So, we ordered a Leica M8 before Christmas. It was madness, I know. Leica held up shipment, and I probably should have cancelled the order. I didn’t, so now there’s a giant charge on my credit card.
My film Leicas have sat all but unused for the better part of a decade, and the Leica Digilux II and the Panasonic Lumix, with its mass-market, but still very good Leica DC Vario Elmarit lens, have served me very well.
Spending nearly $5000 on a manual-focus body that means going (way) back to a former photo technology era, probably seems like madness. Can’t argue that, really. So, here goes madness… The Leica came along today on our walk, my 21mm f2.8 Elmarit mounted (effective focal length 24mm), and exposure set to camera aperture priority. Being who I am, ISO is set to 640 (what Europeans set when they load TRi-X or other ‘400’-speed film and the only option on the Leica’s ISO list).
Basically, this is an M4 with an electronic shutter: and let’s talk at some point about how ‘quiet’ this thing is. The rangefinder feels a lot like my M4-P’s , and I’m way rusty and spoiled after years of automated Nikon F4s and now digital cameras. I’ve tried it with a 35mm f2 Summicron-M, too. Repro’d here are a couple of pix I snapped this afternoon on the walk and at a nearby garage.
Heh, this is pure old school. My wife, asking me questions about the features of this latest drain on the family estate, eventually just looked at me in bewilderment. You have to be an old-school photog to even begin to understand how much fun I’m going to have using this camera….
Chris Gulker - www.gulker.com 