Leica Digital M8

[Jamie_Roberts]

Crap. IE just ate another update

Anyway a short re-write...

Sean Reid's review site, http://www.reidreviews.com , has a fabulous, 3 part review of the M8 and compares it with the 5d and Epson RD1.

It's a subscription site, but well worth it (and I'm not connected in any way).
I also got the new 28 Elmarit (a 35 on the M8) and my gosh it's small: half the size of the 50 Summilux M (course the hood makes it bigger, but you get what I mean).

[Jamie_Roberts]

One more update:

I have my M8, and after playing with it, I can safely say the following:

1. Sharpest portable digial camera I've ever used, including a 1ds2; texture and microcontrast, and flat out detail, is astounding. Will you always see this in prints? Not unless you're printing large... but then you will, in my experience.
2. Easiest to manually focus camera I've ever used, digital or not
3. Easiest to hand-hold long exposures (no mirror!), and sharp enough for a good print, if I'm careful, down to about 1/20s.
4. Good to excellent Low and Hi ISO file quality; long exposures (over 5s) at lower ISOs is exceptional.

The M8 currently also has the following minuses. Except to say that they will definitely fix the issues, Leica has not commented officially yet:

1. IR sensitivity induces magenta cast to neutrals. This can be largely fixed with careful profiling of the camera for RAW shooting (and fixed in-camera for JPEGs). However, it appears there are certain IR heavy conditions where greens, especially, are effected even with good profiles.
   
   In these situations, the best solution is probably an IR-cut filter, but Leica so far has not commented officially, except, as mentioned, to say they will fix it. They have hinted they might supply M8 users with IR filters as part of the solution.
   
   For a non-filter solution, I've tweaked some profiles for the camera (they started off as Phase supplied P30 Tungsten profiles) in PM5 and they work very well for general use. You can download them here:
   
   http://www.fouldsroberts.ca/test/wor...8_profiles.zip
   
   It's important to note that with the profiles it's difficult (for me, anyway) to induce visible IR artifacts with the camera.
2. Streaking and artifacts at high ISOs in low light. The rumour is that this is a sensor defect / part flaw; Leica got a bad batch of sensors, evidently, and they will replace.

[diglloyd]

It's not hard to get the magenta cast at all. That's like saying as long as you don't shoot pink elephants, you'll never get a pink cast.

With the wrong subject, you're in trouble, all the time:

Infrared Contamination: Good Color Gone Bad

Shooting something like a wedding is bound to be a disaster eventually, if the guests choose the "wrong" clothing.

Using a profile to correct a color cast is likely to be an overall improvement with many images (a good "salvage job"), but since infrared reflectance can be as varied as color variation within a scene, "correcting" an image means making it right for some portions of the image, and wrong for other portions (still too magenta, or maybe too green).

[DouglasUrner]

Love to see some images . . .

Pretty please.

Doug

[Jamie_Roberts]

Originally Posted by diglloyd

It's not hard to get the magenta cast at all. That's like saying as long as you don't shoot pink elephants, you'll never get a pink cast.

{snipped}

Lloyd, did someone say it was hard to get the magenta cast on black synthetic? Sorry--I don't get your point.

I agree that the fix has to come from Leica, and preferably at the sensor level.

It's easy to get the magenta cast, but truly just as easy to get rid of it, actually.

You use an IR cut filter, or you use a work-around profile, which, right now, is actually a little weak in its renditions of fully saturated synthetic green and fully saturated magenta (for obvious reasons).

Fortunately, synthetic saturated greens are a lot more rare than

Having shot with this thing now for a couple of weeks, with those combinations I wouldn't hestitate in the slightest to shoot a wedding with a RAW workflow (a profile is not going to affect the in-camera JPEGs).


Doug--Pics are coming