Leica M8 Testing Portfolio

This page consists of photographs taken over a few days in late October, 2006, during my initial testing of the Leica M8, prior to the publication of my field review. I have provided any relevant shooting information, but it should be noted that none of these files have had extensive "manipulation", usually just a few minutes of cropping, B&W conversion in some cases, and basic input sharpening with Photokit Sharpener. Unless noted otherwise no noise reduction has been applied either in the raw converter or afterward in Photoshop. The raw conversion software used was Phase One's Capture One Pro, V3.7.5. B&W conversion, and toning where done, was performed using Convert To B&W Pro. All photographs were taken hand-held and cropped as appropriate.

Note that because the M8 does not record the lens' actual aperture used in the file's EXIF information I have only indicated it below when my notes have a record, or when I clearly remember the aperture used.

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Some Thoughts on Camera Testing

I am a photographer, not a technologist. For this reason the only testing of a piece of photographic equipment that makes sense to me is to actually use it under conditions similar to those under which the product will be used in the real world. I have tried doing quantitative testing (some of you may recall the DXO Analyzer reports which I did here for a while a few years ago), but in the end I found these to be unsatisfying. They produced lots of graphs and numbers, but actually told me little to nothing that I really wanted to know about how the camera or lens really performed. For those wishing a more rigorous testing approach I recommend you to the many fine web sites that specialize in these. They'll provide you with lots of charts and tables, as well as numeric comparisons. Not my cup of tea, but it may be yours.