This is a longer post than normal. It chronicles a few thoughts on the M8, some software rants, and describes another of my photo-centric screw ups.
These images were shot using my much loved Leica M8 at ISO 320. These scenes would be handled route de suite by a modern digital camera. The M8 “suffers” in dimly lit scenes even at the pedestrian ISO of 320. Its native ISO is 160. As a result the out of camera images have noise substantially akin to film grain. The favored result is according to taste. I like the out of camera grainy images. Here are two comparisons. The left hand image is out of the camera and the right hand image was run through Topaz DeNoise. Which one do you prefer? Topaz does add a tinge of sharpness.
The lens used was a 1957 vintage Leica Rigid Summicron which was given to me by a friend while he emptied out his home for a move to Florida. I have not used the lens very much, but will put it through its paces over the next week. The skiff image was shot at 1/30th, F 3.4 of a second and the coupe image was shot at 1/50th of a second F 6.7. Good sharpness resulted, but compared to my modern Summicron 50, this version is a tad softer. According to a few posts in rangefinder forums, the lens was designed with black and white film in mind.
On to the Leica M8. These images are out of camera .jpg conversions of the original DNG files. This camera scratches the itch of a film photography dedicate. The colors are glorious. I set the camera to shoot DNG (Leica’s version of raw) alongside black and white .jpgs. Import of the .jpg’s into DXO photo lab was nixed by a “.jpg corrupted” message. Switching into Lightroom the DNG files imported but the .jpg companions did not. I’ll try a few things to pry the .jpg’s out of the stingy card.
I put the M8 shutter into “discrete” mode for kicks. In normal mode, the shutter sounds like a wind up top’s gears singing away. Discrete mode is not going to allow one to surreptitiously snap away in the shadows. It just sounds like a smaller top!
At times especially with slow cards, the M8 freezes up. Oddly, the camera’s date resets to random ones. I m to shooting in January of 1970! What the hell, I will just leave the date alone. Perhaps some day a curious bloke will flit through my hard drive, find on of these images and say “Man, he had the touch even when he was 12 years old!”
A rant about Lightroom. I have no idea if using a lens profile helps worth a damn. Nonetheless, I am irritated about the lens profile module. I am ok with the program not recognizing this long in the tooth camera body. But randomly, with Leica lens images, the lens profile drop down menu either does not have any Leica M choice, or there is a bare “Leica” choice that defaults to the iPhone 13. Hey Mary, WTF? Somebody at Adobe is screwing with my head.
A rant about AI. WordPress gives the option to generate an “excerpt”. Feeling like dehumanizing myself I clicked the button. It generated an antiseptic description of my meandering, fuming mind. And I cannot get rid of the damned thing. If the excerpt is there, the words are NOT MINE! Whose words are they? Who the hell knows?
I close with the screw up. I was getting errors from the camera, saying the bottom plate was not attached. I cooperated, removing and replacing the plate several times. I chalked the experience up to another M8 foible. It turns out the design of this particular Summicron is such that using it on the M8 can cause damage. I gently removed the lens (noticing then that it had never “clicked” into place, and mounted a modern Leica lens and let the M8 whine its way with no issues. Hopefully no damage was done. I would hate to lose use of this quirky but wonderful tool.
Until next time, more than likely with less to say and more to show. Louis.
The green of that car looks superb!! I cannot attest to the foibles of Leica, but Lightroom does have some annoying quirks. Seems that AI is not going anywhere soon.