Leica M8 - Long Term ReviewBy Jimmy Hughes | |
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We clicked with:
Image quality
70 years worth of lenses to play with
Viewfinder lets you see outside the frame
'Sensible' ISO settings
Shots in the dark:
IR filtration problems
1950s ergomonics
Design is extremely limiting
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The Leica M8 is a curious mix; 1950s ergonomics and styling meet state-of-the-art (well, the state of 2006's art) digital technology. The two don't so much combine as collide.
Modern DSLRs allow the camera to be tailored to suit your preferred way of working. The Leica M8 - with its 10.3 MP Kodak-sourced sensor - is very different; you do things its way. If you can't accept this, don't buy a Leica. It's that simple.
The Camera
Unlike DSLRs, the Leica M8's rangefinder does not view through the lens but instead uses a series of 'brightline' frames on a side-mounted viewfinder - you focus manually by bringing the image into alignment in a central section of this viewfinder. The bright lines help define the field of view, depending on the lens fitted. Irrespective of whether you're using a 28mm lens or a 90mm lens, the image you see is exactly the same. You just frame using a different set of bright lines. This enables you to see things outside the lens' field of view, but what you 'see' in the viewfinder is not what you'll see in the finished image. To use a rangefinder camera successfully, you need to visualize the end result in advance.
Of course, it's not exactly the same rangefinder as before, because the sensor is smaller than the 35mm frame. Like Canon's 1D mk III, the Leica M8 uses an APS-H sensor, requiring a 1.33x crop to the 35mm field of view. This means some of Leica's classic lenses retain their usefulmess; a 28mm approximates a 35mm in the film days and a 35mm gets close to the standard 50mm lens field of view. A fine lens for the Leica M8 lens is the Carl Zeiss 40mm f2.8 Sonnar - the lens that partnered Rollei's short-lived film RF Rangefinder. It's actually an L39 screw lens, used with a 35mm screw-to-M adaptor. And this highlights one of the great hidden joys of the Leica M8… backwards compatibility.
You can use vintage Leica screw or bayonet-mount lenses, as well as new Leica, Voightlander and Zeiss lenses made today on the Leica M8. It's a real joy to be able to shoot digitally with an uncoated lens made in the late 1920s or 1930s. Even the various 50mm Summicron lenses (made from 1953 onwards) have their own individual signature, and this can help give you images a 'different' vintage sort of look. This goes nicely with the overall retro feel of the camera, too.
Retro has its limits, though. The Leica M8's body is awkward to grip, and is not shaped to fit the hand, although there are aftermarket grips and such that help. Arguably, the slight shape change to accommodate a sensor and the lack of a film wind lever to act as convenient thumb rest combine to make the Leica M8 even harder to hold than Leica's film rangefinders.
Cameras are very personal things, though. What feels right in your hands, may not appeal to someone else. In the case of the Leica M Rangefinder, opinions (for and against) are more polarised than with SLRs. However, if you use a Leica M8, as well as a DSLR, you may find the experience… frustrating. The frame lines only show about 85 per cent of the final image, and if you shoot close up (say 1m to 1.5m) the framing can be very inaccurate.
An unrelated niggle, having to remove the base to get at the memory card or charge the battery is particularly annoying. It's strange, because taking the base off to change films never troubled me with film Leicas, but it rankles on the Leica M8.
Picture Quality
Then there's the sensitivity to infra-red; You get strange colour shifts with man-made fabrics when you don't use a special IR filter on the lens. A garment that looks black to the eye, comes out a sort of reddish-brown. Something that looks green may be rendered black/brown. Or, in this case, a chocolate-brown top takes on a very strange hue:
It can be almost impossible to correct these colour shifts, so having an IR filter on each lens is vital. Unless you shoot in black & white, of course, which is positively wonderful through the Leica M8.
Some are bemused by the fixed ISO settings, but it shows that Leica is thinking of its older client base; the five settings (notionally ISO 160, 320, 640, 1250, 2500) fit snugly into the exposure characteristics Ilford FP4, Kodak Tri-X, Tri-X pushed a stop, Tri-X pushed two and Kodak 'Magic' Film repsectively. These are happy, familiar places for a photographer used to putting roll upon roll of these films through their camera. And don't even think about using flash, because this is a natural light wonder
The experience of using a Leica M8 may be a mixed one, but when you view the images on-screen, everything changes. Shoot RAW (DNG, actually… so little worry about RAW files running out of converter in the future), it has wonderfully subtle tonality and beautifully natural colours - a combination of effortless sharpness, and smooth clean detail. With a good lens, many pictures produce an almost 3D effect.
The Leica M8 is at its best in situations that are close-up and personal. It's not a camera that allows you to keep your distance. It means physically moving about to find the right position - not standing in one spot and letting your zoom lens do all the work. You also need to 'know' your preferred lens, so you can position yourself in advance to take pictures. While this restricts what you can do, it also liberates you at the same time..
Conclusion
Any relationship with the Leica M8 is bound to be a complicated one. There are many things about the Leica M8 that are easy to like, but it's not a 'fast' camera, and it's not always easy to use. Taking pictures with a Leica M8 is a massive culture shock after using a modern DSLR with a zoom lens. But there's no question about image quality; for naturalness and real-looking pictures, the Leica M8 has few equals.
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Sensor
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10.3 megapixel Kodak CCD Sensor (1.33x crop, no AA filter)
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LCD monitor
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230,000 dot 2.5-inch LCD monitor
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Sensitivity
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ISO 160-2,500 (no auto function)
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Focus Points
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Manual only using split-image rangefinder
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White balance
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Auto, six manual presets/Kelvin 2000K to 13,000K
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Stabilisation/on board flash
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You're joking!
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Continuous shooting
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Two frames per second (single slot only)
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Storage
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SD only - up to 4GB
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Battery
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Li-ion rechargeable
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Lens Mount
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Leica M Bayonet - and L39 Screw lenses with Adaptor
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Other / Key features
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Er, big red Leica dot on the front
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Price: £2,790
Info: uk.leica-camera.com
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| Discuss this article, 1 of 7 messages, read more: |  Alan Sircom - Editor | |
| Posted: 02/09/08 14:15:59 59 | One of the edited parts from Jimmy Hughes review reads as follows: [...]Henri Cartier-Bresson enigmatically described the Leica as “like a big warm kiss - a shot from a revolver - like the psychoanalyst’s couch.” It’s a camera that comes with a huge legacy. Many of the 20th century’s most iconic defining images were taken with Leicas. No camera brand has more mystique, more heritage, more romance.[...] And that asks a big question of us today - is romance dead? It seems from this review that you've really got to love what the Leica offers to justify it. And maybe that's a buying decision wrapped up in romance than reality. Is that a problem in 2008? |
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