OK, I'm two and a half years late coming to the Leica M8. I've been using the camera fairly solidly for a couple of weeks, and so far I'm impressed. I picked up a used M8, in mint condition for a whole lot less than a new M8.2 costs.

Construction
Feels like a Leica ought to feel. Very solidly built overall. My observations are pretty similar to the other reviews I’ve read. The shutter release has a bit too much play for my taste, but it’s easy enough to get adjusted. I find that the power/mode switch detents are a little to soft and easy to turn; perhaps that is overcompensation from the M7 which I thought was too hard to turn. I find the covering finish a bit too slick, especially with no film advance lever to aid my grip. But I fixed the grip problems to my satisfaction by adding Tim Isaac’s Thumb’s Up and a leather half case. Lack of waterproofing is a bit disappointing, but I don’t tend to stand in downpours to shoot anyway.

Use
I personally love the simplicity of using this camera. Rangefinder cameras are an acquired taste, but I’ve been using M cameras for 10 years, so it was a smooth transition. The new perspective through the viewfinder takes a bit of adjustment, but that was about the only significant change over shooting with an M7. Like others, I’m not terribly impressed by the design of the exposure compensation in the M8, or in the reworked M8.2. High ISO performance, as others have noted, is somewhat lacking. I had a lot of troubles feeling the grip was insecure until I added a Thumbs Up.

Image Qaulity
Image quality, simply put, rocks. Yes, it’s “only” a 10 MP camera, but I’ve really learned from the DMR that pixel count isn’t everything. The lack of an anti-aliasing filter really allows for the great rangefinder lenses to show off their capabilities. A lot of people have complained that Leica gimped the 16 bit capability of this camera by downsampling to 8 bits, but dynamic range is superb and the camera does a great job with highlights. In a lot of dynamic photography it’s hard to avoid blown highlights, and I think one of the real strengths of this camera is it’s ability to handle overexposed areas of the image....they fall off in a very natural way. Any images with blown highlights appear as you would expect them to with, well, film.

I’ve been using the Leica R9/DMR for the past couple of years, and M8 image contrast, color, and dynamic range is amazingly similar. Images from the M8 (just as with the DMR) require very little manipulation to generate natural appearing color images. I’m pretty sure the M8 files easily rival the Canon 1Ds Mk2 that I just sold. They also seem to have a more natural look than what I’m getting from the Canon 5D MkII. If past experience is any measure, it will probably take me a couple of months to get the tweaks down for my newest Canon to give me optimum results.

Quirks
As a “legacy” M user with several non-6-bit encoded lenses, I find it a bit annoying that Leica has not provided the option to choose lens encoding via a menu driven system. This is something that could easily be implemented. And of course the UV/IR filter fiasco probably cost the company millions of dollars in sales. I know that the initial reports of problems with the camera certainly kept me from leaping in earlier. The cost of “adapting” a legacy lens to the M8 easily approaches $350 per lens with paying Leica for the 6 bit coding and buying a UV/IR filter.

As above, the exposure compensation system is a bit awkward and can’t be done without removing an eye from the viewfinder. A nice lever or dial somewhere else on the body would have been nice, and perhaps could have even been done without offending narrow-minded Leica purists. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to afford the M8.2 which at least attempts to improve on exposure compensation.

I find the removable base plate to access the battery and SD card a pain in the ass, just like I found it a pain in the ass to remove the base plate to change film. It is at least a little easier, since you don’t have to worry about flopping the camera back in place at the same time. And my friends laugh at me when they see me with the base plate in my mouth. LOL, I laugh at me with my base plate in my mouth.

A lot of the other problems I have with the camera are the same stupid things I did with my previous M cameras...and usually involve a perfectly placed thumb or fingerprint on a newly cleaned rangefinder or viewfinder window. If not that, it’s losing track of where I am on the shutter speed or aperture dial in manual mode. But don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy with the simple amount of information in the viewfinder.

Next time...
I’ll post some example images from the M8