Insanity rules and I now have what must be the most expensive paperweight in existence. Yes, I did say paperweight. The Leica M8 worked for about 24 hours exactly before deciding of its own accord to decamp and head for coma-land. Brain dead. Brick. Except bricks are useful for holding up buildings. There is nothing useful about a camera that decides to not work.
Yet I absolutely love this particular Brick.
Maybe it is the cognitive dissonance generated by love-hate tension that is scrambling my neurons into not seeing the obvious, but even in the short few hours in which Brick worked, it was a lot of fun. I kind of admire Leica for not changing so much over fifty years, even if that is what will probably be their undoing. They are so stubborn, dare I say it, so German? I don’t know, I really don’t know if you can ascribe that to a nationality. Leica’s initial position on a digital rangefinder was that it could not be done to their high standards, at least with the technology at the time. Meanwhile all the other camera makers were pushing on with their digital SLR’s and learning valuable lessons. Those were the dark wandering days in the woods for Leica, where innovation meant making it possible to buy a chrome camera clad in Red Ostrich Leather with a black rewind knob. Cutting edge to say the least. But eventually they did get around to the M8 and then made some interesting design choices, which I can only describe as antideluvian in nature. But this is their company culture, a desperate clinging to the past against all forces.
I guess I like that.
Oh I am an idiot though! Why would anyone want to remove the bottom plate to access the battery and flash card? But then you get to have an almost seamless external body. That dang usb port be dammed! Should just epoxy it shut! But just like Oskar intended, you have a shutter speed dial, an aperture ring, and a focus ring. And a viewfinder that makes you drool and wonder why on earth no one else seems to remember a day when you could actually focus through the viewfinder on an SLR. Do the engineers and Canon and Nikon actually use their products? Cause I’ll guarantee you if they are then they have never tried to manually focus their products in dim light. It’s impossible.
Another brave design choice was to eschew whatever Ir filtration and Low-pass filtration other camera makers would consider standard, and fly their ass (the sensor) out in the breeze so to speak, for all to see. It makes for very sharp pictures I dare say. And other interesting features, such as a predilection towards seeing what the eye cannot see, infrared light for example. Leica in their inestimable wisdom determined that only haberdashers and other fashion denizens would be the only casualties, the only ones seeing their synthetics fabrics rendered a brilliant magenta. But real photographers working in battle zones would not be affected, after all, Operation Iraqi Freedom is being conducted in the desert, and the kevlar is clad in kakhi, not black cordura. But what of that sullen Iraqi child in the corner of the frame wearing that magenta Metallica shirt-should that not be black? Details, details…and my employers are all so concerned about digital image manipulation that they throw a fit if I even suggest I use Photoshop to prep my work, dare tell them that the colors they see in the un-manipulated frame are being skewed by the technology anyway? I guess they believed that the greens in fuji films were accurate too. But that is another story/rant.
Tomorrow I off to the high street to assail my shop-keep to exchange this Brick for another less recalcitrant model of the same that might be encouraged to keep working past five-oh-clock in the eve. Shall I name her/him Brick as well?
oh love…
you’re lucky the camera broke right away… easier to justify an exchange… and better than one year down the road. I love my m8 modernity be damned.