Leica M8 review

at the risk of beating a dead horse, a number of people have emailed me saying, “well bruno and ashley liked the M8.” bruno i don’t really know, but i respect his work and his word on his M8. if you look at what he’s doing with the camera, it’s radically different that what i’m doing with it. different needs, different result. if it works for him, ok. i have no reason to dispute what he says.

ashley is a close friend and a great photographer. he used a couple of loaner M8’s (that he did not pay for) for a total of about six weeks i believe. my review is based on using 3 M8’s over a period of 14 months. i had plenty of time for things to go wrong and to thoroughly work the cameras out. if others love the M8, that’s not a problem for me. my review speaks to my experience and is well-documented. i’ll leave it at that.

on another note, i would say that in the past leica was making cameras for photojournalists, cameras which—partly because they were made for pros and stood up to professional abuse—became hugely popular with amateurs and aficionados. we got the tools we needed and leica made most of it’s money on the amateur market, allowing them to invest in R&D for the next version of the M series. it was a win win situation for all of us.

i want to be clear that i too am an aficionado and that i have every respect for those who work a day job and go out and shoot on the weekends out of love for the medium and help to spread the gospel of photography. we’re intertwined—all part of one community—whether we’re making a living at it or not.

i’m not clear that leica remembers this. my guess is that leica has largely forgotten the professionals and is focusing on the amateurs that comprise 95 percent of their market. this is a mistake on their part. note who sponsors VII, not leica. gary knight has spoken scathingly of the M8.

look at the photos of horst fass, larry burrows and others in vietnam. they all have leicas around their necks (and a nikon over their shoulder with a tele). in iraq, it’s all nikons and canons.

by Michael Kamber at Wed Jun 11 19:11:30 UTC 2008 (ed. Jun 11 2008) Baghdad, Iraq | Bookmark this | Digg this |