[Leica] report after M8 Leica Akademie

[ausdlk at gmail.com (David Keenan)]

I have several things to report after attending the M8 Leica Akademie
session today in Wetzlar.

These are things that I personally experienced and/or overheard. Unlike one
of my previous posts these are all (observed) facts and from a sampling of
(mostly) one camera only. No bitching or moaning herein...

Leica is clear to point out that the firmware in the 20 or so cameras in the
room for the participants to use *was not final*.

-- the rangefinder focus patch on my sample flared (like the pre-fix M7 and
M6 do); this was experienced (or at least recognized) by one other
participant

-- the open/close locking lever is on the opposite side of the bottom plate

-- the frame counter counted down and showed (1) but still allowed me to
take two more exposures before reporting (0)

-- the (initially reporting full) battery was 1/4 full after approximately
120 exposures with no chimping to speak of (I heard that the camera normally
achieves approximately 300 exposures on a full battery)

-- my first edition Tri-Elmar worked perfectly on two cameras (this after
another?s second edition failed to reliably bring up the correct frame lines
on what may have been an earlier prototype the night before this Leica
Akademie)

-- the camera does not prevent the overwriting of already saved user
settings with an "are you sure?" confirmation

-- I exposed entirely in black and white mode but several people experienced
obvious white balance issues (Leica reps acknowledged this and were assuring
that this is being addressed)

-- there was no visible vignetting in any of the images taken today and few
(if any) of the observed images were taken with 6-bit encoded lenses (this
suggests to me that 6-bit coding is not really necessary in most cases
unless one simply wants the EXIF data to include the lens type)

-- the resulting .DNG files were not readable by Adode Bridge nor Photoshop
CS2 v9.0.1 (although I was later shown PS CS2 v9.0.2 that did appear to be
able to open the files; I realize that the software on my laptop is an
update or two behind but if I have to update then so may you...)

-- there is a problem in Lightroom Public Beta 4 and black & white .DNG
files -- during the Import process the black & white images were displayed
in color upon completion of the import (Leica has a relationship with Adode
and hopefully this presumably Lightroom bug will be reported and fixed
before the final release)

# # #

Personally I still have minor useability concerns about the M8 after today
-- but overall the camera was a smash hit within the group at large -- the
first group of its kind -- average joe users hitting the streets to use the
M8.

Dave.
-- 
My Photography: http://www.david-keenan.com
My Blog: http://www.david-keenan.com/euroblog