Eoin
Member
Having owned Canon before the M8 and now the Sony a900, perhaps I'll give my thoughts also.
The M8 was (and still is) a superb image taker. The Leica optics are just sublime and on the cropped M8 sensor were so sharp edge to edge. The M8 it's self was very good with the upper limit around ISO 640 in colour. However converting ISO 640 and above to monochrome gave a nice grain effect very like traditional B&W films.
It's easy to pick out the Leica look in my image library as it is to pick the Canon 85L. My eye is starting to become accustomed to the look of the Sony Zeiss 85 and I have no problem spotting the 135.
The Zeiss zooms, I've yet to warm to, excellent optics in their own right but still fall short of the quality I came to admire in the Leica primes.
With regard to the M8 it's self, I'd be very cautious buying 2nd hand, value may be good but there are many legacy problems which may come back to haunt you and I'm sure the cost of repair will far outweigh the savings made.
Take for example the line problem, a vertical line caused by a stuck pixel. I had this twice on my M8 one at about 18 months and the next 3 months later. It required a sensor replacement.
There have been quite a few shutter failures / fractures reported, my concern would be the long term reliability if this unit.
Don't pick me up wrong, if it were not for my inability to focus the rangefinder accurately due to my eyesight, I would still be using it as my main system, I loved it. But with the young kids becoming more mobile and faster on their feet I decided a return to dSLR with AF was needed. The choice of Sony was quite simply a value for money one, I'd read good reports, Zeiss optics to compensate for the loss of Leica and AF to boot. For sure a step into the unknown, but I'm glad I did.
The only item I need (lust) is a fast wide prime, in the meantime I'm quite happy shooting ISO 1000 with the f:/2.8 zooms.
The M8 was (and still is) a superb image taker. The Leica optics are just sublime and on the cropped M8 sensor were so sharp edge to edge. The M8 it's self was very good with the upper limit around ISO 640 in colour. However converting ISO 640 and above to monochrome gave a nice grain effect very like traditional B&W films.
It's easy to pick out the Leica look in my image library as it is to pick the Canon 85L. My eye is starting to become accustomed to the look of the Sony Zeiss 85 and I have no problem spotting the 135.
The Zeiss zooms, I've yet to warm to, excellent optics in their own right but still fall short of the quality I came to admire in the Leica primes.
With regard to the M8 it's self, I'd be very cautious buying 2nd hand, value may be good but there are many legacy problems which may come back to haunt you and I'm sure the cost of repair will far outweigh the savings made.
Take for example the line problem, a vertical line caused by a stuck pixel. I had this twice on my M8 one at about 18 months and the next 3 months later. It required a sensor replacement.
There have been quite a few shutter failures / fractures reported, my concern would be the long term reliability if this unit.
Don't pick me up wrong, if it were not for my inability to focus the rangefinder accurately due to my eyesight, I would still be using it as my main system, I loved it. But with the young kids becoming more mobile and faster on their feet I decided a return to dSLR with AF was needed. The choice of Sony was quite simply a value for money one, I'd read good reports, Zeiss optics to compensate for the loss of Leica and AF to boot. For sure a step into the unknown, but I'm glad I did.
The only item I need (lust) is a fast wide prime, in the meantime I'm quite happy shooting ISO 1000 with the f:/2.8 zooms.