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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

A Big Hello, M8 IR and landscape

Jono Slack

New member
Hi There
A big hello to everyone, old friends and new:
Diane - thank you for keeping in touch and recommending this site.
Asher - thank you for sending an invitation.

I've been using an M8 for a month tomorrow, I'm slowly getting to grips with it's foibles (and it's delights). I think the dust is beginning to settle now, and all of us beta testers will have to send our cameras back to Solms for the Banding and Green Blobs fix - I'm waiting until next year - I've only seen it on a few shots, and it's always been fixable.

The IR is a different issue - most of the focus has been on event shooting and under tungsten, where it's obviously necessary to use an IR cut filter to avoid the magentas (I don't do a lot of this kind of work, and I haven't got filters yet, but I've found Jamie's excellent C1 profiles have solved most of the problem for me).

I'm not in a position to comment seriously on these conditions, but I have done a lot of work outside, in mixed natural lighting conditions, so that's what I'm talking about in the following:

I've had a perpetual problem with colour for landscape work - especially in evening light, where everything always seems to turn from the subtle soft warm light I remember into garish yellows! There is always mixed lighting (shade and light at the very least) so 'correct' white balance is rather a non concept. I believe that the IR issue here is less relevant, but which RAW converter to use certainly is.

Ander's Uschold's recent report in the BJP where he examined images processed by ACR and C1, and also the jpgs was interesting, and brought my feelings into more focus. He implied (and I agree) that the jpg engine seems to be producing the most accurate colour (in most circumstances) Greens, especially seem to have a vibrancy which just haven't been able to reproduce in either of the current RAW converters. There is a sacrifice in terms of artifacts and a little smeariness (even with the sharpening set off).

Having said all that, I'm finding that the colours are easier to get right than with either the D200 or the D2x (where I have found greens to be a perpetual problem in evening light). It's just that sometimes it's better to do it in jpg, sometimes in ACR and sometimes in Capture - which doesn't exactly make for a quick and easy workflow. I'll be interested to see how the files are managed in Aperture (assuming that they are going to support it).

So, for landscape work, it would seem that there is still work to be done in converters - hopefully better profiles will turn up, and others will do a good job (I really don't want to go back to an 'old fashioned' raw converter after a year working with Aperture!).

The good news though, is that the files are fantastically clean and detailed, sharp right to the corners, and they lose detail gracefully (a little reminiscent of film). I've produced a number of 40X60cm prints which really leave nothing to be desired, the lenses and the lack of an AA filter meaning that the M8 really does punch above it's mp weight.

Apologies to Rainer (an old buddy) for seeming too much like an apologist, but I wish Leica well with it - I think it's a brave attempt at something which really seemed impossible a year or so ago - and although it doesn't quite hit all the spots, in many areas it's streets ahead of the competition.

kind regards
jono slack
http://www.slack.co.uk
 
hi jono, glad to find you here,- you know that i like very much the style you are shooting...... so realising that you bought a m8 made the camera shine little bit more in my eyes,- ( maybe you already saw that i am a little bit critical to some of its features,- although the m concept always was tempting me and i am not a puritanist, which means i have not problems with filters ( although i never use one with digital cams, except for bringing out reflections every two years one time...)).
i still have two m lenses and a m4p... what a pity that there is no upgrade to an m4p digital ( maybee for 1500$ or so ), i certainly would let them make it.....

do you still have your kodak slr/n. long time i admired you for your constructive + positive postings about this camera ( i hated the 14n! ),- till i became myself a fan of it ( of the slr and its iso6 mode ). so lets hope with the m8 it will be the same. why not?

rainer viertlböck

architecture photographer
munich / germany

www.tangential.de
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
What a treat for me to come home to!

Both Jono arriving and Rainer here to greet him!

I'm so pleased you finally arrived Jono as I have been waiting and returning from time to time to your website to get some re-invigoration from the countryside.

The M8 is indeed a wonderful toy to have, hold and shoot with. I'm surprised how well I'm returning to using the rangefinder to focus. In taking street photography, where I set things and aim, I'm still getting the hang of it, but when I have asked permission, which I hate doing, focus goes fine.

I don't use a filter, since Solms didn't send it yet! The camera is not yet mine. Anyway, it's not a wedding, just the street and plants I'm shooting at the moment! When I'm happy I'll buy one M8 for myself and two of my sons will pay for theirs!

I can handhold at 1/8 second in the street and do portraits at ISO 640 with an open lens at night when the coffee bar crowd are about. The 28mm is not meant as a portrait lens, but no one is going to arrest me!

I have not as yet done landscape shots, but have been shooting trees with remaining sienna colored leaves translucent against the evening sky. The colors and detail are pleasing to me although I've not made prints.

Tomorrow I hope to start shooting architectural buildings.

Now I do hope Jono that you will post your images here so people can taste what this camera has to offer. Your work is so beautiful.

Rainer, you don't need this camera as you are having enough fun with your small black Ricoh and the MF camera! I do think that the M8 with just the 28mm lens would be a great travel camera for me. Do you really need those lenses?

My 5D, BTW, is starting to seem huge and the 1DII monstrous, but a friend. Hmm! That thing has no rangefinder but shoots like a machine gun. It's funny how one's perspective changes with different cameras!

Anyway guys, I wish you were here in Los Angeles for me to show you and your family around!

I'll try to put local scenes up to show what we have here to entice you!

Kind wishes,

Asher
 

Jono Slack

New member
Rainer Viertlböck said:
do you still have your kodak slr/n. long time i admired you for your constructive + positive postings about this camera ( i hated the 14n! ),- till i became myself a fan of it ( of the slr and its iso6 mode ). so lets hope with the m8 it will be the same. why not?

rainer viertlböck

architecture photographer
munich / germany

www.tangential.de

HI Rainer
My 14n went a long time ago - I bought a D2x, and then a D200 - niether of which I really loved as I couldn't get the greens right for landscape.

The M8 IR issue the word Kodak and lack of AA filter does lead one to think of the 14n - but that's really as far as it goes - ironically, it's the sensor that's made by Kodak for the M8 - (whereas the 14n sensor was made by fill factory).

I'm finding it quite difficult to get the colour right - I think it might be to do with the big colour space, but unlike the 14n, I'm not spending any time 'sorting out problems'.

RF is all new ground for me - interesting manual focusing after all this time!

But I still get a thrill every time I look at the corner of shots :)

kind regards
jono
 

Jono Slack

New member
Asher Kelman said:
What a treat for me to come home to!

Both Jono arriving and Rainer here to greet him!
How kind of you - I must have a proper look around, but I'm having a couple of crises around here:
1. 500gb hard disk full of photos gone down :-(
2. Client's server gone down with corrupted data :-(
3. Trod in some dog muck so studio smells nasty!

Is there a specific gallery for posting photos, or is it good to put them in with threads? I'm not quite there yet as I've suddely had a Lightroom epiphany with the M8 (having rejected it to start with).
As for Rainer - he must buy one, so that he can start loving it rather than being grumpy about it!

kind regards
jono slack
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jono Slack said:
How kind of you - I must have a proper look around, but I'm having a couple of crises around here:
1. 500gb hard disk full of photos gone down :-(
2. Client's server gone down with corrupted data :-(
3. Trod in some dog muck so studio smells nasty!

Is there a specific gallery for posting photos, or is it good to put them in with threads? I'm not quite there yet as I've suddely had a Lightroom epiphany with the M8 (having rejected it to start with).
As for Rainer - he must buy one, so that he can start loving it rather than being grumpy about it!

kind regards
jono slack

Hi Jono,

1. keep us updated on the hard drive in case hep is needed or just to give other's hope!

2. we'll pray for the server

3. Post in this, the Rangefinder forum! Four images per post, as many as you want.

Asher

Jono, state, if you can, whether pictures are just shown for sharing the joy (or comments, criticism or editing if desired or allowable).
 

Diane Fields

New member
Jono Slack said:
How kind of you - I must have a proper look around, but I'm having a couple of crises around here:
1. 500gb hard disk full of photos gone down :-(
2. Client's server gone down with corrupted data :-(
3. Trod in some dog muck so studio smells nasty!

Is there a specific gallery for posting photos, or is it good to put them in with threads? I'm not quite there yet as I've suddely had a Lightroom epiphany with the M8 (having rejected it to start with).
As for Rainer - he must buy one, so that he can start loving it rather than being grumpy about it!

kind regards
jono slack

This isn't the forum where I belong LOL---but I had to say welcome and glad to see you here. I read of your travails earlier today---you were a bit more polite here about the 'yucky' situation (I've been there, done that......and more than once I hate to admit because it means that I didn't learn my lesson the first time).

Good luck with both the harddrive and server. I'll keep tabs on you here---I do check your photo site to see what you are up to and how, if it will, change your 'style'.

Best, Diane
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Jono,

re the drive, then another purchase of spinrite, I guess.

re the dog dooh, pour on a bottle of cheap aftershave - but the dog stuff may smell better...

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Well, Diane, you love great pictures, so make sure you follow here too! Of course, we are looking forward to Jono's work, whicxh you already like. We are getting more M8 Leica shooters at OPF!

For example, Steven Teitelbaum should be posting his pictures from Central Park in New york shortly. He has the M8 and loves it. He's a long time Leica users and I like his work.

Diane you and others will be able to help as he transitions from film to digital. I'm going to join him later today to see more of his work. Hopefully he'll put online pictures for people to process including to B&W!

So your photoshop skills could certainly be brought to his M8 work. I believe there will be many more Leica photographers who'll appreciate this exchange of experience and images. This will be interesting!

Asher
 

Roger Lambert

New member
Jonathan

I don't usually comment on other folks galleries, but I amm really enjoying your "Pictures for an Exhibition".

Your image of the cow reaching back toward its tail just blew me away!

Many, many wonderful things I have seen there. :)

Thank you. :)
 
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