sean mclennan wrote:Thanks JB, after spending a half hour on your flickr...I'm trying to talk myself out of buying an M8!
seriously though, are those unprocessed images or have they been worked over before posting? LOVE the skintones in all of the Leica images you've posted!
Wayyy off topic here....
Yeah...
It's an amazing camera, even more so when you consider it's their first M digital camera, is "only" 10.8mp and was introduced in 2006. They still sell second hand for over 2K. I don't know many other digital cameras that take such beautiful pictures nearly 10 years after they were introduced..
I spent years deliberately avoiding Leica because I knew I'd be sucked into red dot fever...
A director I work with loaned me his M8 for a while to try and I couldn't really give it back. I bought my own, then added recently an M-E which is a 135 version of the same sensor.
I think they have a great look, but the WAY you take photographs totally changes with a camera like an M series rangefinder, because they make you earn your photographs. I think that's actually the biggest difference. No Autofocus. No auto exposure. It's basically all manual.
Many people find them frustrating to work with but a rangefinder seems to elicit totally different reactions from PEOPLE when you point it at them to take their photo. I get more interesting photos. People aren't as intimidated by it. Many also say that it's because the viewfinder is off to the side, you're not covering your face with a camera and the rangefinder means there's no shutter black-out either.
They are ridiculously overpriced and you can't help but feel judged by other photographers who think you're some wannabe dentist displaying a status symbol. They have pretty crappy DR compared to CMOS sensors and aren't very good in low light. I could never shoot the M8 more than 640 ISO and 320 is it's sweet spot.
They also have lot's of faults with their sensors, with strange lines randomly appearing, cameras that crash...
But they are beautifully made, seem to pretty much hold their second hand value, especially lenses which is totally at odds with the digital disposable world....
There is something special going on, and I think it's a combination of the way you take photos with an M camera, the lenses, the sensor and post. I use Capture One for post which also seems to work really nicely with the Leica images. I've been a long time user of Lightroom too and still use that for all my Olympus images....
Anything with an L prefix in this set is Leica....
R is an Alexa frame grab
A is a RED frame grab
No letter will be an Olympus....
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrawl ... 958079115/Sorry for the off topic exploration....
jb