Leica M8 Digital Rangefinder

March 11, 2008 by Ben Long
Filed under: Reviews 
Leica M8

Over the last few years, the digital camera market has been sliced into fine slivers. There are cheap, not-so-cheap, and expensive point-and-shoots; a full spectrum of SLRs from $600 all the way up to $8,000; and stratospherically priced medium-format digital backs, owned by a precious few.

Sitting on its own, outside the realm of the point-and-shoots and SLRs is the Leica M8, a rangefinder camera based on the traditional M-series Leica body. Priced at roughly $5,500 for the body only – with Leica-branded lenses starting at around $1,500 for a 35 or 50mm lens – the M8 sits in the same price category as heavy hitting SLRs like the Canon 1Ds Mark III and the Nikon D3.

If you’ve been considering dropping even a fraction of this kind of money on an SLR, you might be wondering what the M8 delivers that those other cameras don’t. The simple answer is: fewer features, and a very different way of shooting, one that might be ideal for the type of images you like to make. But many shooters will find the Leica approach fraught with complications, with very little upside, given the price of the system.

If you haven’t been considering buying a camera that costs as much as a nice used car, then there’s still much to be learned from the M8. As you’ll see, working with a rangefinder can teach you a lot about how to work with a more affordable SLR.

The camera

The M8 is a very pretty camera. Whether you choose the all black model, or the silver and black model, you will get noticed when carrying the M8. The all-metal body has a beautiful finish and striking, minimalist design, very similar to the Leica M-series 35mm film-based cameras.

The Leica M8 is a beautiful camera, very well-designed and sturdy, but possessed of a few design flaws.

One of the main advantages of the M series is its small size. The compact, quiet cameras allowed unobtrusive, surreptitious street shooting, making it the camera of choice for photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Eliott Erwitt.

Leica has kept this traditional design for their shift into the digital realm, so your first impression might be, “Wow, that looks like a Leica.” Your second impression might be “Actually, it looks like a big Leica,” since the M8 is a little thicker than its 35mm predecessors.

In terms of length and width, the M8 body is about the same size as a small SLR body like the Nikon D50 or Canon Rebel XTi. Leica lenses, though, are much smaller than a typical SLR lens, so the overall size of the body with a lens is usually smaller than the smallest prime lenses that you’ll find in the SLR world.

The main difference between a rangefinder and an SLR is that a rangefinder camera uses a separate lens as a viewfinder. Because there’s no mirror in front of the focal plane, as there is with an SLR, Leica can place their lenses closer to the sensor. This means that lenses can be engineered smaller. And, because smaller lenses are generally easier to engineer, Leica lenses have a reputation for extremely good quality.

Lenses for a Leica M series camera are small, compared to lenses for a 35mm or digital SLR.

Leica lenses also lack any type of autofocus mechanism. In fact, pretty much everything on the M8 is manual. There’s no autofocus, no automatic exposure, and very few other automated settings or features. This lets Leica keep the M8’s design very simple.

On the top of the camera you’ll find a power switch (which doubles as a burst mode selector) a shutter button, and a shutter speed dial. You’ll also find a small LCD readout that shows battery life and number of remaining shots. On the back is a 2.5-inch LCD screen, a four-way navigation control, and a few buttons.

Because most of its functions are manual, the Leica’s controls are very simple, as can be seen from the camera’s top.

Because the M8 is a mostly manual camera, its interface can be very simple. There’s no need for controls for features like auto focus mode, auto bracketing, shooting modes, and so on. Most of the controls are for playback operations, and are very simple to use.

The screen is nice, but it’s smaller than what you’ll find on most point-and-shoots and SLRs these days. It’s decent quality, but lacks the brightness and viewing angle of newer screens.

Overall construction is very good. The camera is solid and sturdy and its buttons and controls have a substantial feel to them. But, while the body design is beautiful to look at, there’s been hardly any ergonomic thought put into it. The camera has no moldings of any kind to make it easier to grip, and when you first start carrying around what amounts to a rather slippery $7,000 camera (including the lens), the lack of grips can be very disconcerting.

Plainly, Leica’s designers were more interested in the form of the camera over the function, choosing to preserve the traditional Leica look over good ergonomic design. This misguided dedication to tradition crops up in a few places in the M8, and is the root of many of the camera’s liabilities.

For example, to access the battery or SD card, you must remove the entire bottom of the camera, just as you would do when changing the film on a 35mm Leica. This requires two hands, and the bottom comes off completely, so you have to hassle with it while trying to swap memory cards or batteries. While this is a cute homage to the old days, it’s also a very stupid design. This design was not originally created because it was the best way, but because it was what was possible. Why keep it?

To access the media card or the battery on the M8, you have to remove the entire bottom of the camera. This is always a two-handed operation.

The M8 has other design flaws. The power control – a swiveling switch that surrounds the shutter button – doubles as a shutter mode switch. Rotate the switch to S and the camera powers up into normal single shot mode; rotate to C and it goes to Continuous, or burst, mode; finally, rotate to the timer icon and you have a self timer. While all this is a perfectly reasonable design, the switch moves so easily that I regularly found that I had bumped it to a spot between settings, which rendered the camera inoperable until the switch was reset. There wasn’t a day that I took the camera shooting that I didn’t miss shots because I’d accidentally bumped the switch.

The camera is also slow to power up, requiring roughly three seconds from power on until it’s ready to shoot. Wake from sleep is also sluggish, taking three seconds to wake up after the camera has dozed off. As with the power-switch problems, sluggish wake times cost me a few missed shots.

There’s really no excuse for lousy performance like this from a $5,500 camera body. Canon’s $500 PowerShot G9 has much faster boot and wake times, and it has a higher-resolution sensor to charge and must hassle with extending a lens. Why Leica would ship a camera with such shoddy performance at any price is, honestly, a complete mystery to me.

Because the M8 uses manual focus and exposure, the rest of the essential controls are on the lens. For a shooter who remembers the days of manual exposure, having shutter and aperture rings on a lens, as well as depth of field markings, feels really great. The specific mechanisms and feel will vary from lens to lens, of course, but Leica’s reputation for lens construction is well-deserved.

If the extent of your experience is a modern SLR, then you’ll have to make a big change in the way you think about lenses: there are no zoom lenses for the M series. It’s all prime, all the time. There are some lenses that offer three switchable focal lengths, but for the most part, choosing the M8 means you’re committing to working with fixed focal lengths. This is not a bad thing at all, but it can be a different way of working if you’re a shooter who learned exclusively with zoom lenses.

With Leica’s long history, buying into the M system gets you access to a broad selection of very good lenses, but with the cheapest Leica lens starting at $1,500, don’t expect to just buy up lots of lenses to make up for the lack of zoom. (There are third-party options for the M series, and they’re also extremely high-quality, but they are similarly expensive.)

The Rangefinder

The fundamental difference between a Leica M series camera and an SLR is the rangefinder. In an SLR, a complex series of prisms and mirrors is employed to let you see through the same lens that is used to focus light onto the focal plane. In a rangefinder camera, the lens is used to focus light onto the focal plane, and you look through a separate viewfinder to frame your shot.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. With an SLR, since you’re looking through the same lens that the camera uses to focus the final image, you know exactly what your final framing will be, and can see the effects of any filters or lens extensions you might be using. With a rangefinder, your viewfinder will not show you an exact framing of your final shot. Depending on how far you are from your subject, there may be significant parallax shift.

Learning to get things framed properly can take time. In the left image, the “Stop” was centered in the viewfinder. Due to parallax, I had to re-frame with the composition off-center, to get the framing that I want.

Of course, with a digital rangefinder (as opposed to a film-based rangefinder) you can review your composition right away, to determine if you’re suffering from parallax shift. But, if you were trying to capture a fleeting moment you won’t get a second chance.

As mentioned earlier, in a rangefinder system, the rear element of the lens can be placed very close to the focal plane, because there’s no need for a mirror or the other gizmos that are required to make an SLR work. This allows lenses to be made much smaller.

Many point-and-shoot cameras have an optical viewfinder that is reminiscent of a rangefinder viewfinder. However, there’s a big difference between the cheap optical viewfinders on a point-and-shoot, and a quality rangefinder system like you’ll find on an M-series Leica.

Most point-and-shoot cameras have autofocus lenses, which means the optical viewfinder serves only as a way to frame your shot. On a rangefinder camera, you use the rangefinder to frame, but you also use it to focus. Focusing through an SLR system is fairly easy since you’re looking through the camera’s lens. On a rangefinder, a complex optical system is used to provide you with a focusing aid in the middle of the viewfinder.

The focusing aid shows a small part of your scene as a double image. As you focus the lens, the two images merge together. When you only see one image, your picture is in focus.

While this system is perfectly effective, if you’re new to rangefinder cameras, you’ll have some adjustments to make. First of all, because everything in the viewfinder outside of the focusing aid is always in focus, it’s actually easy for new shooters to forget to focus. This may sound strange if you come from an SLR background, but the focus aid in a rangefinder camera is very small, which means the image in the viewfinder is predominantly in focus.

If you’re new to a rangefinder, you might also be struck by how bright and clear the viewfinder is – much more than even the brightest SLR viewfinder.

To help you with your framing, the M8 displays frame lines within the viewfinder to indicate approximate framing. Using a lever next to the lens, you can change the frame lines to show framing for other focal lengths. The idea is that gives you a preview of what the framing would be like with a different lens, without having to actually change lenses. The frame lines are fairly accurate, though they still represent a frame that’s 90 to 95% of the final image, meaning the actual picture taken will go beyond the frame lines indicated in the viewfinder. If you’re very particular about framing the edges of your shot, this probably means you’ll need to crop your images later, but most Leica lovers will tell you that framing becomes second nature if you’re shooting all the time with a specific lens.

By design, the Leica viewfinder shows a fair amount of space outside the framing lines. This is to allow you to see a large view of the scene you’re shooting, so that you can anticipate movement that’s happening beyond the frame. This is a hallmark feature of Leica cameras, and a big part of the Leica shooting “strategy”.

If you’re used to an SLR viewfinder that plainly shows focus, that is accurate in its crop, and that only shows you what will be captured, then it can take quite a while to get used to a rangefinder system.

The M8 has two exposure modes, aperture priority and full manual. In aperture priority, you set the aperture you want by using the aperture ring on the lens. The camera then chooses an appropriate shutter speed, which is displayed as a number inside the viewfinder. You can then decide if that shutter speed is fast or slow enough for your intent.

For manual shooting, you change the mode dial from A to any shutter speed from from 4 seconds to 1/8000th, or B (bulb).

When shooting in full manual mode, the camera’s viewfinder provides “greater than or less than” light metering, much like the match-needle systems in old SLR film cameras. If your current settings yield an underexposure, an up arrow is displayed. Conversely, if you’ve dialed in an overexposure, a down arrow is displayed. By adjusting the aperture or the shutter speed, you can then zero in on a “proper” exposure, as defined by the meter, upon which a circle is displayed in the viewfinder.

Unfortunately, even though the camera has the ability to display shutter speed, when shooting manually, no shutter speed display is provided in the viewfinder. So, while you can turn the shutter speed knob while looking through the viewfinder, you’ll have no idea what you’ve ended up choosing unless you’ve been keeping track in your head, or unless you take your eye away from the viewfinder to look at the shutter speed dial. This means it’s possible to move to a shutter speed that’s inappropriate for handheld shooting, and not know it.

For a camera line that’s legendary for its ability to “become an extension of your nervous system” I find this lack of in-viewfinder exposure information to be quite annoying.

The camera offers only one metering mode, a matrix meter that seems to be weighted slightly to the center. An exposure lock is also provided.

The camera also offers an exposure compensation control that provides a plus or minus 3 stop exposure range in third-stop increments. You have to go into one of the camera’s menus to make this adjustment, and there’s no external indication that you’ve dialed in an exposure compensation, so it’s entirely up to you to remember that it’s there, and deactivate it or change it as needed.

The camera also doesn’t display aperture information, but this is because the lens and the camera body have no electronic communication. While this can be annoying when reviewing your images later – there’s no aperture information embedded in the EXIF data of the M8’s images – it’s a small price to pay to be able to use the huge legacy of Leica lenses.

Rangefinder shooting

So, the camera has no zoom lenses, the viewfinder doesn’t show an accurate framing, there’s no autofocus, and you have to set exposure settings manually by using the aperture ring on the lens and the shutter speed dial on the top of the camera. So what’s the advantage of shooting with a camera like the M8?

For many types of shooting, there’s not an advantage. In fact, for many types of shooting, especially event photography, the M8 is completely impractical because you can’t work quickly enough with it to get the job done.

For street shooting, though, the M8 facilitates a very particular way of working that allows you to be unobtrusive and sneaky.

If you’re coming from a point-and-shoot or SLR background, one of the first things you’ll recognize with the M8 is how manual focus can make you speedier. It will take you much longer to initially focus on your scene, but once you have the camera focused, you can work very quickly, firing off shot after shot, without ever having to wait for the camera to focus. This feels very luxurious and as long as your subject-to-camera distance doesn’t change, you can work very quickly.

However, getting that initial focus will take time – a fair amount of time. Fortunately, there’s another way you can work.

For any given aperture on any lens, there is a point of focus called the hyperfocal distance. When the lens is focused at this distance, you will capture the greatest possible depth of field. The hyperfocal distance varies from aperture to aperture, but if you’re using a small aperture like f/11 or f/16, and you’re focused at the hyperfocal distance, then the bulk of your scene will be in focus.

Setting the hyperfocal distance on a Leica lens is very easy because the lenses provide depth of field scales, just like all manual lenses of old. To set focus at the hyperfocal distance, you first choose an aperture – say f/11. Then you set the focus ring’s infinity mark to correspond to f/11 on the depth of field ring. Your camera is now focused at the hyperfocal distance, and the depth of field scale indicates that everything from within approximately 3.5 feet to infinity will be in focus. The lens markings also tell you that your actual point of focus is at roughly 7 feet.

On manual lenses with depth of field scales, it’s easy to calculate the hyperfocal distance, and so gain maximum depth of field.

However, because of the M8 has a sensor that’s smaller than a piece of 35mm film, it’s best to set focus as if you were shooting one stop wider. So, if you’re choosing to shoot at f/11, set focus as if you were shooting at f/8.

Once you’re set at the hyperfocal distance, you can, in theory, start shooting away, as long as your subject is somewhere between 3.5 feet and infinity. However, only objects at the distance that you’re focused at – in our example, 7 feet – will be perfectly in focus. The rest of your depth of field range will be “acceptably” focused. What does “acceptably” mean and who decides what’s acceptable? There’s a lot of physics and math behind the definition of acceptable, but in practice what it means is that things won’t appear blurry. But, neither will they appear razor sharp.

If you’re familiar with the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson or any of the other great Leica street shooters, then you’ll have some idea of what “acceptable” focus is – slightly soft, but still reasonably focused.

This crop shows an example of “acceptable” focus. Nothing in this shot was at the actual point of focus, but everything was within the DOF range. When shooting with the technique described here – with any type of camera – this is the type of acceptable sharpness you can expect.

The advantage of working this way is speed and sneakiness. Because you’re not engaging in either a manual or autofocus process, you’ll feel like you’re shooting with a fixed focus lens, or a cell phone camera. You can quickly rattle off shot after shot with no lag of any kind. What’s more, you don’t even necessarily need to look through the viewfinder, which means you can shoot extremely candid shots. Even if you do look through the viewfinder, it’s easy to grab shots extremely quickly.

Working this way takes practice. You must learn to judge distance so that you can try to keep your subject at the optimal distance; you must pay attention to changes in lighting and keep abreast of your shutter speed setting. Since you’re usually shooting at a smaller aperture, it’s easy for the shutter speed to fall below a suitable handheld speed. You need to develop an eye for how an unfolding scene will be perceived by your lens at your current camera position. All of these things require a fair amount of practice. However, as you develop these skills, you’ll find that, because you’ve “hard-wired” your camera to shoot in a particular way, you can shoot faster than you can with any automatic camera. Just be prepared for slightly soft images and lots of failed attempts.

If you’re an SLR shooter who usually uses a burst or drive mode to fire to capture a particular moment, you might be tempted to use the M8’s Continuous mode. This can sometimes work, but with a burst speed of approximately 3 frames per second, it’s not especially speedy. You’ll be better served to try to learn to recognize and capture “the decisive moment” with a single shot.

Image quality

No matter how well a digital camera is made, or what amazing features it packs, the ultimate, final arbiter of value is always image quality. Because it’s not possible to change the imaging technology in a digital camera, as it is in a film camera, you’re stuck with whatever imager is built in to the camera. And image quality, more than any other characteristic, is where the M8 fails.

Before I go into specifics, note that the M8 doesn’t yield bad images, but it yields images with lots of problems. At $5500, the M8 should produce images at least as good as other cameras in its price range. There are no other cropped sensor cameras in the M8’s price range, so we can only compare to cameras such as the Nikon D300 or the Canon EOS 40D – cameras that cost around a third of the M8’s price – and when making that comparison, there’s no contest. The Nikon and Canon SLRs consistently yield far better images than the M8.

What’s wrong with the M8’s images?

For starters, there’s the camera’s metering. In shutter priority, the camera has a marked tendency toward overexposure, resulting in noticeable detail loss. Even in bright daylight situations – situations that are easy even for cheap point-and-shoot cameras – the M8 can overexpose, blowing out highlights and rendering bright areas as solid masses of white or color.

The M8 has a tendency to overexpose when shooting in normal, bright daylight situations.

You can compensate for this by using all manual exposures or exposure compensation, but it’s a little ridiculous that the one automatic exposure function on this very expensive camera is not dependable.

White balance is another problematic area. First, it’s important to note that, by design, the camera is not capable of accurately reproducing all colors. Most digital cameras have an infrared filter in front of the sensor. This filter is used to eliminate certain light frequencies, so as to improve color reproduction. The M8 lacks such a filter, which means that, very often, the camera will reproduce dark browns and blacks as purple.

However, Leica has a very clever fix for this, all you have to do is spend more money. By placing an infrared filter on your lens, you can correct this white balance problem. Leica provides you with two IR filters of your choice with the camera body, but if you buy more lenses, you’ll have to invest in more filters. And, since you’re investing in very expensive lenses, it’s stilly to hobble them with cheap filters, so you’ll want to spring for expensive, multi-coated filters.

Once you’ve placed the filter on your lens, that particular white balance issue will disappear, but there are plenty of others that won’t.

In my tests, the M8 performed extremely poorly when auto white balancing – worse than any camera I’ve seen in years. Even in bright daylight, what should be the easiest white balance situation of all for an automatic white balance mechanism, the M8 would occasionally get it wrong, yielding images that were too warm.

While the M8 didn’t consistently fail in bright light, in mixed lighting or low light situations, its performance was uniformly bad. There’s no excuse for white balance this bad on any camera, but especially not on one with this high a price tag.

This is typical of the M8’s auto white balance when shooting indoors, or in mixed-lighting situations.

Obviously, due to the camera’s unreliable white balance you’ll probably want to shoot exclusively in Raw (which can also be a hedge against the camera’s tendency to overexpose) or learn to rely on manual white balance. The camera shoots directly into DNG format, which will be a handy convenience for users of Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, which both have excellent DNG support.

Sharpness and detail is, of course, a function of lens as much as anything else. However, the M8 lacks the antialiasing filter that most SLRs employ, which means that most raw images that come out of the M8 will be slightly sharper than what you’ll typically get out of an SLR (assuming you were focused properly). While the lack of antialiasing filter means you’ll run a greater risk of seeing moiré patterns in your images, I never encountered any.

Note that this extra sharpness is not a huge difference over a quality SLR lens. You can certainly sharpen an image from a competing SLR up to the same point as the M8. Of course, the advantage of the M8 is that you don’t have to hassle with that sharpness step. So, assuming it didn’t over expose or get the white balance wrong, you’ll have a speedy workflow.

The noise equation

One of the great advantages of digital shooting over film photography is the ability to change ISO sensitivity on a frame-by-frame basis. This effectively gives you a third exposure parameter that can buy you more latitude with shutter speed or aperture when you need it. In addition, because a quality digital sensor is so light sensitive, you can shoot usable images in much lower light than you can with film.

Unfortunately, you won’t find this advantage with the M8.

With a low ISO of 160, and proceeding to 320, 640, 1250, and 2500, the M8 unfortunately yields excessively noisy images at anything beyond 320. While the high-ISO settings don’t produce the noisiest images that I’ve ever seen, they are nowhere near as clean as what you can get out of a $700 Canon SLR.

A crop from a shot taken with the M8 in moderate lighting, at ISO 640.

So, while the idea of candid, rangefinder-style shooting in dimmer light – cafés, shadowing alleys, evening events – is very compelling, if you try it with the M8, you’ll find images with a surprising amount of both luminance and chrominance grain.

When analyzing noise in a digital image, it’s important to remember that individual grainy pixels on a computer monitor are not necessarily relevant. What counts is how the image looks in your final output media of choice, which in my case is prints. By this measure, the M8 produces barely passable noise at ISO 640, and unacceptable noise at ISO 1250 and 2500.

Of course, while one person’s unacceptable is another person’s beautiful, stylized image, the point is that given the price of this camera, it should be able to shoot clean images. I like noise as much as the next person, but I also like the option to shoot low-noise images in low light, which is something the M8 simply cannot do.

What’s in the box

The M8 ships with the camera body, a strap that’s easy to connect, Leica’s raw conversion software, a battery, an AC adapter that’s almost as large as the camera itself, a car cigarette lighter charger, and a manual that is one of the worst English translations that I’ve seen in a long time. While everything is nicely packaged, they would do well to redesign the charger so that it’s easier to travel with, and to write a better English-language manual.

Conclusion

As much as I wish it were to the contrary, the M8 is not worth the money. For starters, there are the design flaws, chief among them the loose mode switch, the lack of status information in the viewfinder, the unnecessary hassle of changing the card and battery, and the poor boot and wake-from sleep time. All of those will lead to missed shots.

And then there’s the image quality. Simply put, a $5,000 camera should consistently meter properly, have accurate auto white balance, not require me to buy additional filters for my lenses, and should deliver state-of-the art ISO performance.

Can you take good pictures with the M8? Of course. Just as you can with an SLR, cell phone, point-and-shoot, twin lens reflex, large format, pinhole or Polaroid camera. Most of the time, it’s the photographer that makes the shot, not the camera. At this price, the camera should do a better job of holding up its end, and the M8 fails.

For decades, people have talked about that “special something” that Leica cameras have. There’s no doubt about it, this is a beautiful camera that’s solid and attention grabbing, and if you think that what your shooting experience has been missing is fashion, then this is the camera for you.

But one of the great appeals about a classic Leica film camera is the palpable sense of engineering quality. You can feel it in every mechanism of the camera. Of course, with a digital camera, there really are no mechanisms, just controls. Sure, there’s a shutter, but on the M8 you don’t manually cock the shutter, so you don’t really feel any of the particulars of that mechanism, which means that a big part of the Leica mystique is missing in the M8.

That said, shooting for a while with a rangefinder camera has definitely made me think about shooting in some different ways, just as switching to any other kind of camera will do. I have developed an appreciation for the speed that can come from manual focus, and I’ve been reminded that, for many subjects, being forced to slow down and think through exposure and focus can bring you a new perspective on your subject.

If you’re serious about photography, it’s definitely worth experimenting with a traditional rangefinder approach to photography. However, there are many ways to do this for much less money than you’d spend on the M8.

For starters, you can buy an old rangerfinder film camera off of eBay. Cameras made by Zorky, Voigtlander and Canon can be found for anywhere from $75 to $1,000. These are good cameras and many of them will work with a range of lenses from inexpensive so-so lenses, to pricey, high quality Leica glass. You’ll have to pay for film and processing, and buy a scanner, but you can go through a lot of film and processing before you’ll ever approach the price of the M8, and you’ll most likely get better image quality.

If you have an SLR, you can even dabble in some rangefinder practices. For starters, switch your lens to manual mode and spend more time practicing manual focus techniques. You’ll probably find that, in many circumstances, you can shoot much faster.

For candid street shooting, you can use the exact same hyperfocal focusing technique that rangefinder shooters use. The only possible hitch is that your camera’s lens probably doesn’t have a depth of field gauge on it, and may not have distance markings. If you have a depth of field preview, and your scene isn’t too dark, then you may be able to tell depth of field that way. You can also easily look up the proper hyperfocal distances ahead of time, and simply write these down on a piece of paper.

Here’s a great on-line depth of field calculator. If you have a Palm Pilot or a Palm Treo, you can install DOFMaster, a PalmOS depth of field calculator (there are other Palm OS depth of field calculators, easily found through a Google search).

If you’ve got a Nikon D40, or a Rebel XTI, you’ve already got a camera that’s smaller than the M8, and even a little quieter. Put a 35mm or 50mm prime lens on it, look up the appropriate hyperfocal distance for a few apertures, and you’ll be ready to try street shooting, rangefinder style.

 






Comments

37 Comments on Leica M8 Digital Rangefinder

  1. Paul on Tue, 11th Mar 2008 8:28 pm
  2. the second reference to shutter priority is still there

  3. jaapv on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 5:15 am
  4. Avery good review. I showes exactly who should NOT buy an M8. I.e. people who want the camera to do the thinking for them….

  5. Bob on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 5:33 am
  6. Ypu’re really going to upset the Leicphiles !

    The red dot alone is worth $3,000. And then there is the fondling value Now if they would just release a version covered in ostrich skin. .

  7. Peter D Lux 2 on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 6:26 am
  8. Obviously this ‘review’ was written by someone who is in no way hindered by any knowledge about rangefinders

  9. rich on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 6:57 am
  10. don’t give up the day job just yet Ben !

  11. Neil on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 9:55 am
  12. Ben,

    Bravo. It is exactly this kind of press that is needed to give Leica a kick up the arse and stop relying on their legacy in place of innovation. And before I take a broadside from all the Leica lovers, don’t, I’m one of you too. I bought my first secondhand Leica when I was a first year university student. I was an M6 classic and I really couldn’t afford it. I should point out that in the UK, Leica prices are considerably higher than many other places. Anyway, I’ve still got the camera and have since bought another M6 (TTL). I love both of them and I’ve taken some really amazing shorts with them. Anyway, on to the M8…. The difference between this camera and the 35mm series is that the old Lieca Ms really were, in my opinion, the very pinnacle of mechanical camera engineering; stripped down to exactly what people who know how to make pictures need. The M8 sadly is not. Leica can justify it how they will, but having to add a filter to a lens just to get a camera to render images how it should is unforgivable.

    These days, due to time and money (I’m a student again!) I mainly use digital SLRs to shoot and when I first heard about the M8 I felt like I wold be ready to sell my car to buy one. Since being able to borrow one for a couple of weeks, however, I fully intend on not buying one. A good photographer can take good pictures with any camera, but at the same time the photographer should be helped by his camera to take good pictures; not have to work in spite of its limitations. This is especially true of a camera that is so expensive.

  13. Doug Herr on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 10:22 am
  14. There are too many glaring errors in this review to grant it any credence.

  15. James Earley on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 11:36 am
  16. The reviewer makes some valid points to be fair, as well as other no so valid ones. But he has forgotten that the primary reason for the M8 was to provide a solution for the many M users out there who really wanted a digital body to mount their very expensive M glass onto. Epson made an M mount digital camera but that’s now discontinued.

    The M8 shouldn’t really be compared to other digital cameras. It is a specialist camera, yes, and most users will be fully aware of how to expose and compose shots correctly, as well as the need to post processing etc. This isn’t in any way a point and shoot auto everything Canon G9.

    Fact is, if you want an M mount digital rangefinder then the Leica M8 is the only camera in the world. For the record I don’t own an M8.

  17. Darren on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 11:53 am
  18. You really don’t understand Rangefinders, and there are some errors in your explaining of photography (Your doubling of light and F stops for 1 – Your Hyper Focal for another). If you understood the Rangefinder system, your review would be better. As it is, you have not reported credibly on the subject.

  19. George on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 1:33 pm
  20. I can see how one not familiar with anything but SLR or point and shoot boxes can write a review like this.

    But why air your ignorance? Because it is bliss?

  21. Ben Long on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 7:57 pm
  22. Whoops! Sorry guys, you’re right about the doubling of light. Sorry, a tech typo that should’ve gotten corrected, but made it through. These things happen in a long review and they’re always regrettable.

    George, as for “my ignorance” I will say that I shot with this camera for three months, and then loaned it to three professional photographers – one with extensive M6 experience. They concurred with all of my complaints, and added a few of their own. As for the complaints that this article “shouldn’t be compared to SLR cameras” I can understand that reasoning. However, in the very first paragraph I state very clearly that the audience for this article is the SLR shooter who’s thinking of spending around $7K on a camera, and is wondering what the M8 is all about. I state outright at the beginning that this article is written from the standpoint of an SLR shooter and proceed to address the experience and issues that an SLR shooter will face.

    James Early is right that this is a very specialist piece of gear. Nevertheless, there are SLR shooters out there who have money and will be wondering. This article was written with their perspective in mind. If you’re already a Leica shooter, then this article isn’t for you. If you’re an SLR shooter who’s wondering what using an M8 might be like, then I think my observations are relevant considerations, even if you don’t ultimately agree with them.

    Finally, for those who feel I’m attacking rangefinder photography in general, I will point out that the last few paragraphs extol the virtues of rangefinder shooting, and even go on to explain some ways that rangefinder approach can be used to improve your SLR technique. I say outright that rangefinder shooting is something more photographers should look into. I just don’t recommend this camera for it.

  23. Alan on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 9:12 pm
  24. What the reveiwer meant by using the f8 close and distance setting (on the dof scale) for calculating depth of field when shooting at f11 was to compensate for the fact that the 1.3x crop fact necessitates greater enlargement. So it makes perfect sense.

  25. Doug Herr on Mon, 24th Mar 2008 11:50 pm
  26. Ben, the review was just plain sloppy. There’s no excuse for errors of the sort that should have been covered in a basic photography class at any high school. Errors of that sort leave the reader wondering what other sloppy errors were made during the review process.

  27. jaapv on Tue, 25th Mar 2008 8:19 am
  28. The intention is fine, but I agree with Doug that the execution leaves much to be desired. The parallax you find is user error, the overexposure issue is user error, the noise at ISO 640 is due to underexposure, It leaves one in doubt what images were shown to the panel to prefer the 5D.
    I would direct an SLR shooter to Phil Askey’s excellent review on DPReview, or Sean Reid, or a number of others for better information.

  29. Ben Long on Tue, 25th Mar 2008 10:46 am
  30. There’s no “user error” to parallax. It’s a rangefinder, it has parallax. Yes, you can use guides to learn to work around it, but the fact is that this is a big difference from working with an SLR, and one that must be learned and adjusted to, and some users might find that this extra work – even when learned – is an extra step that they don’t want to take.

    I disagree entirely that noise at 640 is due to underexposure. I shot a controlled lighting situation of a Macbeth test chart at a range of exposures, and in every case, the noise was substantially higher than the 5D at 800. The three other shooters who used the camera (accomplished, professional photographers all) were similarly frustrated with the over exposure and white balance problems. I shot in a range of lighting conditions trying all sorts of exposures to get acceptable noise results. As a long-time Canon SLR shooter, I’m used to being able to shoot in low light and get very clean results. That was not my experience with the M8.

    Of course a shooter should read a variety of opinions. It’s silly to think that someone chooses or rejects a camera based on one review. Other people will have different opinions than mine, but I stand by my testing methodology, and my results. Even if you want to say that for every point I’ve raised, you could learn to work around it after a few months of shooting (and I don’t believe this is true for every point), then the user who’s going to spend upwards of $7000 should know that they’re possibly facing months of frustrating learning curve before they get to a level of proficiency that they may be used to.

  31. jaapv on Tue, 25th Mar 2008 12:33 pm
  32. Yes, there is user error in parallax. The Leica viewfinder is compensated for the type you mean. You will see the framelines shifting as you focus. The type you show in your review is different. It occurs when you hold the camera slightly skewed to the optical axis of your eye. Easy to do, especially in a vertical shot like this. Because the framelines are “closer” than the virtual image they will shift relative to your subject, causing you to misframe.
    If it did not underexpose in your “noise”shot, how is it that nearly all M8 users and reviewers report good noise behaviour up to and including ISO 640? Quite apart from the discussion whether the camera should apply the noisereduction or the user.
    Your last paragraph I agree with wholeheartedly. Rangfinderphotography is different and needs a different level of skill and a manual camera needs more knowledge of photographic theory. There are many skilled and knowledgable SLR shooters out there. I am not sure they would face months of a frustrating learning curve. It is not as difficult as all that.

  33. Ben Long on Tue, 25th Mar 2008 12:51 pm
  34. Alright, I’ll play more with the parallax thing, thanks for the explanation.

    “Nearly all m8 users and reviewers report good noise behavior.” Googling around, I find quite a few M8 users complaining about noise. Yes, I also find a lot of positive reviews. Plainly, this isn’t a slam-dunk issue. I’ll say it again: I shot a variety of exposures under controlled and uncontrolled lighting. To my eye (and the eyes of the people who helped test) the M8 was noisier than the 5D.

    You’re right, an SLR may not face months of frustrating learning curve. But there IS a learning curve, and it’s worth knowing about before this kind of investment. The pro SLR shooters that I gave the camera to were very frustrated with the change in shooting style. Would they get used to it eventually? Possibly, maybe probably. But the Leica is a very expensive camera, and before making a decision about it, what’s wrong with being told that you should consider certain weak spots and issues? If you disagree with what I’ve labelled a weak spot then that reinforces that there can be a big difference in opinion about these specific issues, so these are things that a buyer should pay very close attention to.

  35. Mike on Tue, 25th Mar 2008 3:04 pm
  36. Ben’s review is very fair. Those who think it lacks credibility should read Gary Knight’s comments about the M8 on lightstalkers.org:
    http://www.lightstalkers.org/leica_m8___is_it_any_good

    Knight is a contract photographer for Newsweek, a co-founder of the VII agency, and an M user for nearly 20 years. In a nutshell, Knight writes that he would never take the M8 as primary camera on an assignment because:
    - there is too much noise for low light work;
    - the camera is slow to record raw files; and
    - the viewfinder is very inaccurate.

    Who thinks Gary Knight lacks knowledge of rangefinders?

  37. Dmcclean on Tue, 25th Mar 2008 4:37 pm
  38. Bravo – This review is by and large excellent. It basically crystallizes my own thoughts.
    I am a Leica user of 20 years – M6, M7 and MP. I’m a professional photographer and bought the M8 to use in my work. I struggled for 6 weeks with poor white balance, seriously bad noise,
    and filters to get decent colours. I sold it after 6 weeks and frankly was glad to be rid of it.
    I bought a Nikon D3 and it is superb. VASTLY superior to the M8 in every way.
    I feel Leica is dying, this product is seriously flawed and overpriced. I spent nearly the same amount on my A la Carte MP and dont regret a penny – its wonderful. Leica make fantastic film cameras but so far have failed to make a decent digital camera.
    I think the Leica users who rush to defend the M8 are blind to the problems, try a Nikon D3 and you’ll see what a digital camera at this price point should be. Dont tell me one is a rangefinder
    and the other is an SLR as I use both on a daily basis. The Leica is not worth the money.
    Sorry guys but thats the truth as I see it.

  39. Doug Herr on Tue, 25th Mar 2008 9:45 pm
  40. “try a Nikon D3 and you‚Äôll see what a digital camera at this price point should be.”

    So a digital camera should be priced by the ounce?

  41. Tony Oresteen on Wed, 26th Mar 2008 3:29 pm
  42. Ben,

    Nice review. I use three Leicas: 1953 IIIf, 1963 M3, and a 1984 M4-P. Have used Leicas since 1979. I would NEVER buy the M8 for the reasons metioned. I’d also add a design flaw you missed:

    No SDHC support! A $5,000 body that can’t use high capacity SDHC cards? Or no dual card support ie CF cards as well?

    I bought a Panasonic P&S with a “Leica” lens for $250 from Best Buy. 7 MP and takes SDHC. And has a flash.

    A friend has an M8 and the 35mm f/2. It does work ok but my Panasonic out performs it. We are both in Iraq and my shots from a helicopter are much better than his. He agrees.

    Don’t call him nuts for bringing an M8 to Iraq. I brought my Nikon SP 2005 and a bunch of HP5 film. To each their own!

  43. io on Thu, 27th Mar 2008 11:55 am
  44. Wow.

    All the non-owning Leica M8 haters should STFU.

    YOU HAVE NO CLUE.

  45. Jim R on Thu, 27th Mar 2008 8:44 pm
  46. At one time in history, the Leica camera was the best that money could buy. I have used them since the early 60’s. I waited for two years to get the M8. I got a new M8 with a US warranty. The thing was bad right out of the box. The battery was stuck. I got a new replacement and the sensor was dirty right out of the box. I may come to like this thing but my first impressions are that Leica has a serious quality control problem

    I feel this M8 thing is akin to making a covered wagon into some kind of mechanical device by putting a small steam engine into the hub of each wheel and having four steam driven robotic horses out front pulling the thing. While this may be a tour de force in engineering, the question is why?

  47. Kevin on Tue, 1st Apr 2008 2:39 pm
  48. Well, I have used SLR’s for over 30 years. I went through Olympus OM cameras, Nikon F3, F4, finally EOS-1 system which I still own today. I integrated a 10D body into my system a while ago but was never quite happy with the results, especially with regards to obtaining razor sharp images. The digital Canons focus accuracy is inconsistent and even when dead on the images have a “blurry” quality to them.

    I now have my EOS-1 system, and have built an M system: MP, M8, 21, 28, and 50 lenses. I love the compactness of the M’s and the image quality is unsurpassed. I love velvia in my MP and the M8 produces razor sharp images every time. I find that M8 ISO 640 outperforms ANY ISO 800 film. Now, I would never go back to lugging around a 10 lb. bag of SLR equipment. Investing in M glass was the best decision I ever made. I love my M8 and as sensor technology scales, my M system will produce even better images because Leica M glass is the best in the world. And Leica gear has always been an investment. Try selling your DSLR or point and shoot in a couple of years. You won’t be able to give it away. My M stuff will be worth more than I paid. Not that I will sell it because it lasts a lifetime.

    Anyway, all you DSLR people enjoy your machines and our photography hobby. For me, my M kit is the ultimate enabler of my passion for photography.

  49. william on Wed, 2nd Apr 2008 10:06 pm
  50. Well Ben, now you know what happens when you tell the truth. The Religion of Leica rears up and attacks you.

    The M8 is flawed.

    The M8 is not worth $5000.

    Leica rushed the camera to market (IR and other issues).

    It took Leica more than a more than a year to correct the WB issue.

    Now they’ll attack me.

  51. simone on Wed, 9th Apr 2008 3:24 pm
  52. Hi. Here is my experience. I own a film M6 and five lenses since ten years ago. I wanted to buy a digital camera ancd considered buying the m8 at first, then I chose to buy a canon 5d. beautiful camera, excellent pictures. I bought the 24-105, a kind of all in one lens. the result? for me, the 5d, despite its excellent quality, it’s far too cumbersome to carry around even with just one zoom lens. i have traded it in and i bought the m8, even though i knew about the problems. the advantage for me, as someone stated before, is the opportunity i am give to use my voigtlander and M-lenses sd to carry around a reasonable weight. I do agree that those issues should not have been there and should be solved, but in my case advantages outweighed disadvantages in having the M8 in place of the canon. I think this is the main reason leica people would buy the m8.

  53. Robert on Tue, 29th Apr 2008 7:26 am
  54. This review is indeed a good one. The M8 is mainly the follower of other Ms and has many flaws but as an old M user, I can cope with these flaws and I am happy tp use my very old lenses, some of them being more than 50 YO. The results on A3 + with an Epson 3800 and using C1 and PS are regarded by many observers and myself as very good, if not excellent. My wife is using a Canon 5D with L lenses and I must say that I do not like meither the camera nor the results, even using RAW files.
    Finally, a M8 + 4 or 5 lenses can be carried on my shoulder (left one) for a whole long day, which is impossible with a DSLR…

  55. Robert on Tue, 29th Apr 2008 7:28 am
  56. This review is indeed a good one. Everybody is right in some ways. The M8 is mainly the follower of other Ms and has many flaws but as an old M user, I can cope with these flaws and I am happy tp use my very old lenses, some of them being more than 50 YO. The results on A3 + with an Epson 3800 and using C1 and PS are regarded by many observers and myself as very good, if not excellent. My wife is using a Canon 5D with L lenses and I must say that I do not like neither the camera nor the results, even using RAW files.
    Finally, a M8 + 4 or 5 lenses can be carried on my shoulder (left one) for a whole long day, which is impossible with a DSLR…

  57. photoshutter on Sun, 21st Dec 2008 3:26 am
  58. If there is a purchase choice dslr or rangefinder I consider that for dslr the first choice, basically leica it is additional and more compact professional camera which in my opinion should be at each professional photographer, it cannot and should not replace professional dslr, but nevertheless perfectly supplements then when mobility and is necessary enough, m8 is perfect small camera for street, reportage, magazine work

  59. dbhentai knet on Wed, 4th Feb 2009 4:01 am
  60. ckgmu

  61. ass big blonde teen on Wed, 4th Feb 2009 1:47 pm
  62. tiwbfgv

  63. Sarf on Thu, 2nd Apr 2009 9:16 am
  64. The beauty of everything is always in the eye of the beholder; in a world full of bulky cookie-cutter SLRs, M8 brings a remarkable feeling of joy when you hold it in your hands and that is worth all the money we Leica owners spend–it is not just photography, it is the experience of taking a picture. Is there another rangefinder digital camera to compare the M8 with?

  65. Anders_HK on Sat, 2nd May 2009 10:20 am
  66. Hi, I read half the review. I do not have an M8 but am very interested in that camera and rangefinder type digital camera. The review above? First, when using a camera one need to learn how it functions, e.g. exposure meter. My Mamiya 7 meter does not function like a matrix meter of a dslr or point and shoot, nor does the M8;s. For my Leaf digital back I do not even have auto white balance. None of what was written in above review seem to be facts of the M8. Contrary it seem based on sheer incompetence of how to use the camera. If I pick up my Mamiya 7 or Leaf digital back and try to shoot as a DSLR I will be severely disappointed. While if I shoot them on basis of their design and within their limitations, then they yield images that are of higher image qualities than any DSLRs. The M8? I do not like DSLRs, they are too much computer and auto functions that gets in way for controlling an image.They also teach you that the more you snap like machine gun, the bigger chance that you get a good photo. That is nonsense. There is nothing better than slow planned shooting in getting good photos, thus the M8. And… the sensor in the M8 is albeit of smaller physical size and pixels is a Kodak medium format type sensor. No other camera of its size or DSLRs have such. To anyone with a keen eye should see that even of photos in forums from people who not know how to shoot the images speak of higher than DSLR image quality. The fact that the reviewer compare the M8 to D300 and the like speaks of that reviewer have no comprehension whatsoever of the performance of the M8. I do not need the 20+ MPs of latest DSLRs (have 28 in my Leaf digital back) but I do seek a very high image quality. To my eyes the M8 has image quality to beat all DSLRs, when used within its limitations. Perhaps the reviewer should learn how to handle a camera other than all auto functions, a.k.a. how to photograph. As far as that it says Leica on the camera, to me it might as well have said Panasonic or other brand…

    Cheers

  67. AnHund on Tue, 13th Oct 2009 3:46 am
  68. I think the review was very interesting and precisely adresses the problems with the M8. It is incredible that a camera at that price level does not work even close to perfectly. The new M9 adresses many of the problems of the M8 and the image quality is much better. I agree that shooting with a rangefinder slows things down which could result in better pictures. However, after trying out the new M9 I was so happy to come back to my Nikon D700 with perfect ergonomics, its big bright viewfinder and excellent image quality (comparable to the M9) – all for about a third of the price of the M9 (Nikon equipped with prime lens).

  69. Bob LaBree on Sun, 29th Nov 2009 9:01 am
  70. Ben, your review was just fine. Thank you. If your critics were able to spell, I’d pay more attention to their comments. Fact is, there are two photographic mind-sets … rangefinders and SLRs. I love rangefinders and regret that there aren’t any decent digital options out there. Rangefinders were the original version of “point and shoot,” so I disagree that they slow things down. Tell that to Alfred Eisenstadt, the father of the “decisive moment.” It’s difficult to get the ol’ Nikon or Canon up and running in time for the moment sometimes. Thanks again, Ben!

  71. Suds on Sun, 10th Jan 2010 7:22 pm
  72. I was a Canon EOS 1D MKII and 1Ds MKII user, who switched to the D3. All stunning cameras and all gave excellent results. Without question. The D3 IMHO gave better results that either of the Canons. (I only ever used L glass on the Canons and the NIkkor Pro lenses on the Nikon)

    Just recently, I was loosing heart in my photography. I just didn’t care about it any more. Was it me taking good shots or was it the camera doing it for me? My confidence took a major dive (downwards), to the point of almost giving up, but I was suddenly being drawn to the Leica Ms (don’t ask me why I’d never used one or even held one up to that point).

    I of course had looked at Leica M8s before (over the years) but just didn’t get the whole rangefinder thing. That was until January 2nd 2010. I bought a MINT condition (used) M8 (still with a years warranty on it) and a Leica (budget) Summarit-M 50mm lens.

    Truth: what a culture shock!! DSLR to rangefinder. The Leica M8 – It was basic, it was featureless, it had no auto anything. . . .It was simply perfect.

    The M8, my first ever handling of an M camera, felt like an extension of me, instantly. Not cumbersome or awkward. It just felt right, almost as if the camera chose me.

    I have taken several hundred shots with my M8 and have compared them to my library of 1DMKII, 1Ds MKII and D3 shots. I have shown them to everybody I know (and probably bored them all senseless in the process)! Every single one of them thought the M8 shots were better than both the Canons or the D3s.

    Personally, I now know what all the Leica users are on about. It’s that ’3D-ness’ of the shots, almost like you can reach out your hand and enter the picture. There is a special something on the Leica shots.

    I always shoot RAW. I only ever do light post processing in Photoshop, saturation, unsharp mask (just a touch) and crop (depending on lens limitations at time of shooting). That’s it.

    Sure there are some situations the Leica is just not suited to, for which I use my D3, but my camera of choice and the camera that has (most importantly) rejuvenated my photographic desire is the Leica M8.

    It is a stunning camera with absolutely beautiful output. The quality of shots are exquisite.

    I am not affiliated with any photographic company. I am self employed and do my own thing. I am photographically self taught. I’ve been photographing for almost 30 years with SLR /DSLR.

    The Leica M8 has rekindled that feeling I got when I was given my first camera (a little old Kodak 126 – yuk! – but I could capture moments in time, never to be repeated moments. Unique, exclusive and each special in it’s own way).

    I love the M8 I owe it so much. Prior to buying it, as I said earlier I had almost given up any interest in photography: it was all becoming too tech orientated, pixel peeping, auto everything, almost fighting with the camera to gain your own manual control.

    The M8 can’t fight you. It does what it does. It does exactly what you tell it to do. It gives you the tools to make photographs. You (the photographer) chooses aperture, shutter speed and you focus. Squeeze the shutter release button and you have a capture. Any issues (excluding the IR issue which is cured with a filter provided free by Leica) are pretty much down to the user.

    The M8 or any M for that matter really makes you think about your photography again. It makes you compose a shot instead of just setting your DSLR to continuous and holding down the trigger in the hope that one shot will turn out right. A monkey could operate any modern DSLR and get a useable shot. I doubt the same can be said for a monkey with a Leica M8 in it’s hand.

    Low light noise, sure it’s horrendous compared to the D3, but then so were the 1Ds MKII and the 1D MKII. Go back to basics. The camera is limited in low light (as film cameras were all those years ago) but what did photographers do then? Longer exposures or faster lenses – or a combination of both and recompose your shot within the limits of the equipment used based on the available light of the subject.

    Remember this, most of the best, the most influential photographs ever captured were out of focus and contained film grain to detract from the subject (but these issues didn’t detract from the overall image – in fact it could be argued they added to the final image. The subject was strong and overpowered the flaws of the equipment / photographer)

    As I said I never had a Leica M prior to my M8 so have no point of reference to compare against the shooting experience compared to the M7 for example. Enough said when I tell you some clients have seen my M8 shots and have already commissioned me to do shoots for them with the M8 ONLY.

    Second hand the M8 and new lens cost me £2200 (the dealer gave me a very, very good deal).

    The commissions will more than pay for that.

    Even if they (the commissions) didn’t cover the cost, the Leica has given me something back you just can’t put a value on. . . the desire to keep making photographs (faults, flaws and all). The M8 is a perfect camera for me (I might even buy a 2nd as a back up).

    On a side note, the latest firmware on the M8 appears to address the white balance issues. I haven’t noticed any major issues.

    As for image quality. A3+ from the M8 looks stunning.

    A final point, I am not a Leicaphile, Canonphile or Nikonphile. I am a photographer, plain and simple. The M8 has allowed me to reinvent my career, by giving me back my passion for photography.

    All I can say is if anyone reading this experiences the same thing I did with the M8, with any camera, it’s a good thing. Don’t get bogged down with the mega-pixel myth, the auto this, that and everything else arguments (it’s basically only relevant to print size). If you can make great photographs with it, then the camera is doing its job.

    Thanks for reading my views, now get outside and make some great photographs

  73. Kansas-Insurance-155 on Tue, 30th Mar 2010 1:03 pm
  74. hm. hope to see same more info

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