M8 Photokina Report (+ smidge on ZI and CV)

[AusDLK]

I have just blogged both words and pictures this evening from Cologne reporting on my first afternoon at Photokina.

I have much to say about the M8, R-D1, and just a smidge on Zeiss Ikon and Cosina/Voigtlander.

Travel to my blog to read and see.

Please comment here in this thread for others to read if you are so inclined.

[Ben Z]

The M8 sounds hollow and plastic. Even cheap

I'm not sure what plastic and cheap sound like, though I do have a sort of notion of what hollow sounds like (the sound my bank account will make if I buy an M8 comes immediately to mind ) . I had an R8 so I know what it sounded like and the M8 is supposed to have the same shutter, minus the flopping mirror, so I would expect it to sound the same, only quieter. In any case, having a 250th flash sync for daylight fill-in, and 3 full stop speeds above 1000 for opening up the lens in daylight to blur out the background, I would be willing to forego the familiar sound of the old shutter. What I want to see are some RAW files from a sale-ready M8. All I really care about is what the images look like.

[ghost]

hehehe. if it makes you feel any better, the sound doesn't actually make it plastic and cheap. you still get to pay 5 gees for one.

[sreidvt]

Originally Posted by ghost

hehehe. if it makes you feel any better, the sound doesn't actually make it plastic and cheap. you still get to pay 5 gees for one.

The sound may grow on you. It seemed strange to me at first but I came to like it. I think it actually sounds quite precise and it is very quiet.

Thanks for the report.

Cheers,

Sean

[AusDLK]

>The sound may grow on you

Sean --

It might and as I said I'll probably get used to it and maybe even grow to love it.

I heard the camera only in the vastness of the exhibit hall and for a few dozen clicks. The sound was very different then what I expected.

You and others have much more experience with this new camera then I and I am giving myself permission to change my mind in the coming weeks.

[Tom Diaz]

Originally Posted by AusDLK

I have just blogged both words and pictures this evening from Cologne reporting on my first afternoon at Photokina.

I have much to say about the M8, R-D1, and just a smidge on Zeiss Ikon and Cosina/Voigtlander.

Travel to my blog to read and see.

Please comment here in this thread for others to read if you are so inclined.

Dave, did you (or anyone else attending) get more information about the actual pixel processing done by the firmware?

Is the firmware final, as rumored?

Were any features added in the final firmware? (For instance, ability to manually select a lens focal length or lens type for lenses without the six-bit coding?)

[jlw]

Apple’s Aperture software will probably be the reason I switch from a Windows PC to an iMac for my photo work.

Better check the list of supported cameras before you take the plunge.

Aperture sounds like just what I need, but it doesn't work with R-D 1 raw files, and so far there's no sign of M8 raw-file support either.

Yeah, you could convert your files to 16-bit TIFF, but that kind of misses the point of a raw-file-based management system.

[DaveSee]

Originally Posted by jlw

Better check the list of supported cameras before you take the plunge.

Aperture sounds like just what I need, but it doesn't work with R-D 1 raw files, and so far there's no sign of M8 raw-file support either.

Yeah, you could convert your files to 16-bit TIFF, but that kind of misses the point of a raw-file-based management system.

Huh? The M8 saves its "raw files" as Adobe DNG, a move to escape the h/w lock-in of other camera "raw" files. Now if your favorite, non-Adobe app doesn't support DNG, then you've traded h/w lock-in with s/w lock-in

rgds,
Dave

[jlw]

Originally Posted by DaveSee

Huh? The M8 saves its "raw files" as Adobe DNG, a move to escape the h/w lock-in of other camera "raw" files. Now if your favorite, non-Adobe app doesn't support DNG, then you've traded h/w lock-in with s/w lock-in

Yeah, unfortunately this situation is a bit more complicated than it appears on the surface. We've been all through it on the R-D 1 forum. What we've learned is that the only DNG files that Aperture supports are those generated by cameras that it supports natively (those shown on this list.)

As it says on the Aperture specs page, "DNG files must be generated by the Adobe DNG Converter, with the "Convert to Linear Image" option turned off, and created from RAW formats that are otherwise already supported by Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later" (emphasis added.)

In other words, Aperture natively handles the raw files produced by, say, the Nikon D200 and saved in Nikon's proprietary NEF format, so it also will handle those files after you've converted them to DNG format by Adobe DNG Converter (if you keep the linear-image option turned off.)

But Aperture does NOT natively handle the raw files produced by the Epson R-D 1 and saved in Epson's proprietary ERF format, and it also will not handle those files even if you convert them to DNG format (although it will work with them if you convert them to JPEG, TIFF, PSD, etc.)

There's a certain tendency to blame Apple for this state of affairs, but I suspect that a big part of the problem is that DNG is not quite as "platform-agnostic" as Adobe would like us to believe.

So where is this going to leave Leica M8 users? Well, it's hard to say. The M8 is not currently on the list of supported cameras, so I'd say the odds are that its files aren't handled yet. Neither are the raw files of Leica's other high-end product, the DMR. Now of course, if the M8 takes off in a big way, Apple might feel a revision or update would be justified to add support for it -- but that would be speculative.

I suppose it's possible that the M8's DNG files are somehow "generic" enough that Aperture will swallow them without complaint, but I wouldn't want to invest in the software without trying it first. Maybe someone here will...

[jlw]

I just got an idea for a great Leica accessory: a small housing equipped with a hot-shoe foot and a stereo headphone jack. You'd slide it into the M8's hot shoe and, whenever you took a picture, the sync contact would signal it to play back through the headphones the sound of an M3 shutter, recorded on a flash-memory chip inside the device.

[saxshooter]

Originally Posted by jlw

I just got an idea for a great Leica accessory: a small housing equipped with a hot-shoe foot and a stereo headphone jack. You'd slide it into the M8's hot shoe and, whenever you took a picture, the sync contact would signal it to play back through the headphones the sound of an M3 shutter, recorded on a flash-memory chip inside the device.

ROTFL! Priceless!

[Ken Ford]

Originally Posted by jlw

I just got an idea for a great Leica accessory: a small housing equipped with a hot-shoe foot and a stereo headphone jack. You'd slide it into the M8's hot shoe and, whenever you took a picture, the sync contact would signal it to play back through the headphones the sound of an M3 shutter, recorded on a flash-memory chip inside the device.

Make it with Bluetooth, and I'm there!

[jlw]

Originally Posted by Ken Ford

Make it with Bluetooth, and I'm there!

Come to think of it, looking at the new Nike+iPod gizmo (which lets a sensor in your running shoes communicate with your iPod to store running statistics, match the music to your pace, etc.) I suppose that's not technically ludicrous. Ridiculous, yes -- ludicrous, no. (I can say that without insulting anyone because I'm the goofball who thought of the original idea.)

So, following the same principle, there could be a whole suite of audio support tools for the film-nostalgist photographer who has been forced into the embrace of digital (as long as you're willing to listen to an iPod while taking pictures, that is.)

For example, you could choose your shutter speed sound: the well-bred snick of a Leica M, the satisfying ker-WHUMP of a Super D Graflex, or anything in between -- all in CD-quality stereo, of course. As the data is being written to the memory card, you could enjoy the subtle whir of a Canon P film advance or the classical shriek of a Nikon F-36 motor drive. Let's see, what would be an appropriate soundtrack for chimping? Perhaps the clatter of a Bell & Howell 16mm projector? The intermittent cluck of an Ektagraphic E-3?

The concept of a sound environment could even be extended to other phases of picture-taking -- so that when you're taking a break to change memory cards, for example, you could hear the voice of Heidi Klum asking the assistant to bring her a mineral water while the stylists argue about the hairdo...

[IGMeanwell]

Originally Posted by jlw

The concept of a sound environment could even be extended to other phases of picture-taking -- so that when you're taking a break to change memory cards, for example, you could hear the voice of Heidi Klum asking the assistant to bring her a mineral water while the stylists argue about the hairdo...

This is brilliant... I don't even want excuses; I just want results and this feature in a camera by next year.

In all seriousness you would need some serious noise reduction to cancel out the sound of the shutter in order to mask it for the recorded shutter sound. That being said I would absolutely love nikon to create a system so their shutters are virtually silent.

[stefdnk]

Originally Posted by DaveSee
Huh? The M8 saves its "raw files" as Adobe DNG, a move to escape the h/w lock-in of other camera "raw" files. Now if your favorite, non-Adobe app doesn't support DNG, then you've traded h/w lock-in with s/w lock-in


I suppose it's possible that the M8's DNG files are somehow "generic" enough that Aperture will swallow them without complaint, but I wouldn't want to invest in the software without trying it first. Maybe someone here will...

Actually Aperture will only see the thumbnail and a small preview of M8 dng files. And if you try to develop it, it only "develops" the preview.

Lightroom b4 shows thumbs and develops M8 dng,s as does ACR.

And yes, i have tried.

[yoshimura]

Coming back to the shutter noise question, I saw on a French retailer's site a Photokina leaflet which shows the internals of the M8: the shutter is a Copal, which means that basically it is akin to millions of Japanese SLRs, DSLRs, and Cosina's rangefinders ...plus the R-D1 . No wonder the M8 shutter noise rings a bell...Follow the link:
http://www.photosuffren.com/leica/leica%20m8.htm

[J. Borger]

Originally Posted by yoshimura

Coming back to the shutter noise question, I saw on a French retailer's site a Photokina leaflet which shows the internals of the M8: the shutter is a Copal, which means that basically it is akin to millions of Japanese SLRs, DSLRs, and Cosina's rangefinders ...plus the R-D1 . No wonder the M8 shutter noise rings a bell...Follow the link:
http://www.photosuffren.com/leica/leica%20m8.htm

The shutter does not sound at all like the one in the R-D1 .. nor as the shutters in any of the Canon DSLR's i used to own.

[DaveSee]

Originally Posted by stefdnk

Actually Aperture will only see the thumbnail and a small preview of M8 dng files. And if you try to develop it, it only "develops" the preview.

Lightroom b4 shows thumbs and develops M8 dng,s as does ACR.

And yes, i have tried.

Well, well... curiouser and curiouser... so these other Adobe products accept the M8 files, and Adobe's Aperture just the tumbs/preview? Maybe that "save as linear" aspect jlw mentioned is the catch. Thanks for making this clearer.

And thanks AusDLK for the original thread! Sorry to mildly hijack it

[EmilGil]

Originally Posted by DaveSee

Well, well... curiouser and curiouser... so these other Adobe products accept the M8 files, and Adobe's Aperture just the tumbs/preview? Maybe that "save as linear" aspect jlw mentioned is the catch. Thanks for making this clearer.

And thanks AusDLK for the original thread! Sorry to mildly hijack it

Adobe introduced DNG and is preparing the launch of Lightroom. It is Apple that makes Aperture...

[DaveSee]

Originally Posted by EmilGil

Adobe introduced DNG and is preparing the launch of Lightroom. It is Apple that makes Aperture...

Ooops... got my Apples and Adobes mixed up... thanks.

Incidentally, I just "scanned" one of the M8 DNG files posted at this URL
with VueScan... very quick, am very pleased!

http://tinyurl.com/pjyt5

rgds,
Dave

[jaapv]

Originally Posted by stefdnk

Actually Aperture will only see the thumbnail and a small preview of M8 dng files. And if you try to develop it, it only "develops" the preview.

Lightroom b4 shows thumbs and develops M8 dng,s as does ACR.

And yes, i have tried.

Leica told me that they fine-tuned their files to give the best results with Capture One, which comes bundled with the camera. They specifically mentioned that the results with Adobe were not as good.

[anabasis]

How abt the new Tri-elmarit? Seems one of the bodies in ur blog had it mounted. Any opinions?

JCA

[J. Borger]

My impressions from the M8 and lenses at Photokina.

M8:

I did not compare the shuttersound of the M8 with the M7 ... because i did not feel any need to ... the sound of the M8 is electronic and to my ears far from cheap .. what Sean describes as 'precise" is more the way i felt.
It is also in my perception a lot more silent than the sound of the shutter of my R-D1.
The M8 did not disappoint me at all .. the menus and handling are so straigtforward i wonder if i will ever need the manual.
The battery and sd-card hiding behind the base-plate looked very convenient to me .. i really liked that.

New 16/18/21Tri Elmar:
Too bulky .. i will not even consider

Viewfinder for Tri-elmar:
- UGLY & Bulky .. looks rediculous on top of the M8 ..... like a Ski-Box on the roof of a Ferrari
- unaccaptable amount of barreldistortion (the problem i have with all external finders) in this respect i found the older still available Leica zoomfinder a lot better (and far more stylish if this matters to you)
The Barreldistortion does not matter very much for reportage type of work ,.... but if you like to include buildings in your pictures with straight lines it gets problematic

So my advise for the Tri-elmar and new finder would be: try to see them in actual size (and try the finder) before you buy ... compactness and "getting less attention in the streets" are hardley valid arguments anymore if you mount those on the M8.

Last but not least .. i tried the 21 Elmarit to see what i got without an external finder .... well you get a serious bit more compared to what you see using the whole viewfinder... but i think i could addapt to the difference.
What you position exactly at the border of the viewfinder gets just enough space to breath in the actual picture.


One interesting point if you read the october number of LFI magazine is about the lens-coding. If you read the article it becomes clear that the Sensor peformed better in the vignetting department as expected.
So the only need for coding is the Exif info .. and some vignetting correction for the wides & noctilux. It is explicetely stated .. the coding might not be necessary because the vignetting is minimal and nothing that can not be accounted for with a simple use of the slider in the rawconvertor.
For normal and telelenses .. the in camera-corrections are ZERO anyway!

For those who are still wondering what the little round window besides the shutterspeeddial is for ... it is a device necessary to estimate the apperture setting of the lens.

Han

[MarkM6]

You complained about the shutter sound being unlike the traditional M but you prefer the RD-1 body?

Do I misunderstand something in your blog post or you are the first blind photographer in the history?

???

[AusDLK]

Some comments to the comments:

>New 16/18/21Tri Elmar:
>Too bulky .. i will not even consider

This lens is hardly bulky. I use the origiinal Tri-Elmar daily and this lens is much smaller.

One thing I didn't like was the fact that it will not accept normal, threaded filters. The rather nice lens hood threads on using outside threads and appears to be mainly necessary to prevent the front lens element from being scratched -- it protudes a bit.

The Leica guy said that there would be some 67mm (!!!) filters available with a special adapter of some sort. Now that will make the lens awkward and bulky to use.

I realize that the lens is quite wide but this filter situation is bad news if the lens is to be used on a pre-M8 camera with b&w film.

>Viewfinder for Tri-elmar:
>- UGLY & Bulky .. looks rediculous on top of the M8 ..... like a Ski-Box on the
>roof of a Ferrari

The finder is much bigger then I was expecting. I saw only not completely functional prototypes so I cannot comment on its optical performance. But its sheer size and lack of style is making me reconsider my posting awhile back that I didn't really feel much interest for the new ZI wides.

>You complained about the shutter sound being unlike the traditional M but
>you prefer the RD-1 body?

>Do I misunderstand something in your blog post or you are the first blind
>photographer in the history?

I didn't say that I preferred the R-D1 one over the M8. I did say that I appreciate many of the design elements of the R-D1 that I wish the Leica had copied -- or done first.

And I'm not sure what being blind might have to do with my comments on how the shutter sounds...