Pro Photographer Has Trouble Using Leica: Loves It Anyway

Photographer James Russell is the latest to be sucked in by the Cult of Leica. His review of the M8 rangefinder shows the same glass-eyed wonder these cameras seem to inspire in everyone, despite the fact that he can't get the thing to work half the time:

50% of everything I shoot with it is not in real tack focus, 50% has too much noise, 50% has surprise framing, but no camera I have ever used has touched me so deeply. I just can't really explain it but I know that if I keep down this path I'll probably spend my life savings on lenses.

To be fair, this is in part due to the differences between a rangefinder and an SLR, and there is something special about using such a well made tool (I owned an M6 for a while before selling it to pay the rent). But just the name of the Wetzlar company seems to blind the smartest people to any flaws:

The menu is a mess and it's functions make no logical sense, but it is so simple and MS DOS looking that I learned it in about 10 minutes.

Go read the rest now. Russell's review pokes fun at the white balance and the supplied software, too.

Leica M8 Revisited [Luminous Landscape via Daring Fireball]