Bye Bye M8

[Stuart Richardson]

Argh, Woody, I feel your pain. My M8 was at Leica for several months this winter. The camera never recognized coded lenses properly. When I finally got it back, it was working properly. I just shot again last night and noticed that it was no longer recognizing my lenses. I am very, very disappointed and I really don't want to drop it off in NJ again for more months of repair that does not appear to have any result.

 

[kevin]

Man, I want an M8 so bad, but my patience with electronic devices that don't work properly is about nil.

 

[Mark Gowin]

Jono, I think Bertie is agreeing with you in a round about way. He seems to acknowledge your point about shooting more with digital than film, but at the same time questioning if that is really better. At least that is what I read into his post.

I know I shoot way more frames with digital than I ever thought about with film. Largely due to cost associated with film, but also due to the instant feedback nature of digital which encourages one explore more options with framing, exposure, etc.

 

[fotografz]

OMG, now the storied and legendary past of the Leica M is being called into question in an effort to justify this camera's woes :ROTFL:

A film M lightly used? Are you kidding me? My first M6 was my ONLY camera for 10 years of continuous shooting. Not two M6s, not three M6s ... ONE. NO back-up, and I never even considered the need for one (not that I could've afforded it back then anyway.) It NEVER failed me. When I sold it, it was pristine except for rub marks below the lugs (it was the early M6) ... and could well be one of those gleeming beauties on the used dealer's shelf.

M6TTL and M6TTL o85 ... no service needed. 2 M7s, the only thing I serviced on these cameras was the viewfinder baffle to eliminate patch whiteout ... which Leica did for free. Hardly lightly used since I shot weddings with them 15 rolls at a crack.

M8s ... more time in Solms than in my hands. They both seem to work now ... fingers, toes, arms and eyes crossed. However, I will NOT shoot a wedding with these Ms like I did with the film Ms.

Frankly, I don't care about any statistics other than my own. Those are the ones that count to me.

Bet Woody feels the same.

 

[woodyspedden]

The facts seem to support he fact that the M8 has had a lot of problems and that its pretty darn frustrating to get these resolved . .................................................................................................................................................................. . Can there be any doubt that the camera was rushed to market and the initial batch was very problematic. The UV/IR fiasco,the sudden death syndrome and the calibration nightmare are all well documented. .................................. . . The shutter issues come up less frequently but you really have to wonder about the shutter replacement strategy..nice way to establish the price to fix a weakness in the existing camera base.(and manage then warranty overhang). I wish Leica would have just phased the new shutter in as a continuous improvement. I can think of no reason why it should cost more to get it right. ................................................... . So my point of view is that we need to keep these issues out there until they are corrected. I am glad Woody posted his experience. I know maybe 15-20 M8 users well enough to have talked in person with them about various issues . At least 50% of these users have had an M8 service issue. Thats good enough for me .......................... . .With that said the M8 is my camera . I have a D3 and a r9/dmr with more lenses than i can carry but I really use the M8 . So for me its worth it to have 3 bodies with one in reserve. I should also report that after 10K each on the first two M8s ..they have been exceptionally reliable ...just tough to calibrate. ................... .......................... . Maybe Woody will be lucky and Leica will turn his camera around in a month..so that he can report that the problem is forgotten.

Roger

That is certainly my hope!

Woody

 

[jonoslack]

Jono, I think Bertie is agreeing with you in a round about way. He seems to acknowledge your point about shooting more with digital than film, but at the same time questioning if that is really better. At least that is what I read into his post.

I know I shoot way more frames with digital than I ever thought about with film. Largely due to cost associated with film, but also due to the instant feedback nature of digital which encourages one explore more options with framing, exposure, etc.

Hi Mark
I understood Bertie entirely and completely - the funny faces were simply my response to the question you have restated - if more is better.

There are, of course, many answers to the question, hence the many faces.

 

[jonoslack]

very good point jono. statistics is an insidious science

Thank you Irakly - I rather like statistics, my favorite one is:

99.26% of the population have more than the average number of legs

 

[Robert Campbell]

Hi Mark
I understood Bertie entirely and completely - the funny faces were simply my response to the question you have restated - if more is better.

Jono's funny faces don't annoy me at all - after all, I do try to wind him up at times :ROTFL:

Nonetheless, I can't imagine how he - or anyone else - can manage to take quite so many pix - and what do you do with them? I don't take [m]any more pix digitally than I did with Kodachrome...perhaps old ways die hard...but it does make me think of the chimps, the typewriters and Shakespeare.

I did read somewhere that National Geographic photographers when out on assignment took 4000 rolls of Kodachrome - even if the articles had maybe 20 pix in them, so perhaps some people were profligate yonks ago!

 

[jonoslack]

Jono's funny faces don't annoy me at all - after all, I do try to wind him up at times :ROTFL:

Nonetheless, I can't imagine how he - or anyone else - can manage to take quite so many pix - and what do you do with them? I don't take [m]any more pix digitally than I did with Kodachrome...perhaps old ways die hard...but it does make me think of the chimps, the typewriters and Shakespeare.

I did read somewhere that National Geographic photographers when out on assignment took 4000 rolls of Kodachrome - even if the articles had maybe 20 pix in them, so perhaps some people were profligate yonks ago!

Bertie
You don't really want me to be serious do you? I've taken on board my role as the forum idiot, and was only trying to live up to it. But I would be horrified to think that you hadn't understood my row of silly faces.

I am actually trying to write a Shakespeare play in photographs, but it doesn't seem to be coming together.

I do shoot a lot, and I delete a lot as well, trouble is that the instant feedback of digital has made me much better, so that in a roll of film I would be lucky to get 2 keepers . . . . . but in 36 digital shots I might get 15 or even 20. What to do with them is the question - maybe one should have a policy and delete all but one picture every month/year/decade/lifetime. If you nailed me to the floor, I think I'd say that in my photographic life I've taken 10 winners, 200 great photos and 2,000 also rans . . but probably another 2,000 shots that are interesting to the victim/subject. . how about you?
Last weekend I shot a wedding - 800 shots were technically adequate, lots of people I don't know (and some I do). I've 'presented' the happy couple with 250 and asked them to choose and annotate 100 for an album . . . what do you do with the other 550?
There is an Elvis Costello greatest hits album titled
All this Useless Beauty.
it torments me every day

 

[Robert Campbell]

I do shoot a lot, and I delete a lot as well, trouble is that the instant feedback of digital has made me much better, so that in a roll of film I would be lucky to get 2 keepers . . . . . but in 36 digital shots I might get 15 or even 20. What to do with them is the question - maybe one should have a policy and delete all but one picture every month/year/decade/lifetime. If you nailed me to the floor, I think I'd say that in my photographic life I've taken 10 winners, 200 great photos and 2,000 also rans . . but probably another 2,000 shots that are interesting to the victim/subject. . how about you?

Jono,

I've got around 30k photos indexed, but almost all are family/friends/places/memories and so on. Perhaps there are 20 to 50 that are good, and maybe a few hundred that rise above simple documentation. I fondly imagined that when I retired I would have lots of time for photography, but it hasn't worked out...yet.

Our wedding album has most of the pix that were taken - maybe 50 - 100 - I haven't counted. 800 seems a lot to whittle down to a presentable number.

I took about 90 slides at the parents-in-laws golden wedding, and 140 digital pix at the diamond wedding...obviously the digital-mania hasn't reached me!

 

[charlesphoto]

OMG, now the storied and legendary past of the Leica M is being called into question in an effort to justify this camera's woes :ROTFL:

A film M lightly used? Are you kidding me? My first M6 was my ONLY camera for 10 years of continuous shooting. Not two M6s, not three M6s ... ONE. NO back-up, and I never even considered the need for one (not that I could've afforded it back then anyway.) It NEVER failed me. When I sold it, it was pristine except for rub marks below the lugs (it was the early M6) ... and could well be one of those gleeming beauties on the used dealer's shelf.

M6TTL and M6TTL o85 ... no service needed. 2 M7s, the only thing I serviced on these cameras was the viewfinder baffle to eliminate patch whiteout ... which Leica did for free. Hardly lightly used since I shot weddings with them 15 rolls at a crack.

M8s ... more time in Solms than in my hands. They both seem to work now ... fingers, toes, arms and eyes crossed. However, I will NOT shoot a wedding with these Ms like I did with the film Ms.

Frankly, I don't care about any statistics other than my own. Those are the ones that count to me.

Bet Woody feels the same.

My experience and sentiments exactly. I actually think I need to shoot so much more with the M8 because of the instant feedback - I can see instantly now how off the framing and exposure often is!

Pros rarely thought about the price of film and processing, even if for a personal project. It's just what one did. And I don't know if digital has really made things cheaper, considering the amount of $ I spent on gear over the past year. It can makes things faster, save $ on trips to the lab etc. but my film cameras were long paid off and always worked (well, my digital Nikons so far have always worked - wish I could say the same about M8).

That D700 sure looks tempting because my D3 can be a chunk (but a great one). I think that what Leica would be smart to come out with is a digital R6.2. Forget trying to take on the big boys. Give us a small metal piece of German aesthetics that can be easily carried everywhere. Just make sure the electronics that are inside are also top notch.

 

[woodyspedden]

Problem is that statistics are for liars and liars use statistics for their own purposes.

I am so disappointed with Leica over the shutter issue because I have never experienced nor ever heard serious complaints about such things from either Nikon or Canon. (and God knows they have their own issues on other concerns)

Shutters that simply self-destruct are a part of a failed design. These shutters, from my understanding, were the same as used in the R series of bodies so it isn't that Leica didn't know what they were dealing with. And consequently they have developed a shutter with less capability (i.e. 1/2000 second instead of 1/8000 of a second max speed!). That is fine with me, products need to evolve as issues are found and solved.

What rankles me is that Leica has not admitted to any problems whatsoever with the M8 shutters, in spite of the evidence. Stonewalling is not an exclusive sport for America.

So I will go with the strategy of having them replace the original shutter under the warranty. They should extend the warranty but apparently will not. So I will use it until it fails again (and if it doesn't God bless! LOL) and then I will pay the money and replace it with a shutter which apparently works. (and is quieter).

My faith in Leica is simply gone. I don't believe that they go about things any longer with the customers best interest in mind. Sad to say but true I believe.

I will continue to use my M8 until it or I expire!. I need the tool that it represents and will simply work around the many issues it creates. My investment in M lenses is such that I need a digital body to get back what I was inherently promised.

I may just buy Cindy's MP and go back to film but I doubt I can close on that as a single strategy. I may sell my M6 TTL's and buy her MP but I doubt I can go back to film only after being digital for over four years.

I love my Nikons (Both D300 and D3) and the wonderful Hasselblad H3DII-39 which is at the bleeding edge of the digital art.

The M8 occupies a very important niche in my photographic world. It is the ultimate travel companion as I can carry a small bag with two bodies and as many as five lenses and walk around Europe (fill in your own destination LOL) all day with little physical stress even at 71 years of age!

So please Leica, get your act together and produce a product which performs like a $5K body instead of a Point and Shoot from the Japanese.( Actually the P&S bodies are perhaps much more reliable than the $5K M8's! sorry to say). And when your products do fail, act accordingly; get these puppies turned around post haste and have your customers back in business and getting images which can be sold. Most of the folks here on GetDPI are not collectors whose cameras reside in bank vaults. We are shooters, whether professional or amateur, who have invested large sums of money in products that, at their price points, should perform admirably and reliably. Is this too much to ask.

Sorry guys and girls.........I am not a Leica apologist and will never become so. They run a business, not a boutique where all is forgiven in the name of Leica immortality.

This is the last I have to say about this and I wish I was not in a position whereby I feel I have to say it.

God bless great images........regardless of how captured and with what equipment. All I know is that I missed hundreds or thousands of shots because after one day my body was dead. I am confident that had I taken my D300 I would have captured all of those images and more. Next time that is exactly the kit I will carry.

Woody

 

[Stuart Richardson]

I guess because I have only experienced Leicas since 2002, I have never really looked at them as reliable. They are lovely to shoot with, but I certainly would not do anything too critical with them unless I had a backup. I have an MP and an M7, and both have had to go in for service at one point or another. So have several of the lenses. I bought the DMR early and it failed twice. They replaced that with a brand new one that also failed within the first week, but now works fine. My M8 never properly read lens codes, from the day I bought it. I sent it in and it was in NJ for 3 months. It came back working, but no longer works. I am in the process of paring down my Leica kit dramatically. While I still love how they shoot and the images they make when they are working, I have very low faith in their ability to put together a camera that is reliable. I tend to look at them like people look at Ferraris or Alfa Romeos -- they are spectacular machines, beautifully designed with astonishing performance, but if you want something that just plain works, you are better off with a Toyota. I have made my peace with that, but I completely understand how others might not be able to. As it stands now, I trust the film M's as long as I have two at once. My patience with the M8 is wearing thin and I may just sell it after it gets back from NJ again (presumably next year some time).

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Just feel really bad for you Woody. So many issues that I have seen happen to you over the last 1.5 years it is really sad all the stuff you had to deal with. Many forum members here and on LUF have really seen some ugly stuff. Really a shame

 

[jonoslack]

Frankly, I don't care about any statistics other than my own. Those are the ones that count to me.

.

Then there's nothing more to say really!

 

[jonoslack]

I guess because I have only experienced Leicas since 2002, I have never really looked at them as reliable. (snip) Ihave very low faith in their ability to put together a camera that is reliable. I tend to look at them like people look at Ferraris or Alfa Romeos

Hi Stuart
Like you, I've come to Leica recently, and like you I've never seen them particularly as reliable. I like the Ferrari / Alfa analogy, whereas Hassleblad seems a little more like Porsche .

Marc - I understand that lots of Leica's were used and used - but I also understand from looking in second hand shops that lots of them were not.

Woody - I'm very sympathetic and sorry for your plight - I hope you don't feel otherwise. But I don't think that statistics are for liars - how can we do without them? but it's pretty important to understand them. I'd certainly agree that liars use statistics to their own ends, but that reflects on them, and not on the statistics.

I'd love to see the real statistics with respect to failure rates on M8 cameras vs previous M's on a 'per shot' basis (of course, this statistic is not available to us, or even to Leica come to that). Leica would know about failure rates on a 'per camera' basis, but it seems unlikely that they'll tell us!

 

[fotografz]

Just feel really bad for you Woody. So many issues that I have seen happen to you over the last 1.5 years it is really sad all the stuff you had to deal with. Many forum members here and on LUF have really seen some ugly stuff. Really a shame

It's all related to how much torture folks will put up with in the name IQ and the M rangefinder way of seeing, right Guy?

I've used Ms most of my adult life. Some for pro work, but mostly just for me. At times it was the only camera I had. I distinctly recall opening the box of my first M4, taking the camera in hand and saying to myself, "Now there's no excuses Marc." Almost every photograph I had ever admired had been shot with a Leica rangefinder.

Everywhere I went, a M was with me ... it was my portable creativity ... and the way I shot with it defined a way of seeing that lead directly to the involvement in candid, decisive moment wedding work. The best wedding I ever did was mostly shot with two Ms and a bag of B&W film, supplemented with a Contax 645 and film ... I've never quite topped that one.

Now, this very moment, I am packing for Holiday ... I'd like to take the M8, but am hesitant ... not because I fear losing some Holiday snaps to a dead camera ... but because if it fails, it will be the last straw for a camera I've loved all my life. I will have reached the limits of tolerance and making excuses. That's the sad truth of it

One from my favorite wedding shoot of them all ... "Dancing In A Pub Window." M7, 28/2 ASPH, SF20 using an S-Fill diffuser.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yes Marc and that is somewhat what it comes down too, I certainly lost 1 body to Solms twice for the same SDS issue. I got by for awhile as my only camera's and sure enjoy them but they are limited and at the end of the day hard to keep your fingers crossed all the time. One reason I jumped up to MF, still want those kinds of images but hopefully now something more manageable.

 

[fotografz]

Then there's nothing more to say really!

Yep.

 

[woodyspedden]

I guess I am colored by the experiences I had with my M3 and two M6TTL's. I have had the M3 since the early sixties and the M6TTL's for about six years now. These things are bricks. The M3 still functions as new and even the old coupled meter still works just fine.

These experiences set my expectations with regard to the M8. I can understand some of the early electronic problems and certainly sympathize with some of the sensor issues. I don't understand the shutter issues and understand less Leica's approach to their customers surrounding them. If there is a known failure issue with the shutters I would have expected Leica to remedy by putting in a new shutter and extending the warranty or putting in the newer shutter now available and again extending the warranty. Folks, this is a $5K body, not a consumer product.

So while I love the M8 files and the size and weight of it as a travel camera, this will be my last Leica product. I may keep the M8 forever and even choose some upgrades if they meet a need. But I am now on a Nikon trajectory for much of my work and the H3D for all the rest. I believe that the combination of the new D700 and the D3X when it is released will be a stunning kit for all those like me who need the portability of DSLR and also need long telephotos or macro. DSLR's can't be beaten for these applications.

JMHO

Woody