Leica Responds to M8 Questions

Added by Asher,

I received this earlier today:

"Message to the customers of the LEICA M8

Dear Friends of Leica,

Customer feedback to us following the start of shipment of the LEICA
M8 points to a performance under certain conditions that does not
meet the expectations in the Leica brand. Our technical and
engineering teams have isolated the source of these concerns und have
identified definitive solutions. Over the next two weeks we will
communicate a plan to further assure you of your investment in the LEICA M8.

We hope for your understanding and support. Please accept that I will
not be able to answer all messages in the forum personally.

Kind regards

Leica Camera AG
Stefan Daniel"


Asher



Official "Leica Statement on M8 Issues" at DPR.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net



Edited to join together two threads on the same subject!

Hi Nil,

The statement is meaningless. It should itemise the problems that have been reported and the ones they have isolated and indicate the fixes, and how they are to be made.

And folk, who pay the amount of money, go on waiting lists, etc., let them get away with it.

They either knew the problems existed before the camera was released, and thought they could get away with it, or they did not test properly. Either fact says something pretty clear to me about Leica's priorities, and possibly their engineering expertise.

They are not doing enough, quick enough, for the brand loyal guys who ordered months ago, and have ended up with kit that is substandard. Its not as if there are millions of units out there.

They're not owned by microsoft, by any chance?

Best wishes,

Ray

I have responded to Leica.

Their announcement on the M8 is both welcome and appreciated. I had certainty that this flagship would always have the dedication and support that the Leica name carries.

Many of our us still have precious Leica lenses. I myself have used the R9, the M7 and the M8. I believe that having this new technology revitalizes an important creative option for us. Yes there's a world outside of Canon and Nikon. Would you believe these companies made some of the best rangefinders and that the old lenses and bodies are valuable even today.

Did you know that manual focus, except in tracking action can be far more accurate? Well that's the world we need to explore more!

I'll keep you informed of any further news and invite your feedback.

Asher

Ray West said:

The statement is meaningless. It should itemise the problems that have been reported and the ones they have isolated and indicate the fixes, and how they are to be made.

They either knew the problems existed before the camera was released, and thought they could get away with it, or they did not test properly. Either fact says something pretty clear to me about Leica's priorities, and possibly their engineering expertise.

Click to expand...

Ray, I've worked a bit with product developers, both in hardware and in software. Leica's from the hardware culture, which is not casual about problems, and not very open to admitting them. I think that statement cost them a lot of pain. We know that they know the two issues (bleeding and ir-induced false colors) which they thought were rare are in fact widely appreciated and unacceptable. Their statement is that they have developed solutions to these two problems, have plans now in place to fix them, and will share that information in the next weeks. They have also implied that the fix will be at zero cost to the original purchases. I can wait to hear the rest of the story.

Of course they knew about the problems in some part of their minds, but give them a break. This isn't the Challenger disaster, this is a small company with two conflicting challenges -- keeping a lofty tradition intact which allows them to sell good engineering at a good profit, and meeting the payroll with must be a very finite capitalization. Let's see where they are in six months, during most of which I hope to be enjoying my M8.

scott

just my opinion, ymmv

Hi Scott,

They did not mention the problems in any sort of detail in the statement I saw, quoted in the first post here, so for all we know they could be looking at paint peeling or something. Is it so difficult for them to say that it is colour bleeding and ir filter problems,and if they have the solutions, then what is wrong in saying what they may be? Does it help the customer, or does it help Leica?

I think the challenger disaster, or at least one of the shutttle disasters, was due to 'commercial shipping deadlines' ignoring engineering wisdom and test results, or similar.

The company attitude, whether it is Leica, canon, Firestone, general motors, whoever, is much the same. I think it is not good enough, and if I had paid that amount for anything, I would complain, kick up a stink. If you all accept it, then it lets the standards fall even lower. However, it is your choice, if you think its OK.

Rainer summarised it here, post 46, and before
http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1246&page=5

Best wishes,

Ray

Hi-

Often times IR induced color is only apparent in low chroma (saturation) colors. It's not unheard of in digital systems. For example, gray turns a shade of red or magenta, or a low chroma green goes brown. My guess is that Leica will exchange the IR filter over the sensor for an optimized version. A possible workaround until the issue is fixed would be to edit the camera's ICC profile so that low chroma colors are desaturated more. On the good side, you may lose the color cast, on the bad side some color subtlety would be lost.

I do know that the Leica M8 is shipping with a free version of Capture One LE. Phase One provides camera profiles with the back. If you have Capture One Pro you can try using the Color Editor feature to tweak their provided profile.

Similar tweaking might be possible using the Calibrate feature in ACR.

Anybody here actually have this problem?