The M8 was Leica`s first digital rangefinder. Smooth, sleek, but distinctly rough around the edges, it nevertheless laid down the basic pattern for the cameras that came after it, while remaining true to its film roots.
I share an anniversary with the Leica M8 - sort of. The M8 was announced in the same week that I started my career as a camera reviewer - September 2006. We were both very green, both a little unsteady on our feet and both decidedly unpolished.
Up to that point, Leica`s experiments with digital had been unconvincing. The clunky Digital Modul R was emblematic of the company`s lack of confidence when it came to digital. Designed to clip onto the back of R8 and R9 film SLR bodies and in effect convert them into digital cameras, the Digital Modul R was a good idea but a bad product. It took two years to actually ship, and when it did, it was extremely pricey, costing more than $5000 (and that`s without a camera body on which to mount it).
In the mid 2000s, whether or not Leica would ever bother to risk an digital M-series rangefinder was still an open question. After the much-maligned M51, Leica`s approach to upgrading the M-series in subsequent decades might charitably be described as `conservative.`
When it finally arrived, the M8 was a mixture of new technology and traditional rangefinder operation. It featured a 10MP APS-H format CCD sensor, a decent-ish LCD screen and a modern-ish menu system, but it retained the pure rangefinder focusing system and (by and large) the same ergonomics as previous M-series film bodies. And it was not, as Leica`s representatives were at pains to point out, definitely not intended to replace the M7.
Compared to Leica`s long-serving flagship film rangefinder (M7, left) the M8 was slightly bigger, heavier and noticeably cleaner in terms of design, thanks to the omission of the film wind and rewind levers.
For a lot of people, rangefinder shooting is a pain, but if you love it, ...
|
