Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Monkey Checks Out The Leica M8 At Dale Labs



The invitation had come a few weeks ago. It was Leica Day at Dale Labs in Hollywood, Florida, with Roland Wolf the Leica rep there to show all the latest goodies, the new lenses, and the long awaited Leica M8 digital camera. I decided to take Monkey along. We got to attend the Friday night reception for pros instead of Saturday when it was open to the public.

All week long Monkey sat on the table by my front door holding the invitation so we wouldn't forget. Finally Friday arrived. Monkey climbed into the bag along with some film, a Leica M3 with a 21mm f/3.4 Super Angulon lens, and a Weston Master V light meter. I also had 35mm and 90mm lenses tucked in there. It was crowded! A Leica M2R wore the 15mm Heliar that I used for these photos.

The Leica rep was dressed in black as if to prove that black fabric will really come out black in M8 photographs, but he admitted that some black fabrics, in some lighting conditions, sometimes do come out magenta. Leica's fix would be available in two weeks. It seems that an infrared cut-off filter will solve the problem. As soon as he finished showing the camera to two other guys I explained about my project and he said "sure!"

When Monkey came out of my bag Elaine spotted him from across the room. She's a member of the family that owns Dale. As I told her about Monkey she got all excited and said there were some of Monkey's friends in the office. Soon Monkey was trying to check out the M8 with the help of a fuzzy brown bear and a cute little snowman.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, but did Monkey like the M8?

8:24 AM  
Blogger Al Kaplan said...

He's going to stay with film until a full frame digital version hits the market. (The M9?) He loves the full angle of the 15mm lens.

9:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Monkey's a smart fellow.

Hey, did you go to the Pnut today? Bob posted some of the Pnut rules in the Leica forum. Rule #6 should be of interest to you.

(6) You may post only under a single user name (ID) on photo.net unless you have specific permission from the site administration

5:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hard to put down my MP. Now that I have the M8 I decided to shoot with the MP this weekend. It is such a joy to shoot with. Not to mention the results I get are just stunning on Fuji PRO 160. I think it will tuen into a tag team effort here between the M8 and MP. I can't see giving one up for the other. Each have their pros.

Film still rocks !!!!!

Ordered Luigi half case for M8! I should have it in the next few days. Black with built in grip.

Jorge Torralba

7:43 PM  

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