Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/11/18

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Subject: [Leica] 24 hours with my M8: long
From: philippe.orlent at pandora.be (Philippe Orlent)
Date: Sat Nov 18 10:57:22 2006
References: <24a.db98482.328fab69@aol.com> <p0623090ac1840aefc2af@[10.1.16.129]> <15C76E5A-78FD-42DE-B111-FDE0C88F5151@ncable.net.au>

What a lovely neighbourhood...

These ones are my favorites:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/Images+from+the 
+M8/015.JPG.html
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/Images+from+the 
+M8/035.JPG.html

Is the toasting portrait with a Noctilux?

Thanks for showing,
Philippe



Op 18-nov-06, om 06:03 heeft Alastair Firkin het volgende geschreven:

> I have had the M8 for 19 hours (including one sleep, while the  
> battery recharged) and I can report that at this stage --
>
> "Don't worry: be happy"
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> L1000011.JPG.html
>
> "Happy loving couples make it look so easy"
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> L1000068.jpg.html
>
> When I turned 40, Helen surprised me with an M6, a decade later,  
> I've just bought my first pair of reading glasses and Helen has  
> bought me an M8. So here are some impressions from day one.  
> Firstly, thank you to Helen and the guys at camera exchange. It has  
> been a pleasure dealing with you for over 20 years. Its only a  
> shame the shop is so busy ;-)
>
> Thanks to the warnings of others, I had the the battery charged  
> before I arrived, so I was ready to experiment as soon as it was  
> loaded in the quirky "chamber".
>
> If you just want the results, here's an album:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/Images+from+the+M8/
>
> But to read some comments, please continue
>
> "So take a letter Maria"
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> 028.JPG.html
>
> Point One: Leica should be congratulated on this camera. Even with  
> the undoubted shortcomings, and I will show some of my examples  
> later, this is the first generation of a high quality rangefinder  
> digital camera and most of what they have done seems to work. Leica  
> rely on third parties for the sensor, and will NEVER in my life  
> time be likely to do otherwise. Leica do not have the cash flows of  
> Canon and do not have the experience in digital photography: lets  
> be honest, no one has the grunt or experience that Canon have, BUT  
> Canon do not make a rangefinder camera, so it is really pretty  
> pointless making too many comparisons with Canon SLRs, except to  
> hold them up as today's gold standards.
>
> It is a long way from:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/Leica-Product/ 
> product001.jpg.html
>
> In my opinion based on a days use (big deal I know) Leica have made  
> some good progress. The camera is "faster" than the DMR, the  
> software seems a little more refined (my experience with the DMR is  
> also limited so this is just a gut feeling), the files come up  
> faster, write to the card faster and are smaller. They download  
> faster to the computer as a result and I only needed to buy a 2 gig  
> card to hold close to 200 images.
>
> Then there is the underlying reason many of us will buy the M8. We  
> want to use our M lenses and we like using rangefinder cameras. I  
> suspect we are using the M lenses but not to their fullest extent  
> (even though Leica would like to tell us so), but the results are  
> really very satisfying in terms of Lens to Image translation.
>
>
> Point Two: unlike Tina, I found the camera "flew" into action very  
> quickly. I focused on a table under very low light, kept watching  
> through the finder as I turned the camera "on" and then waited for  
> the camera to give me a shutter speed on "A" setting and fired ASAP.
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> 041.JPG.html
>
> Well I reckon that the image was shot in just under one second: I  
> was delighted. The camera also seems to fire up as quickly from  
> "sleep". So touching the shutter release, or swinging the camera to  
> on as you raise it to your eye will give the camera time to be  
> ready to shoot.
>
>
> Point three: shutter lag is not noticeable EXCEPT with TTL flash,  
> where the initial flash makes a delay that I could notice, and I  
> wondered if the dog's eyes were "blinking" by the time the shutter  
> and real flash fired.
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> flash1.JPG.html
>
> I have not used it yet as fill flash with people, but the lag may  
> effect the result.
>
> "He ain't heavy, he's my brother"
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> 032.JPG.html
>
> My first impression was how small the battery was, how light, how  
> neat, no wonder you will have a limited battery life. Because the  
> battery is so small, it will be no effort to carry one or two  
> spares, and using a small battery has limited the weight and size  
> of the camera. Knowing that battery technology is improving, this  
> may mean our cameras or the next generation will have even better  
> life, but I managed to take a full 2 gig card, chimp through the  
> images at the restaurant 2 or 3 times and download to the computer  
> before it died. We are told it will get better, so i think it will  
> be "good-enough" if not excessive for a user like me.
>
> Then I un-wrapped the camera, and it is solid, well in fact it is  
> heavy, but apart from feeling like my M6 on steroids, the M digital  
> is as everyone else has reported, an M feeling camera. A few minor  
> lessons and within minutes I was shooting in "A" (aperture  
> priority) and "M" (manual, or as I have always thought of it  
> shutter priority). The viewfinder is bright, the rangefinder seems  
> accurate and I was even happy focusing the 135mm with it. I suppose  
> I reached for the winder on 2 or 3 occasions, but the "strange"  
> feeling was that the camera was living after each shot, as the  
> motor recocked the shutter. That and the noise were a little off- 
> putting to a M user, but I soon became used to it.
>
> "As tight as a dope fiend's fix my friend, step in close and take  
> your stuff"
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> tightas1.JPG.html
>
> It has never really bothered me that the framing in the M was a   
> little "loose". I've always done my own printing, I have great  
> enlargers and the quality of film was good enough to allow me a  
> happy "wastage", but I feel a bit different with digital (though I  
> suppose it will pass). Being as most of you know a bit "tight", I  
> like to get my value, and so if I've got 10.3 million pixels to  
> use, I want to use them all. Besides, the sensor real estate is  
> expensive and already crops my lenses back by 30%. I immediately  
> noticed that the "image verification" which hits the monitor with  
> lightning speed (except in very low light conditions such as  
> leaving the mirror down on the visoflex) was showing me a fair  
> degree more than I had expected. On my very crude test: focused at  
> as close as I could get to the figure the framing means I go from  
> an image of 3900 x 2600 Pixels to 3300 x 2100 (ok, I know I have  
> not done this in perfect ratio, but you get the idea) a loss of  
> about 15%. So step in close then take another step.
>
> So here is the result
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> tightas1.JPG.html
>
> And this is about the excess outside the framelines
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> tightas2.JPG.html
>
> "Dust clusters to me like moths around the flame"
>
> I was reasonably careful, I did not "inspect" the shutter and  
> changed lenses as swiftly as I could, The earliest image I kept -  
> frame two, seems free of dust, but by frame 7, it was there already.
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> dust.JPG.html
>
> This dust problem must plague all non-self cleaning cameras and the  
> M8 is no different but cleaning the sensor is pretty easy. You need  
> a fairly fully charged battery before the camera will even let you  
> do it, but you switch to clean sensor in the menu, open the shutter  
> and blow away furiously with the rubber knob of the blower brush:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> deDusted.JPG.html
>
> the next day, I did this and could only find a couple of small  
> remnant specks, BUT this shows how idiotic some of our obsession  
> with pixel perfect really is, and again, makes me very impressed  
> with the Olympus E 500, who still has no sign of dust after  
> hundreds of "unprotected" lens changes. Of course the Olympus takes  
> much longer to start up!!!!. I would like an ultrasonic cleaning of  
> the sensor at the touch of a button "when I wanted it"!!! Seems  
> dust is now my enemy before I reach the darkroom.
>
> "Oh dear what can I do, baby's in black and she's turning blue"
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> bINb1.JPG.html
>
> The above image of black clad persons in sunshine, and below a  
> group, where I at first wondered if the T shirt on the girl in the  
> foreground was affected, till I spotted the black T shirt on the  
> girl behind: I think the colours are pretty good in these situations.
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> bINb4.JPG.html
>
> So what of the famed "issues" which have already been discussed on  
> this forum and others. I reasoned that the infrared problem would  
> be worse at night. After all, there is less normal visible light  
> and the body may give off a greater percentage of IR. Well to some  
> extent I suspect it is true. Above are two images of people wearing  
> black in the sunlight, and I'm not sure how much effect there is,  
> but at night in the restaurant I took an image of the waitress who  
> was in "black". The first image is the camera's impression of the  
> scene under "tungsten" setting ISO 1250
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> bINb2.JPG.html
>
> and the second with PS's "auto-colour". Compared with the belt it  
> remains pretty "blue".
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> bINb2a.JPG.html
>
> I'm pretty impressed with the high ISO performance, though I know  
> the Canons do it better, this is not too grubby compared with  
> film!!! I agree that Leica or Kodak or someone needs to find a  
> reasonable solution to this IR cast. If I am right and it becomes a  
> real issue in low light, then we will need to have hi-pass filters  
> on our Noctilux ;-) As Helen said: dark blue is NOT the new black.  
> For me, iffff it is an issue at high ISO and low light levels and I  
> have to put up with it, I'll live with it and try to remember to  
> put a filter on.
>
> "When everything old is new again"
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> Everythingold.JPG.html
>
> I have attached the visoflex and it works, but the shutter arm is  
> on the edge of the release, and you do need to give the camera time  
> to set the meter, so it did not work with the last instant mirror  
> release setting. You needed to raise the mirror slowly and then hit  
> the release. Of course I soon noticed that the framing was "off"  
> before realizing that the framing difference was the difference  
> between the 35mm film size and the sensor size.
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> everythingold2.JPG.html
>
> So it was very late when we got home to feed the dogs ;-)
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/M8+testing/ 
> availabledark1.JPG.html
>
>
> Summary
> The DMR is an interesting hybrid and has 2 possible big selling  
> points for longevity:
>
> 1) to replace the sensor, Leica could continue to develop the back  
> and I would not have to buy a new camera and
>
> 2) you can get to the sensor. I've already praised the Olympus dust  
> reduction on this list: it seems to work very well, but for how  
> long. Compared with cameras which rely on a return to the dealer  
> for cleaning, the DMR and now the M8 are streets ahead, especially  
> if like me you are planning on using them for 2 to 5 years. If  
> yesterdays experience is anything to go by, the camera would be  
> heading back to be cleaned DAILY.
>
> The colour problem needs to be solved: I may be able to live with  
> it using filters, as long as the situations in which the filters  
> are needed are predictable and few. It is the only real failing of  
> the camera so far in my testing.
>
> So here are a few other examples in one album
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/Images+from+the+M8/
>
> Thanks for listening and happy shooting
>
> Cheers
> Alastair
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
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>


Replies: Reply from firkin at ncable.net.au (Alastair Firkin) ([Leica] 24 hours with my M8: long)
In reply to: Message from SonC at aol.com (SonC@aol.com) ([Leica] Friday flower)
Message from henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff) ([Leica] Friday flower)
Message from firkin at ncable.net.au (Alastair Firkin) ([Leica] 24 hours with my M8: long)