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!
Buy the Carl Zeiss Biogon T* 35mm f/2 ZM lens from B&H Photo Video Audio!
Großseelheim, Germany, 31st of May, 2010.
 "At the bus stop" | Leica M8 + Biogon 35/2 @ f/2, 1/6000 sec, ISO 160
I realized that a dead pixel on my M8’s sensor is causing a vertical line to be visible in high-ISO shots. It’s not visible below ISO 1250, though, so in good-to-mediocre light it’s not much of a problem. The dead pixels don’t bug me either, as they aren’t visible normally, but this line is, even in web-sized pictures. (The line is near the right-hand edge of the frame.)
 M8, ISO 2500, 1/30 sec, JPEG from camera (resized)  100% crop from above As you see, it’s only slightly visible, but it is annoying. I will get in contact with customer service in Solms, and I hope that this problem can be solved by mapping the dead pixels (as another L-Camera Forum user suggested), and that the sensor unit doesn’t need to be changed. (After all, the sensor is working perfectly apart from this.)
UPDATE: Another L-Camera Forum user suggested that I try the Pixel Fixer software, with which you can map hot pixels and ‘repair’ your RAW files. What can I say – I got rid of the problem! It even found two more hot pixels, and with specifying which pixels cause the vertical lines (I did indeed find another one at close inspection), I successfully removed the pixels as well as the lines from my DNGs. Great software! Depending on what answer I get from Leica Customer Service, I might continue fighting aberrant pixels with this software – it is probably much cheaper than having my M8’s sensor replaced.
UPDATE 2: Leica Customer Service replied to my inquiry, estimating they’d have to charge me approx. 120 € for mapping the faulty pixels. Whilst probably being much more affordable than having the sensor unit replaced, I think the most economical way to deal with this problem is to continue using Pixel Fixer unless more faulty pixels start appearing. Maybe in due time my M8 is going to need to be serviced anyway, who knows.
This boules field is part of a recently redesigned area in the same local park near the humanities that has already been featured in some previous pictures. I haven’t yet observed anyone playing boules there.
 "Empty boules field" | Leica M8 + Biogon 35/2 @ f/2, 1/180 sec, ISO 160 Processed from RAW in Lightroom 3 beta 2, then merged color and b&w version in Paint.NET. The slight yellow tint in the picture is due to the absence of a UV/IR cut filter in front of the lens*. I hope to receive one soon, though.
* FYI: The Leica M8’s sensor suffers from extended sensitivity to ultraviolet and infrared light, due to a very weak filter in front of the sensor. This can cause color ‘aberrations’ in the resulting pictures. To circumvent this problem, a UV/IR blocking filter is required to be mounted in front of every lens used with the M8.
This time with the Zeiss Biogon T* 2/35 ZM. I received the lens yesterday, and I’m verry happy with it. It has rich and warm color, great contrast, the famous Zeiss ‘3D pop’, smooth bokeh, smoothly operating focus and aperture rings – in summary, it’s pretty perfect. I’m glad I traded the Nokton 35/1.4 in for this!
 Self portrait with Leica M8 + Biogon 35/2 @ f/2, 1/45 sec, ISO 160 I don’t think I’m going to miss the one extra stop of speed of the Nokton, as the Biogon is just so much nicer in every other respect. It is considerably longer (physically) than the Nokton (which is close to being a ‘pancake’), but it has no focus shift whatsoever and is tack sharp already at f/2, becoming even sharper from f/2.8 onwards. It’s also twice the money, but the price difference surely shows (and is surely worth it).
I’ll post some more significant pictures soon, when I’ve had the time to shoot the lens a bit more.
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June 4th, 2010, 7:35 pm | 
