When I decided that I wanted a Leica M8, it was mainly for two reasons: 1) I wanted a digital rangefinder. 2) I had seen so many great shots taken with Leica M8s and M9s, that I wanted a Leica for myself. Now here I am in possession of a beautiful, chrome finished M8 (which in fact had my personal budget for the next year or so go “puff”), and I can’t decide whether to love or to hate it.

I should be lucky, shouldn’t I? I mean, not everyone can have a Leica, and I have one. I even have one of the most appreciated lenses for the M8, the Zeiss Biogon T* 2/35 ZM, which is a great performer. And I enjoy shooting this combo so much that I can hardly put it down. So what is it that I am unhappy with? I’ll tell you.

Coming from point-and-shoots, I am used to holding the camera in front of my face, being able to move it around to see how perspective changes, to get the same final image as on the preview screen etc. etc. Now the only perspective I can take is the one that comes from where my right eye is, and in order to change it I have to change my whole body’s position. The metering is center-weighted, so I often get under- and overexposed pictures. When loading the DNGs into Lightroom, they look completely different than the M8’s JPEGs. And finally – shooting the M8 without a UV/IR filter sucks big time. Believe me, I can’t get a single shot to look right – except I convert to b&w.

So in effect, the M8 is soooo much fun to shoot, but the pictures don’t work out as I’d like them to. Okay, that filter problem can be solved, but the rest … I wonder if I’ll get used to not being able to change perspective so freely, and to the M8’s metering ‘creativeness’.

So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to let it rest until I receive the filter, hoping that then the colors will look right in LR. Then, I’m going to give myself some more time to see if I can get myself to be as creative with the M8 as I am with the E-P1. I do sincerely hope so, as I would probably deeply regret it had I to part with the M8 again. But if I still can’t get any decent shot with it by the end of summer – I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it.

Am I perhaps too spoiled by the E-P1’s ease-of-use?

Damn. I love the M8! But then I hate it! And then I love it again! And then …

EDIT: I decided I might compensate for FCF (False Color Frustration) by only shooting the M8 in black&white until I receive the UV/IR filter. Ingenious!