Hands on M8

[HenningW]

I had a chance to use a pre-production M8 for review and a write-up end of last month, and now that the cat is out of the bag, here are some quick comments.

Firmware version was 0.23 so final image quality and some electronic operational items are certainly going to be different than what I got to use. Reasonably, I was asked not to post pictures from this camera. Various family members have gotten prints from it, but they really couldn't care much about which camera they came from. I took about 1600 pictures over 10 days.

I had a couple of interesting moments w.r.t. other people's reactions. A couple of times while walking around downtown someone came up and said 'nice camera' while sporting their own late model Leica's. I slipped my fingers over the 'M8' logo and held the camera back against my body, went into grumpy mode, grunted and walked past. Then we had a gathering at our house, and among others the neighbours were there. A friend of their son came to our door, asking for Christoph; I let him in and he saw the M8 on the counter and immediately oohed and aahed. Turn's out he's a photographer and while born in Vancouver now lives over the LeicaShop in Vienna. After that I 'disguised' it, but it still was recognized at times.

So - the camera. It handles like an M, except your hands miss the grip that the wind level gave you. The extra thickness is easy to get used to, and the responsiveness is very good. Because of the firmware issue, the testing I did on it is meaningless, but there was nothing negative to my perception. The shutter, while certainly different than the rubber-curtained one on the film camera, is not particularly loud, either in firing or winding. I think the dampening they did on the transplanted R9 shutter had some effect. It doesn't have a high frame rate, but neither do the film M's and that's not important to me. The shutter travel includes a detent for locking the exposure that was a bit hard to find, but a lot better with one of Tom's softies.

The covering is fine grained and a bit too slippery, especially since I missed the wind lever for holding the camera with the right hand. Some kind of molded bump like on the Hexar RF would be nice, but I'm not sure right now how that could be implemented in line with the desire to retain the 'classic' look.

Frame lines were bright and useable, and came up in the pairs that you would expect due to the traditional lens mount activation. The frame for the 24 is reasonably visible with glasses. It works with the Visoflex III, and it worked fine on the Aristophot I got recently, and I shot some pictures with the various Photars. I also put on my 17mm fisheye, and it looks like this:

http://www.archiphoto.com/Various/Incognito.jpg

All lenses that I tried, including 12, 15 and 21 CV; 21, 35/1.4, 50 and 90 ASPH, and older 35/2, new 50/2.8, 50/1, 75/1.4 and 135/4 worked, and worked well. I wouldn't hesitate to use any of them and there was no vignetting that wasn't visible on film as well. Those angled microlenses do their job, and erase one of the main objections I had re the RD-1, which was really not useable with lenses beyond the range of 24 to (slow) 75. Image quality was outstanding in general, the best were easily on a par or, in the case of wideangle shots, readily exceeded that of the best on the Canon 5D. My favourite lenses on the M8 were the 21 and 35/1.4 ASPH and 75/1.4, but I wouldn't hesitate to use any lens.

Menus were fine, and quite direct. There is no 'dedicated' button for ISO (full stops from 160 to 2500), but since you can get at two different menus by pushing two different buttons, changing ISO's was very fast and efficient. There are also good user parameter save options, so after you set them up you can go from low ISO with -1/3 compensation, colour, colour histogram, bright LCD screen, high resolution with DNG and fine jpeg with medium sharpening and low saturation to high ISO, not compensation, B&W, dim LCD screen and regular jpeg with higher sharpening in a very few button pushes. The dial that's concentric with the arrow pad is also very nice and works well.

One thing I didn't like was that after selecting a menu item, such as 'B&W', you had to press the 'Set' button, or the selection didn't take. If you just lightly pressed the shutter release to get out of the menus and into the shooting mode after selecting the B&W mode, you would still be in colour. Fortunately in the digital camera industry there has been a move away from that. Leica should follow suit.

Mainly, it felt like an M, and within a couple of minutes of picking it up you could shoot with it like an M, and except for the sound, lack of winding and having more than 36 shots, it really wasn't different than an M.

And that's good.

Henning

[KM-25]

Feel free to chime in on how you felt the noise was at ISO 800 or higher as I'm sure many are curious to hear..:-)

[HenningW]

I used 1250 ISO quite a bit, and shot some at 2500. I printed both at 8x10 for a couple of trials; at 1250 the noise really wasn't visible on the print; at 2500 it was, especially in the shadows. The Canon 5D is way better in this respect, but then it's better than any other camera in the respect as well. That said, I would use both speeds as needed without hesitation. Whether I would use an M8 or a 5D in a low light situation depends more on other things than the noise in the image. Probably the M8, as with it and the Noctilux I'm pefectly comfortable in low light, and the low flare low light capability of the Noctilux is astounding.

Henning

[kbg32]

Thanks Henning for giving us your experience. I am certainly looking forward to this camera.

[phototone]

One thing the M8 has going for it (unlike almost all DSLR's) is an existing body of extremely fast lenses that are corrected for maximum aperture, thus lessening the need for high ISO settings in general.

[steve garza]

I used 1250 ISO quite a bit, and shot some at 2500. I printed both at 8x10 for a couple of trials; at 1250 the noise really wasn't visible on the print; at 2500 it was, especially in the shadows. The Canon 5D is way better in this respect, but then it's better than any other camera in the respect as well. That said, I would use both speeds as needed without hesitation. Whether I would use an M8 or a 5D in a low light situation depends more on other things than the noise in the image. Probably the M8, as with it and the Noctilux I'm pefectly comfortable in low light, and the low flare low light capability of the Noctilux is astounding.

Henning

I've been trying not to go there but, I'm now very curious. I was talking to T. Rose yesterday and he was about to come into possession of one. I was about to trade up from M6 to MP....but now the brain is working overtime. I shoot w/ 37/75 lux and wonder if the noise would be akin to grain from Neopan 400 exposed at 1600asa. Please advise.

[steve garza]

Oh yes.....what about focussing accuracy w/ fast apetrtures....any comments?

[HenningW]

I promised not to post photos taken with the camera, due to the firmware being at v0.23.

Focussing accuracy was fine; I shot with the 75/1.4 a lot; it was one of my favourite lenses on the camera. I didn't really find it different in focussing accuracy than my .72 bodies. The 50/1 and longer lenses were all fine. That said, I know a lot of people have problems focussing the 50/1 and 75/1/4; this camera won't make that better either.

Henning

[steve garza]

Thanks....

[halabar]

any comments on IQ sofar, especially with landscapes in mind?... how is detail compared with the 5D?

[NIKON KIU]

oooohhh , A Nikon SD!!!
Nice disguise...you're lucky one of the NHS members didn't catch you :)
Great Article,Thanks for posting, very refreshing after reading pages and pages of speculative posts.
This is the best RFF has to offer.
Cheers
Kiu

[HenningW]

any comments on IQ sofar, especially with landscapes in mind?... how is detail compared with the 5D?

Image quality, when trying for the best, was truly excellent. Quite comparable to that of the 5D with its best lenses; better in terms of detail resolution for the most part. With the Leica (and CV) wideangles, the quality was definitely better than that from the 5D with the generally available lenses for it.

Keep in mind that this is with a camera with v0.23 firmware.

Henning

[Mackinaw]

Do you know what the viewfinder magnification is?

Jim Bielecki

[MarcoS]

M8 viewfinder magnification is 0.68x

[MarcoS]

Henning, thanks lot for your feedback, much appreciated, actually more than the cold numbers of specs.

As for the noise compared to the 5D, which is indeed the best camera as far as noise is concerned, is M8 noise worse by 1 stop or more ? For example, is shooting at 1250 ISO like shooting the 5D at 3200 or it is more similar to 5D 1600 ISO ?

Thanks ! :)

[newyorkone]

I had a chance to use a pre-production M8 for review and a write-up end of last month, and now that the cat is out of the bag, here are some quick comments.

Firmware version was 0.23 so final image quality and some electronic operational items are certainly going to be different than what I got to use. Reasonably, I was asked not to post pictures from this camera. Various family members have gotten prints from it, but they really couldn't care much about which camera they came from. I took about 1600 pictures over 10 days.

I had a couple of interesting moments w.r.t. other people's reactions. A couple of times while walking around downtown someone came up and said 'nice camera' while sporting their own late model Leica's. I slipped my fingers over the 'M8' logo and held the camera back against my body, went into grumpy mode, grunted and walked past. Then we had a gathering at our house, and among others the neighbours were there. A friend of their son came to our door, asking for Christoph; I let him in and he saw the M8 on the counter and immediately oohed and aahed. Turn's out he's a photographer and while born in Vancouver now lives over the LeicaShop in Vienna. After that I 'disguised' it, but it still was recognized at times.

So - the camera. It handles like an M, except your hands miss the grip that the wind level gave you. The extra thickness is easy to get used to, and the responsiveness is very good. Because of the firmware issue, the testing I did on it is meaningless, but there was nothing negative to my perception. The shutter, while certainly different than the rubber-curtained one on the film camera, is not particularly loud, either in firing or winding. I think the dampening they did on the transplanted R9 shutter had some effect. It doesn't have a high frame rate, but neither do the film M's and that's not important to me. The shutter travel includes a detent for locking the exposure that was a bit hard to find, but a lot better with one of Tom's softies.

The covering is fine grained and a bit too slippery, especially since I missed the wind lever for holding the camera with the right hand. Some kind of molded bump like on the Hexar RF would be nice, but I'm not sure right now how that could be implemented in line with the desire to retain the 'classic' look.

Frame lines were bright and useable, and came up in the pairs that you would expect due to the traditional lens mount activation. The frame for the 24 is reasonably visible with glasses. It works with the Visoflex III, and it worked fine on the Aristophot I got recently, and I shot some pictures with the various Photars. I also put on my 17mm fisheye, and it looks like this:

http://www.archiphoto.com/Various/Incognito.jpg

All lenses that I tried, including 12, 15 and 21 CV; 21, 35/1.4, 50 and 90 ASPH, and older 35/2, new 50/2.8, 50/1, 75/1.4 and 135/4 worked, and worked well. I wouldn't hesitate to use any of them and there was no vignetting that wasn't visible on film as well. Those angled microlenses do their job, and erase one of the main objections I had re the RD-1, which was really not useable with lenses beyond the range of 24 to (slow) 75. Image quality was outstanding in general, the best were easily on a par or, in the case of wideangle shots, readily exceeded that of the best on the Canon 5D. My favourite lenses on the M8 were the 21 and 35/1.4 ASPH and 75/1.4, but I wouldn't hesitate to use any lens.

Menus were fine, and quite direct. There is no 'dedicated' button for ISO (full stops from 160 to 2500), but since you can get at two different menus by pushing two different buttons, changing ISO's was very fast and efficient. There are also good user parameter save options, so after you set them up you can go from low ISO with -1/3 compensation, colour, colour histogram, bright LCD screen, high resolution with DNG and fine jpeg with medium sharpening and low saturation to high ISO, not compensation, B&W, dim LCD screen and regular jpeg with higher sharpening in a very few button pushes. The dial that's concentric with the arrow pad is also very nice and works well.

One thing I didn't like was that after selecting a menu item, such as 'B&W', you had to press the 'Set' button, or the selection didn't take. If you just lightly pressed the shutter release to get out of the menus and into the shooting mode after selecting the B&W mode, you would still be in colour. Fortunately in the digital camera industry there has been a move away from that. Leica should follow suit.

Mainly, it felt like an M, and within a couple of minutes of picking it up you could shoot with it like an M, and except for the sound, lack of winding and having more than 36 shots, it really wasn't different than an M.

And that's good.

Henning


Thanks for the great writeup. Very informative. I have one question that you might consider silly but nonetheless I'm hoping you can clear up my confusion.

For example: When you mount a 28 mm lens, does the M8 show you 28 mm framelines or 35 mm framelines. If it is the former then I guess you have to get used to "what you see is not what you get" because of the 1.33x crop. Thanks for any info you might have. Take care.

[MarcoS]

And how about dynamic range ?

Ok, I stop it now... :D

[MarcoS]

Sorry Henning, another question... could you use the whole internal viewfinder to frame the 21 (obviously without parallax correction) or do you need an external one ?

[Mark Norton]

Thanks for the great writeup. Very informative. I have one question that you might consider silly but nonetheless I'm hoping you can clear up my confusion.

For example: When you mount a 28 mm lens, does the M8 show you 28 mm framelines or 35 mm framelines. If it is the former then I guess you have to get used to "what you see is not what you get" because of the 1.33x crop. Thanks for any info you might have. Take care.

When you mount a 28mm lens on the M8, it will show a frameline which matches the angle of view you will get. Both the viewfinder magnification and frameline masks have been adjusted to reflect the sensor crop factor.

[Ben Z]

All lenses that I tried, including 12, 15 and 21 CV; ...and older 35/2, ... and 135/4 worked, and worked well. I wouldn't hesitate to use any of them and there was no vignetting that wasn't visible on film as well. Those angled microlenses do their job, and erase one of the main objections I had re the RD-1, which was really not useable with lenses beyond the range of 24 to (slow) 75.

Henning, from this I take it that, especially assuming the production firmware will be even better, you don't feel any urgency image-wise to have one's existing lenses "coded"?

[AndyPiper]

Glad to hear the C/V 15mm does OK - I'd rather not buy the Zeiss or the Super-Wide-Tri-Elmar if there is any chance Leica will eventually come out with their own f/2.8 prime lens - so I'd like to stick with my C/V until then.

[rvaubel]

Glad to hear the C/V 15mm does OK - I'd rather not buy the Zeiss or the Super-Wide-Tri-Elmar if there is any chance Leica will eventually come out with their own f/2.8 prime lens - so I'd like to stick with my C/V until then.

Andy

I feel the same way too. If the M8 could handle the 15mm Heliar that is a revealation. My RD1 severely vignettes my Heliar, not that I can't handle it in photoshop but we are talking 3 F stops at least.

If HENNINGH says that the M8 could handle it, that portends well for the microlensing ability of the sensor.

Rex

[HenningW]

Henning, from this I take it that, especially assuming the production firmware will be even better, you don't feel any urgency image-wise to have one's existing lenses "coded"?

I can't see any need for it myself. I've gone over 40 years shooting with Leicas without having the focal length imprinted on the film; I can live without it now. I'm sure there is some benefit to coding the lenses other than EXIF data and flash use, but since I use flash so seldom with Leicas, and the main (probable) benefit to lens optimization would be with the 12 and 15 CV, and they don't have it anyway, I'll just leave it.

If I ever do get a wide Tri-Elmar, it'll have the coding in any case. :-)

Henning

[MikeL]

Speaking of flash, when looking at pictures of the M8 I can't see where the pop-up flash will be.

Just kidding.

[sdai]

I've gone over 40 years shooting with Leicas without having the focal length imprinted on the film; I can live without it now. I'm sure there is some benefit to coding the lenses other than EXIF data and flash use...

The 6-bit coding is designed to let the M8's internal processing engine recognize the lens you use and map out vignetting and maybe some other unwanted characteristics, Henning ... you definitely should do it.

I hope someone could run an extensive test for every single lens out there, before and after the 6-bit coding is done ... perhaps some of the uncorrected images would look fascinating.

[Nemo]

I would like to know how the new 28/2,8 ASPH performs (resolution, contrast, fingerprint)...
Thanks.

[vicmortelmans]

Do I understand right that when using auxiliary viewfinders, you cannot match to the focal length of the lens? So e.g. for a 70mm lens you need something like a 100mm auxiliary viewfinder?

[jaapv]

That is correct. 21 mm lens = 28 mm slide-on.

[egpj]

While the 6-bit tells the camera what lens you have mounted. The camera only does the necessary image corrections when you are shooting in jpeg mode. In raw no changes are made to the image, just the lens type is written to the exif data.

[jaapv]

While the 6-bit tells the camera what lens you have mounted. The camera only does the necessary image corrections when you are shooting in jpeg mode. In raw no changes are made to the image, just the lens type is written to the exif data.
But it may well be that the information can be used in the raw conversion software to automate some corrections as well.

[phototone]

But it may well be that the information can be used in the raw conversion software to automate some corrections as well.

Of course that is possible, but by the same token, once you arrive at the correction manually in the software from raw images, then I am sure you can save it as a preset, or "action" to run.

Just like in the raw window of Photoshop CS, once you adjust one of your digital raw files, you can save those corrections, then apply them to however many raw files you wish.

The main benefit of the lens coding would seem to me to be for in-camera produced jpg's, which I would not use, as I am a "raw" man.