Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/01/18

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Subject: [Leica] IMG: M8 1st Shots and impressions.
From: len-1 at comcast.net (Leonard Taupier)
Date: Thu Jan 18 09:33:41 2007
References: <082BB029-B213-4CA7-8E6F-999467B84899@comcast.net> <DB47BEEC-7E27-4D8C-B5F8-BBD0772AAD5E@mindspring.com>

Thanks, Ric. But the UV shots work much better with flower blossoms.  
Shows a lot more details. Buts I'm out of flowers at the moment. I  
was going to go to Longwood Gardens today and take some normal  
flowers with the M8. But It turned dark and cloudy. We have some  
weather coming in. Staying home.

Thanks for looking.
Len


On Jan 18, 2007, at 12:14 PM, Ric Carter wrote:

> The african violet really impresses me!
>
> Ric
>
>
> On Jan 18, 2007, at 11:20 AM, Leonard Taupier wrote:
>
>> I received my new M8 late yesterday afternoon. By the time the  
>> battery charged, it was already dark and pretty cold out. So I  
>> played around in the house experimenting with different lighting,  
>> lenses, and Ultra Violet photos.
>>
>> First impression. If you're shooting in tungsten lighting you  
>> better get the WB right for color or shoot b&w. My first color  
>> shots in my living room (WB tungsten) turned my blue chair purple.  
>> I expected that. So I took the same shot with a Tiffen hot mirror  
>> filter on the lens. The blue/purple chair turned brown. That I  
>> didn't expect so I took the same shot with my D200. Same tungsten  
>> WB, no filtering. The color came out exactly like the M8 hot  
>> mirror shot, brown chair. My only conclusion is I have some pretty  
>> screwy lighting in that room.
>>
>> I then decided to have a little fun. Put my Visoflex III and  
>> bellows II on the M8. Put an EL Nikkor 135 on the bellows and the  
>> whole thing on a tripod.  Pretty kludgy but everything fits  
>> perfectly. Didn't have anything to shoot except the leaves on my  
>> African Violet. No flowers in a couple months. Here it is. Black  
>> light and B+W UV bandpass filter.
>>
>> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/LeonardT/M8/M8_UV1.jpg.html>
>>
>> I then spent the rest of the night trying to figure out why I  
>> couldn't put my photos on my computer. I thought I had a bad SD  
>> card. It was on Leica's list. Should work. It turned out my multi  
>> everything card reader doesn't like SD very much. I ended up using  
>> a little SD only reader I bought for my cell phone. Works like a  
>> champ.
>>
>> I then went to bed knowing at least that my camera works. Slept  
>> like a baby.
>>
>> This morning, after coffee, I went out to my cold, frosty backyard  
>> and looked for something to shoot in daylight. Took a few boring  
>> shots of hibernating shrubs and stuff but the sky looked pretty  
>> interesting so I shot that.
>>
>> <ISO 160, 21mm Elmarit ASPH, about f11>
>>
>> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/LeonardT/M8/Dawn.jpg.html>
>>
>> A few impressions about the M8.
>>
>> It's an extremely well made camera. Mechanics and esthetics A+
>>
>> Capable of very fine images given the right lighting and camera  
>> setup.
>>
>> Purple problem doesn't bother me.
>>
>> Uses Leica glass. No vignetting with any lens I tried including  
>> the Noctilux at f1.
>>
>> Don't like jpg photos. Kinda dark in comparison to raw taken at  
>> the same time. Most noticeable on flash photos ( SF20 in A mode).  
>> RAW shots nicely lit. SF24D on order but I don't think that's the  
>> problem.
>>
>> Operation (mostly firmware dependent) not nearly as refined as any  
>> C or N digital I have ever used. (Many models, mostly N).
>>
>> I'm able to use CS2 to process raw files in exactly the same way  
>> as my C and N files. I did not install any other software on my Mac.
>>
>> I'm definitely not sorry I bought it. Need more time to learn it's  
>> idiosyncrasies. Like most of you I couldn't find a spare battery.
>>
>> Sorry for being so long winded but it's cold outside and I'm not  
>> going anywhere for awhile. Now to catch up with the last 100 or so  
>> LUG e-mails.
>>
>> Len
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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In reply to: Message from len-1 at comcast.net (Leonard Taupier) ([Leica] IMG: M8 1st Shots and impressions.)
Message from ricc at mindspring.com (Ric Carter) ([Leica] IMG: M8 1st Shots and impressions.)