[Leica] Doug Herr tries R8!

[Doug Herr <Telyt@compuserve.com>]

Those of you who have met me probably have figured out that I'm something
of a traditionalist or minimalist.  I prefer manual cameras, DOS over
Windoze, my simple ol' f/6.8 Telyts over any new-fangled gee-whiz
Super-AFS-D-USM-IS-L-800mm f/2.8 lens, and the SL over anything else.  This
weekend at Point Lobos State Reserve (in California) I had an opportunity
to use an R8 for a day, thanks to Tom Brichta, Leica sales rep, and Jim
Brick, who organized the Northern California LUGfest in the Monterey area.

I used the R8 with no winder, and with the standard viewscreen, on my 400mm
and 560mm f/6.8 Telyts, and my "new" 250mm f/4 Telyt.  All lenses were used
with Leica shoulder stocks.  A pair of Black Oystercatchers obligingly
appeared in the Weston Beach area and gave me many opportunities to test
the R8.

The Black Oystercatcher is a quail-sized bird with long legs and a long
chisel for a bill.  It uses this bill to pry limpets and other mollusks off
the rocks along the shoreline, and having removed the mollusk from its
rock, picks the morsel out of the shell.  The bird is a charcoal-black
color with chalk-colored legs and a red bill.  Fortunately the eyes are not
black; they looked nearly white to me.  Backgrounds were either wet rock
(nearly black) or surf foam (nearly white).

As I expected, the varied and rapidly-changing backgrounds, plus my need
for exposures of a black, yet detailed, main subject gave the matrix and
averaging meters fits.  I resorted to using the R8's spot meter in manual
mode and after an initial adjustment period found it to be simple to use,
precise and gave me readings identical to those of my trust SL.  This is
the first electronically-controlled camera I've used that handles as well
in manual mode as my SL does.

The Oystercatcher is an active bird; most of the time using a tripod would
have been an excersize in frustration.  Handling with the long Telyts and a
shoulder stock is a big deal to me.  Add in the fact that I use my left
eye, and I need to keep my hand on the camera body (see exposure notes
above; it means I don't use an electric release with the shoulder stock's
handgrip) and I've got a set of demands few cameras can meet.  This is
where the R8 is at its best.  My grip on the camera body is secure and far
enough from the viewfinder that using my left eye is comfortable, and I can
still work the meter pattern switch, film advance lever and shutter speed
dial with ease.

The viewfinder: the info bar below the viewscreen is simple, clear, easy to
understand at a glance, unobtrusive and gives me all the info I wanted.  If
I had never used and SL, I'd say the viewscreen is the brightest and
easiest to use of any SLR.  Having used the SL for 20 years I can see the
R8's viewscreen is one of the best, but it's not as good as the SL.  My
only disappointment with the camera.  I used a few rolls of Kodachrome 64
in both the R8 and the SL  I'll need to wait a couple of weeks to get the
chromes back, to see if there's a difference in the in-focus ratios.

The Verdict?  Listen to Ted and Eric.  This is a wonderful camera.  Simple
to use, flexible enough for nearly any task, solid, reliable and a joy to
hold.  If I had hadn't already been using the SL for 20 years I'd rate it
an unconditional "buy".  With my SL experience I'll say that if the
brightest, clearest, easiest-to-focus viewscreen with slow lenses is
important to you, the SL (or SL2) is king.  If you are using faster lenses,
or the need for TTL flash or a winder or auto-exposure or interchangeable
viewscreens or any one of the R8's features is greater than your need for
the SL's viewscreen, the R8 is IT.

Doug Herr
Sacramento
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/telyt