managed to download the the rest of the card to the Epson. I set the 
card aside, and stuck with Lexmarks for the rest of the trip. No serious 
damage done.

Problem #2
==========
My own stupidity - or, what my daughter calls a "brain fart"
We drove from Tel Aviv to Eilat, with an overnight stop at a Dead Sea 
resort. On leaving the Dead Sea hotel , I did all my usual checks that 
ensure nothing gets left in the hotel. When I arrived in Eilat, I 
discovered that I had left my unwieldy, oversize, M8 charger, with my 
only spare battery, in the hotel bathroom shaver outlet at the Dead Sea 
hotel. A phone call confirmed that the hotel had found it, but they felt 
it was unwise to mail it to me at my next stop - the mail folk were on 
strike. I decided to change plans and drive back via the resort, rather 
than the direct route - not a major detour. I had two backup systems 
with me - an M6 body, and my trusty Canon G6, as well as an almost fully 
charged M8 battery, so it was not a serous problem.

Problem #3
==========
I retrieved my charger, and after changing batteries, I reformatted the 
SD card in the camera. I kinda forgot that I had neglected to save the 
card. Oops. Fortunately, I realized what I had done, so I flipped the 
protect switch on the card to "ON". When home, I used the ImageRescue 
software thoughtfully supplied by Lexar with their cards, and recovered 
all the pics, losing only the original file names - a non-problem.

Problem #4
==========
To get some wide angle coverage, I bought a CV 21mm. I tested the lens 
before I left home, and it was fine. Somehow, I managed to mount it on a 
Kenko screw to bayonet adapter keyed as a 28mm lens that I had bought 
for use with a Canon 28mm. On this adapter the M8 rangefinder would not 
converge at infinity. I think DOF hides the problem, but I have not had 
time to go through all my pics yet.

Problem #5
==========
The usual IR issues in tungsten light - I did not have time to get the 
IR filters before I left. Solution - claim to have planned to use Black 
and White anyway.

Bottom line - the M8 worked better than I did - but then, it is not as 
old as I am. A D200 with an 18-200 zoom may be an easier to use travel 
camera - but the relatively light weight and unobtrusiveness of the M8 
may offset the ease of use.

Pics will be posted as soon as I clear my admin backlog and take care of 
some family duties.
-- 
Clive
http://www.clive.moss.net/blog/