Leica M8 ---> Not Happy!

NickTrop said:
Brand defense!!! Woot woot! These threads are hilarious. Some of youse defend Leica's honor more than you'd defend your wife's.
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1) I do not "defend Leica's honor"; I highly question the intelligence behind people's bashing motives. Usually, they're blinded by ignorance more than they are by the price tag.

2a) The hyper-generalizations spewed in Leica threads by those who have a huge Leica chip on their shoulders then (laughably) turn around against those who point out their fallacies and call them "brand defenders"

2b) I refer to these people with a "Leica chip on their shoulder" Leica Pirates who also hold the "brand" as their Moby Dick.

3) I don't have a wife. Not everybody fits you pirates' world pigeonholing.
 
@Gabriel MA - Oops I did it again. You're as angry at my dissing your camera as you would be if I dissed your spouse if you had one. I knew someone would take the bait and prove my point. Now don't go gettin' all Yosemite Sam-y on me. All in fun.
 
NickTrop said:
Brand defense!!! Woot woot! These threads are hilarious. Some of youse defend Leica's honor more than you'd defend your wife's. There ARE minimal expectations of cameras. Technology has reached a certain threshold, a certain minimum standard. Leica failed to meet it with the M8. Period. Years prior to the arrival of the M8, an quality/ISO capability standard was set by Nikon and Canon's DSLRs. Leice fell way short of this while at the same time continued to charge Leica prices.

Yet, they still absolutely gouged their "cult" - and that's all that it can be described as. You Leicaphiles are like Moonies, climate change deniers, "birthers" (who believe Obama is not a US citizen) etc. No point in arguing with you.

I have a sibling of the F30, the F20 - same "Super" CCD by Fuji. No problem shooting up to ISO 800. Fine. 1600 is even okay for small prints. That camera cost a couple hundred bucks new when it came out, round the same time as the M8. It is unacceptable that a camera that costs 25X as much as this can't do ISO above 320. Every pro camera can, every cheap consumer DSLR can, and the whole rangefinder thing is all about natural and low light shooting. Add to this the ridiculous fact that you have to slap a filter on the thing because of their IR sensor issue...

Please.

Clearly, you're paying for a little red dot. And that's it. And the M8 is a dog. Beautifully manufactured, sure, but a dog none the less. But a photographic tool isn't about how well the thing is manufactured. It's about capabilities. They manufactured a beautiful "golden slide rule" to the highest manufacturing specifications in the age of cheap graphing algebraic calculators you can get for 1/25th the price. The person who started this thread was only being intellectually honest. Defenders need deprogramming.
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Thing of it.... In defending this $5000 camera, someone suggested getting a used Fuji Finepix that go for around $100 used and didn't cost more than $200 new - that is to say, buy this cheap consumer point-n-shoot to "fill the gaps" of your $5000 Leica. Please. Quit giving Leica a pass.
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Nick,

You are going on the same road than those Moonies you are bashing.....

Yes a Fufjifilm F20 may have better ISO performance than a M8. And your point is ?

The Leica M8 or even the M9 has limitations. First because the M8 was one of the first ( well second behind RD-1 ) groundbreaking designs : a digital rangefinder.

That involved a lot of R&D and things will get better with time.

Groundbreaking designs and technology ( micro lenses in the sensor, IR sensitivity to deal with, etc etc ) , when they are new have lot of issues.

Heck mate, we even had to deal with green lines and God knows what.

But we prevailed. And we have a great camera. Sure, has its limits and limitations but nothing is perfect, otherwise we all would lug a H4D and a trolley of lenses around.

Which by the way, many point and shoots have better high iso performace than most medium format camera which costs in the region of 30 to 40k usd... and I dont see people complaining.

The M8 is just that : a different tool.

Like a digital medium format camera is a different tool.

And they shouldnt be compared to outside their format : but within.

Compare the M8 with the RD-1.

Yap, dSLR's have more fps, better ISO, yadadada. And ? They are AGAIN a different tool.

Horses for Courses my friend.

As far as I recall, no one forced anyone to buy a M8 or a M9.

If you dont like it, sell it. Move on.

Some people, like me, the ability of using my collection of Leica lens on a digital body is simply fastastic, even if that comes with tradeoff's, which are well known.

For you might not be the case. So go on and take pictures with your F20 and I will take with my M8. And we BOTH are happy.

You are a moonie my friend. The type I see everytime I park my car and start mumbling that a super duper Toyota/Nissan/Japanese Car whatever-model-that-is-that-ends-with-lots-of-red-letters-and-Z-or-R has the same or better performance than my car for one third of the price and I'm silly.

Perhaps.

But I'm a happy silly man driving my Porsche.
 
Yep..my 2 M8s are lousy cameras. It is just that I like them and I enjoy taking photos with them.

Nobody should flame you for not liking the M8. But wouldn't it be better
to sing canon's praises in the canon forum?

Regards.
 
NickTrop said:
Sorry, Dfoo... But for the cost of this camera, the M8, there should be no compromises. It should be cutting edge. It isn't. It even fell way short of the standards as a photographic tool set by consumer-level DSLRs at its release. Add the that the kludge of having to slap an IR filter on your lens (and what if you have many lenses with different sized threads? Wha - ? Do tell. A filter for every one? Or just "deal"... )

...
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I don't have an M8. I don't like digital photography. But if I did before the M9 was released I would hve bought the M8 for the simple fact that its a) a rangefinder and b) I can use my M mount lenses on it. What other reasonable game is there in town?
 
NickTrop said:
@Gabriel MA - Oops I did it again. You're as angry at my dissing your camera as you would be if I dissed your spouse if you had one. I knew someone would take the bait and prove my point. Now don't go gettin' all Yosemite Sam-y on me. All in fun.
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You indeed are a m0r0n. I am not angry at "my camera being dissed". I am angry at you being a m0r0n.
 
NickTrop said:
Sorry, Dfoo... But for the cost of this camera, the M8, there should be no compromises.
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Honestly.. you say too much and add nothing.

I am defending Leica ? No. Its a great camera but its not perfect in any mean.

Yes it costs a great deal - and there is some compromises.

In every camera you have compromises. If we stick to your marevellous and thought out logic, a Hasselblad H3D with a 39mp sensor, at nearly 40k , should be heaven on Earth but hey...

Costs 10 x a M8 but the M8 has better noise performance. And can shoot more FPS ... Oh no... off you go to the Hasselblad forum to piss off H owners ...


Im being ironic here but there is one comment that I do get offended :


NickTrop said:
@Gabriel MA - Oops I did it again. You're as angry at my dissing your camera as you would be if I dissed your spouse if you had one. I knew someone would take the bait and prove my point. Now don't go gettin' all Yosemite Sam-y on me. All in fun.
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Gabriel is a nice and valued member of our community. He helps constantly and posts constantly throught this forum - either new or older members, always giving his opinion in a cordial and respectfull manner. On top of that he is a talented photographer who often shares his pictures and everyone has a good time watching them.

The same cannot be said from you, who parachutes out of no where and start offending existing members, in this case Gabriel.

If you want to make an open discussion, do it in a cordial manner and leave wife's and the sorts out of it. Get some manners and if your rethorical skills aren't the best - mine arent but then again English isnt my first language.

But there s aline to be drawn.

Here's some help, go read it and then come back so we can keep chatting about Leica fan boys :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fisher-Pric...ef=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1261482272&sr=8-5

It's a DVD : Fisher Price, Little People : Good Manners.

Should help you.
 
Let me first appologize for not reading the entire 8 pages worth of bantering about what brand is better and who's loyal to which company. That aside, has anyone actually thought about the way they expose their images on the M8 in low light?

Shooting the M8 in low light is not quite the same as shooting the 5D2 (which I also use). You cannot under expose the image with an M8 at high ISO and push the settings in the RAW conversion like you do with the Canon files without drastically amplifying the noise. What you need to do is shoot to the right of the histogram and perhaps even clipping parts of the image. Once you push the exposure back down in post, you will have a MUCH higher signal-to-noise ratio and will find that your images will have less noise. How much of the image you clip depends on the subject matter, your experience with the camera and what you want the final image to look like.

Also, keep in mind that the M8 files are 8 bits which means there is less flexibility in how much you can make your images brighter if your images are underexposed to begin with. When in doubt, shoot to the right with the M8. If you're the type that shoot jpegs, then, you'd probably be better off with a point and shoot.

IMHO, if you expose properly, you can take very usable images even at ISO1250 on the M8. ISO2500 is a little sketchy but can still be used in B&W but it's stretching it.
 
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M8 files are NOT 8 bits. They are compressed and when expanded during RAW conversion behave like 12 bits files, especially in the shadows. If you treat them like 8 bits in post (which you shouldn't even do with real 8 bits files!) you run into trouble.
 
If you are "not happy" you have done the right thing by selling your M8

I have an S95 which I think is great
I have an EP 1 which I think is also great
I have a D300 which I think is marvellous
I now have an M8 which I enjoy using
(all for different reasons)
I could go on

A Leica is not a Canon, Nikon or Olympus - it is a Leica - why are you trying to compare or justify one against the other - you either like them or don't and in this "free world" you have a choice - as I said I love my S95

Just keep taking the pills, (sorry pressing the shutter)
 
I am surprised that you're surprised about the M8's high iso. There are myriad threads that make the point that you can go to 640 on color and 1250 in b&w. That is what it is. It's nothing new, and new firmware isn't going to make it go away.
 
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