[Leica] M8: "I think it's going to be all right" - transposed to Canon, Nikon, etc. etc.

[abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge)]

On 11/18/06, B. D. Colen <bd@bdcolenphoto.com> wrote:

> 2. How do people feel about the fact that certain reviewers, upon whom they
> depend - and I am NOT referring to any members of this list - were aware of
> the defect and, at the request of the company, withheld mention of it in
> their rave reviews?

This reveals the difference between blogging and journalism.

I'm disturbed by this revelation, obviously. I would expect someone
who is writing a review to talk about the good and the bad and not to
be beholden to the vendor.

I don't think Luminous Landscape sees itself as being a journalism
site. I think it's an opinion site and as such is quite interesting.

BUT, and it's a big one, if you're going to purport to do a review
then you damn well should outa DO one. Which means revealing both
sides - good and bad. Otherwise who is served?

Unfortunately who the heck can you trust these days to review a camera
with integrity?

Print journalism is virtually irrelevant. On-line journalism doesn't
pay any attention. The big magazines are like the car magazines - so
deeply tied financially with the vendors that it's impossible to
separate out the various interests. Heck, in the car world the buys
who write about and review cars are often paid consultants to the auto
companies - none of which is revealed!

So we're forced to listen to the multitude of voices and try to sift
through the reality of opinions. It's happening here as people who
have used the M8 are beginning to report their results.

It's gotten complicated, vastly more complicated, because it's no long
a dark box, a lens and a roll of film. Now it's firmware and software
and operating systems all of which are flawed or potentially flawed.

I don't buy V1.0 digital products. I've learned too many times what
happens to early adopters.

It'll be up to Leica to resolve the issues they have with their camera
and its system. If they knowingly put a sub-standard product out into
the wild hoping no one would notice...well they are at best stupid
because everyone will be looking at their creation and submitting it
to zillions of tests. Where the HELL were the testers? Didn't ANYONE
use this camera and as demanding questions? In the digital world it's
the most difficult part of testing - pushing the boundary conditions
and seeing what breaks because that's how you exercise all the
software.

I'd probably be a lousy tester because I'd use the caemra almost
entirely in B&W. For me the IR response would be a great thing!
Something to explore and USE I might not have noticed the color issues
- although I would have used the camera in sufficiently low light that
I would think it would have showed up and I'd have complained.

I use filters for B&W all the time. That Leica chose not to filter IR
from the sensor doesn't trouble me. But I am aware that adding a
filter may have a consequence in terms of image sharpness and
requiring such a filter is troubling.

I'm not sure, however, that it's possible to compensate for this
problem in firmware or in host computer software processing. There are
reasons why filtering IR at the plane of the sensor is being done by
almost everyone. We're finding out why now. Perhaps engineers at Canon
are chuckling.

How Leica responds to this will be very important to me. Those who
bought the cameras should get a fix that doesn't require investment in
high-pass filters to dump the IR. Good ones are expensive and the
camera isn't cheap or even "moderately expensive." It's damn
expensive, bearing a premium for the Leica name/reputation. They just
have to get this right - fixing the firmware/software and/or taking
the cameras back to put an IR filter above the sensor. You don't HAVE
to send it back of course, and possibly, if it were me, I wouldn't
depending on experimentation, but they need to offer a comprehensive
fix. If they don't - well Leica will have entered the joke department
in terms of customer support and integrity.

We'll see how they react to joining the digital world.

Adam