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LEICA M8 - Is it for you?
By Irakly Shanidze
I purchased a just-released Leica M8 in November of 2006, just before a long trip to Russia. At the time, the camera was nearly impossible to get. In fact, my dealer Sam Shoshan stated that I got a body meant for Sally Mann who was out of country or something... Well, anyway, long story short...
I have been shooting with my M8 almost every day. It effectively rendered my Canon 1D Mark II useless for street and event photography. So, it's been three months, and I guess now there is time to share what I think. Hopefully, it will give those Leica die-hards who are contemplating going digital and photographers who want to enter the legend, make an informed decision. It's almost $5,000 after all, just for the body.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
It looks and feels like a real Leica M. Well, it is a real M, so it does what it should. It is a formidable camera, but let's talk about its great features later. Some things did not impress me (no image quality discussion yet):
- It is about 1/5th thicker than my M6, and it makes the camera somewhat cumbersome.
- Viewfinder lines are dimmer than in my M6, and it's really annoying, especially when the lighting is poor.
- The viewfinder has .68 magnification. Considering the frame crop factor of 1.33, I would prefer .72. Its accessory x1.25 magnifier helps, but it is a $250 toy.
- The camera is MUCH louder than other M bodies, no matter what they say. It is attributed to a new vertical traveling multi-lamel metal shutter design. You get 1/8000 sec. top shutter speed, but there is a price for not carrying those ND filters around.
- Another factor contributing to excessive noise is motorized shutter cock-up. Personally, I hate that. I do not understand what the logic was behind this decision. Manual cock-up would be much quieter and energy efficient. I am sure it would make the camera lighter, too. This is something I really liked with the Epson RD-1.
- The power switch is not well thought-out. On several occasions, it engaged by itself, probably by rubbing against the internal padding of my camera bag. It would be no big deal, if it was not draining the battery to death.
- The M8, much like the M7, offers aperture priority mode. This is kind of fashionable these days, but there is no compensation dial. Exposure compensation is accessed via user menu, and I find it profoundly inconvenient. Sometimes lighting and overall tonality changes so fast that there is no time for navigating the menu. Exposure compensation should be accessible without taking an eye from the viewfinder. The M7 is not a champ in terms of compensation ergonomics, but the M8 is even worse. There is a rotating navigation wheel on the back. Why does it not act as a compensation dial when the shutter button is half-depressed?
- Battery and SD-card access is achieved by removing a bottom plate. I love that. However, the surface under the plate is absolutely underutilized. It would be cool to have an impression for a spare SD-card down there, because the space totally permits that.
- The M8 recognizes new Leica 6-bit lens coding. This is so very cool, but what about old Leica and current Zeiss ZM lenses? Leica offers a $100 upgrade for some lenses, but most old glass is out. For some other manufacturer, it would be just fine, but most Leica shooters have lenses that go back to the 1960s and for a reason. Why does the M8 not have a manual lens data entry in the menu? I have a feeling that I know why.
- Leica bundles M8 with two IR-cut filters for color photography. Well, not quite. First you buy the camera and then you register it on the Leica website and choose filters for your lenses. This is heartwrenchingly thoughtful, but out of four lenses that I use everyday, only one has a lucky match in that Leica list. Leica recommends you ask a dealer for third-party solutions. Well, have you tried to ask your dealer for a B+W 486 IR-cut chrome Series 7 filter? Try it and feel my pain.
- The M8 has ISO range of 160-320-640-1250-2500. I would not mind having ISO values of 100 (I am not lighting my candles for 50), 250, 800, and 1600 in addition to that.
PERFORMANCE
Now, let's talk about image quality. By now everybody knows about M8's hypersensitivity to the infrared part of the spectrum. Most people who do not have the M8 interpret this fact as a bad thing and even use it to justify their decision to abstain from buying the camera. Well, it is always cooler to tell friends "nah, Leica screwed up this time; I am not a moron," than "I cannot afford it."
In fact, this very IR sensitivity is a blessing in disguise. Who else makes a digital camera that lets one shoot infrared pictures? Just put an IR-pass filter on it and try. I did and liked it very much.
IR sensitivity is not a bad thing for B&W shooting either. What actually happens is black colour on some synthetic fabrics and hair dyes is rendered purple. When converted to B&W, it just looks like black with lots of detail in it. Isn't that what we all want?
For those who prefer shooting in color, Leica includes two IR-cut filters of their choice for free. I heard some people say "right, now we have to use some bloody filters." Hey, what about the old times when we had to use yellow filters on B&W for better skin tones?
Image quality is important, but it's not everything. The camera is very responsive with its near zero shutter lag. In fact, Leica claims that the M8 has the shortest response time among all digital cameras. Usual Leica applications do not call for 8 fps, so it does not have one. Frankly, I never used its continuous 3 fps mode.
The M8's battery is not something to write home about. Leica claims up to 500 images per charge, but it's a manipulation of the truth at best. After being spoiled with outstanding Canon 1D Mark II battery life, 200 or less images per charge did not seem very exciting. Since the battery is Lithium-ion, it does not do well in cold temperatures. A fully charged battery dies in less than 30 minutes at -20C (some users, however, report much better battery performance, but I cannot confirm their findings). It was rather annoying especially because spare batteries are on backorder everywhere. In fact, the only accessory that is not on backorder at the moment is a handgrip, a totally useless $200 piece of fine German design. This is certainly my opinion, and some people love the grip, but if the camera is so dependent on power, why doesn't the grip have a battery compartment? It would be the logical feature to expect for this price. Another puzzling power related issue is a battery charger. Despite its basic construction (no refresh and discharge capabilities), it is almost the size of the M8 body with non-retractable prongs. They can be removed and replaced with other country-specific prongs, but this solution is definitely not for the photojournalists and travel photographers that comprise the primary customer base for Leica M cameras. The charger needs to be slim, with folding prongs for at least two major travel areas: North America and Europe.
Even taking in to consideration everything that I said before, the Leica M8 is a great camera. A seamless combination of full control and instant feedback formerly available only with medium format cameras with digital backs is a blast. Since rangefinder design is not "what you see is what you get," ability to see the picture instantly gives you the best of both worlds.
At ISO640 and below, image quality is outstanding. I've shot Epson RD-1 (the first M-mount digital rangefinder), and the M8 makes it bite the dust in many respects. It is not to say that RD-1 is a bad camera because quite the opposite is true. All it means is that the M8 is better. Above 640, it is rather noisy, and color is not terribly great. However, in B&W, the noise looks very much like film grain, to which no Leica shooter is a stranger. Shooting Ilford Delta 3200 pushed one stop in low light is something that I used to do all the time.
POST-PROCESSING
Leica M8 is shipped with Capture One LE for image processing. I truly believe that Leica did it out of desperation, because at the moment of the camera's official release, no other RAW converter would really understand the Leica DNG files that are supposed to represent a universal RAW format of the future. Adobe Photoshop CS2 understood the files somewhat, but there were some real problems with interpreting an embedded color profile, and in Bridge, all pictures looked like they were soaked in magenta dye. The same was true for Adobe Lightroom Beta 4.1. Adobe reacted swiftly and added Leica M8 format support in its update 3.6 of Adobe Camera RAW. Photoshop CS3 Beta and the pre-release version of Lightroom 1.0, which the official version is about to hit shelves, understand Leica DNGs with no problem at all. Apple Aperture 1.5, however, is totally convinced that even though the file size is 10MB, image dimensions are 320x240. Considering a host of elegant features, Aperture would be my choice because of its seamless OS X integration if it was not for this tiny little problem. For now, I use Lightroom 1.0 and ACR if I need the file upsized. Speaking of upsizing, M8 files shot at ISO320 and below are excellent candidates for developing into files with higher megapixel counts than they were shot. High-performance lenses with excellent microcontrast and no anti-aliasing filter reveal so much fine detail that Leica DNGs can be opened in ACR as 26.4 megapixel files without noticeable loss of sharpness or image degradation.
The ultimate test of image quality for any digital camera is print quality. I made prints with my Epson 2200 and also wet prints in a professional lab. Both colour and B&W 10x14" (24x36cm) prints look fabulous; rich in detail, excellent tonal gradations, sharp where they need to be. In fact, a lab technician who has more than 25 years of experience asked me what I scanned my film with. He could not believe the TIFFs that I brought were from a digital camera until I actually pulled it out of the bag.
My conclusion is that the Leica M8 delivers. It has a steeper learning curve than most digital cameras, but once the learning is over, it's a joy to use.
Here is an example of Leica M8 B&W work:
Leica Summilux 1.4/50, f/8, studio lighting.
Here is an example of M8 colour work:
Zeiss 2.8/28 Biogon ZM, no IR-cut filter, studio strobe, no colour correction.
Here is an example of low light B&W:
ISO2500, Summilux 1.4/50, available light.
At last, an infrared image:
Zeiss 2.8/28 Biogon ZM, Heliopan IR-pass filter, ISO320
Irakly Shanidze Bio
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