Revisiting the Leica M8 (With Images)

About a year and a half ago I purchased one of my most sought after pieces of equipment (well the Leica M9 was the goal but at nearly £4000 that was out of the question) a Leica M8 digital Rangefinder. I had been searching for a small capable camera to accompany my main camera (Canon 5D mk 2) for some time. I considered getting a Leica or Zeiss Ikon film rangefinder but decided that for pro quick turnaround work I would probably be better off with a digital and then purchasing a film one later when I have spare money in the future. Mainly this small camera would be my everyday carry around camera and also my second camera when it came to weddings and other photo shoots, for the more discreet unobtrusive moments where the size and shotgun blast of a 5d mk 2's mirror could disturb the moment. So looking into this at the time the only options were the newly released Fuji X100, Leica X1 and the ageing Leica M8.

*I have to warn you that this post takes some twists and turns before we get to the actual revisiting but I feel the little back story is important to this post so I hope you find the whole thing informative, It s based on my personal thoughts and experiences, not a full spec professional review of the camera*

Price & Options

The M8 was the most expensive option as it would be £1600 used and I would have to purchase a decent lens on top of that but it was also released around 2006 so the technology inside was already showing it's age. The fuji had unreliable autofocus and you would be stuck with the 35mm field of view, being a fixed lens camera but it was nice and small.. The Leica X1 was just too pricey for what it was in my opinion, basically a fuji x100 without a built in view finder. So to me the logical option would be to try the M8 to see how it performs, I had seen great results from people like Gorbot on flickr (check out his photo's they are awesome) using the m8 with Carl Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses and thought that this would suit my documentary approach to photo shoots and weddings. As I stated before, the technology inside the M8 was a bit older and that was my main concern, could it hold up at higher ISO's? (which for weddings in scotland is nearly essential) Is the image quality good enough by today's standards? (I had certainly seen examples that proved it could) also most importantly would I like the rangefinder experience?

Lens Options
So I played around for nearly a whole day in Ffordes photographic with the M8, testing different lenses in different lighting conditions. Due to the M8 not being a full frame camera (it's a 1.33 crop, which is still bigger than most DSLR's certainly at the time) I had to find the right lens focal length. I tried some Carl Zeiss lenses, mainly the 28mm f2.8 Biogon (which is around a 37mm on the M8, near a good standard focal length), the 50mm f2 planar which was a little too long I feel for my taste with the crop factor, they didn't have the 35mm f2 in stock at the time unfortunately which I really wanted to try (that would have been nearer the 50mm field of view). I also tried the Zeiss Sonnar 50mm f1.5 but again was too long for my liking. I also tried the Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 and 2.5, also the 40mm f1.4. Sadly they did not have a Nokton 35mm f1.2 which might have taken my fancy but being a small camera I wanted a small-ish lens to start with and the Nokton is huge (for a m-mount lens). I also then tried some expensive Leica lenses, starting with the 28mm f2.8 Elmarit then the 35mm f2 Summicron.  I had decided that I wanted a 28 or 35 as I wanted something that wasn't too long like a 50 would have been.

I liked the 1.4 of the Voigtlander 35mm  (which would help in low light if the ISO wasn't quite up to scratch) but looking at some sample shots I found the Leica's and Zeiss to render a better image (to my eye anyway). I would still have liked to try the 1.2 though as I hear good things about it, especially the version II which is now released. After trying both the Zeiss and Leica lenses extensively in the store I came to the conclusion that I would go for the Zeiss 28mm f2.8 Biogon. When it came down to it I couldn't see much if any difference in image quality compared to the Elmarit and I actually liked the look and feel of the Zeiss on the M8 better (call me crazy but I really did), I also really liked the focus ring on the Zeiss instead of the tab on the Leica, personal preference I suppose. I didi realise that the Zeiss may have some colour problems due to not being 6 bit coded for the camera like all the Leica lenses are but in the store I couldn't see any problems in the images, this would become less of a problem if shooting in black and white obviously which I do a lot. I also had to purchase the lens hood and an IR filter as the M8 suffers from an IR problem when shooting in colour which was an annoying extra cost and surely the lens hood could come with the lens. Anyway I was happy and left the store much poorer but did not regret my decision. I had a week to test it out, see if it would fit into my work flow.

Rangefinder Experience
Straight off I have to say I really loved the whole Rangefinder experience, the small unobtrusive size, the quieter shutter (not as quiet as the film leica's I've tried but much quieter than my 5D), the viewfinder (seeing outside the frame lines), the simple no frills operation and the awesome build quality.  I was finally having tons of fun shooting again and it all fit in a tiny bag and hardly weighed anything when over my shoulder, I was shooting in situations where before I wouldn't even have bothered takeing out my 5D. 

Image Qality
As far as Image quality I was very surprised. Combined with the Biogon lens at lower ISO's the sharpness and out of camera DNG files were stunning. I have never seen files come out of a camera like that (especially in Raw). It beat my Canon 5D mk 2 for sharpness and contrast and even the black and white out of camera JPEG's were nicely toned and contrasty, did I say I was surprised? The files did have less dynamic range when it came to post processing when compared to th 5D MK 2 but that is to be expected, no surprise there, the solution? get the exposure right, simple.

I decided to test the ISO capabilities so upping it to 640 I instantly saw digital noise and some colour noise also which I was really pissed off by and this just got worse when shooting in actual lower light situations (it wasn't too bad in bright daylight). Upping it to 1250 increased more colour noise and 2500 was virtually unusable in colour. I was very disappointed as I wanted an all round camera ( I think I expected too much). Everything else was perfect about the camera (well apart from the 1.33 crop but I could live with that till I could afford an M9 or whatever else came out that met that specs). Anyway I kept testing it for a few days, having fun but the no colour in low light kind of bugged me a bit. I also found some sensor problems (small array of white dots that would appear at ISO 1250 and above), this kind of turned me off the camera, Ffordes kindly said they would sent it to Leica for sensor repair but by that time I was regretting my purchase (especially for the money) so I decided to send it back to the shop and purchase other lenses for my Canon instead, after enjoying the Zeiss lens so much I purchased two Carl Zeiss lenses for my 5D mk 2.

Revisiting The Images I Shot With The M8 
So we have made it to the actual revisiting section. Yesterday I was looking through my older hard drive and found a file labelled 'All Leica M8 Tests' so I opened it up to find a load of folders from the week I spent with the camera. Intrigued I started to look through them, finding some pretty cool shots (along with boring shots as I was testing it in all situations to see it's real world use). I was instantly surprised or should I say Re-surprised by the DNG files sharpness, tones and contrast. So I picked a few images out and started to process them as I do my 5Dmk2 files and found that they actually needed less work to get my desired style (lets face it all Raw/DNG files need some work at least, thats the whole point of the digital negative) and also that they were sharper with a bit more punch if that makes sense, I'm down for any camera that will give me less time editing in front of the screen.

I also decided to take a look at them higher ISO images that annoyed me so much initially and yes at 1250 and 2500 the colour noise is pretty much unusable in my opinion.........but..........when they are converted to black and white they look awesome! thats right Awesome!  Now I didn't overlook this initially as I knew they looked good in black and white but I wanted a colour capable camera. I am unsure what has changed (maybe my style, maybe my expectations, I do not know) but I now see the files and think the these high ISO files (in B&W) look stunning. The noise is very very film like and I always put film grain into my B&W 5D mk 2 files now anyway, some times a lot of noise. I shot a lot of Neopan 1600 in my film days which these files are very comparable to when I have processed them (contrast/curves adjustments etc). I now see this camera as an awesome black and white camera that also shoots good colour at 320 ISO and below. I do shoot more black and white these days especially at weddings and the M8 would fit right in. I also my desire for technically perfect looking images is no longer there, I focus on creating images with character which these M8 files definitely have.

Funny what a turn around has occurred in a year and a half since I gave the camera back, fair enough it was the sensor damage that really tipped the scale but I just really wanted to write this, maybe as sort of an apology to my little M8, I obviously just wasn't ready to realise its potential in my workflow at that time and now I am considering buying another one with the same Zeiss lens of course and maybe that Nokton 35mm 1.2 I was lusting after which will help even more in low light if I want colour. I saw someone say recently that the M8 was like the original baby Leica Monochrome and I agree. I even like the crop factor giving me more depth of field for street shooting now. How things change in such a short time, I now think this would be a great second camera to compliment my main kit.

Time to start shopping.

Here are some of the shots I took with M8, there isn't that much good one's as I had it for just a short time and mostly tested it in boring situations but I hope you get the idea. All images were processed in camera raw. No Raw sharpening applied to any images if I recall correctly. They need no sharpening.

Cat after a hard days work I just loved the tones. This has had curves adjustments to the DNG but the tones were so good out of camera.

Postman Pat!

My only street shot, I didn't want to go out street shooting much incase something happened to the camera so I couldn't return it if needed. Very discreet for street shooting as expected.

Trolleys at Lidl's. Nice colours.

Cat in our flat at the time, this has had some tweaks in curves but the tones the DNG file gets makes life so easy when processing. Window light.

My girlfriend Cat in our flat at the time, That lens was awesome. 

Window light.

ISO 2500 and the Black and White digital noise looks really good.

ISO 1250 , less grain obviously and looks good.

Again nice tones. Curve adjustments but again awesome tones to just tweak out of camera.

Portrait of my dad

My mum cooking Sunday lunch

Our friend from Malta, Tonina. She has since passed away. 

So that's it, hope it is a little informative, sorry I don't have much interesting shots, wish I could get it back to go shoot some better examples. 

Cheers for reading.

Andrew. 

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andrew@drewportfolio.com