A Very Likable Leica
Written: Jan 06 '00 (Updated Mar 19 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A great "retro" SLR, with wonderful optics
Cons: Lack of popular bells and whistles
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| frank_vanriper's Full Review: Leica R8 Film Camera |
Product Review
By Frank Van Riper
Professional photographer, author, and photography columnist of The Washington Post
Here’s an indication of how popular Leica cameras are with their owners:
A friend and former newspaper colleague of mine, who shot only with top-of-the-line Nikons, and now digital Canons, swears that, if he knew he were to be shipwrecked on a desert island, the only camera he would take with him would be his Leica M6 rangefinder and a 35mm Summicron lens.
Such loyalty is understandable, given the German camera maker’s renowned obsession with quality, especially the quality of its optics. Colleagues insist they can spot slides shot with Leica lenses by that extra bit of sharpness, that extra bit of clarity and contrast in the image. [Though my personal experience with Leicas once had been limited, I had had plenty of experience with the German lenses on my Swedish-made Hasselblads. Those lenses, made by Zeiss Optical, are phenomenal.]
So, getting to test Leica’s top-of-the-line single lens reflex, the R8, along with a razor-sharp 60mm Elmarit macro lens, was a real treat. If one believes, with justification, that a camera only is as good as the lens it’s attached to, this Leica system was impressive, even if the price for the body alone was a whopping $2,795, with the lens weighing in at just under $2100. [As with all camera equipment, suggested list prices are largely fiction. Almost everything can be gotten for less, especially on the Internet.]
Ruggedly made and superbly finished though it is, the R8 did have one or two drawbacks—and here I have to admit the Nikon user in me is speaking. The most obvious one was the camera’s size and unwieldiness. Not since I held the notoriously clunky Alpa 6 more than 30 years ago have I encountered a camera so difficult to hold comfortably. Ironically, this is the first Leica to incorporate ergonomic design in its body shape and Leica needs more practice to get it right. Almost any other high-end 35mm camera will feel more comfortable to you than the R8. For example: every time I picked up the R8, I was annoyed that my right hand had to grapple with the camera strap since the carrying strap loop is placed directly under where your hand has to be when shooting.
[Indeed, the R8's physical clunkiness is even more unusual given the classic design of its rangefinder predecessor, embodied in the most recent incarnation, the legendary Leica M6. This may be the most beautifully designed 35mm camera around--strictly from an aesthetic standpoint. Markedly devoid of bells and whistles, the M6 is a camera stripped to the barest picture-making essentials and has, for me anyway, the profile of a superb athlete--a distance runner, say, or in the animal kingdom, a cheetah. And the whisper of the M6's shutter is simply a sensual pleasure: soft and quiet like a lover's kiss.]
On the R8 Leica also retains the pebble-grain finish of its exterior—a handsome high-tech version of the leather that used to surround all good camera bodies years ago. However, handsome though it may be, this finish does not offer the sure-handed “grabability” of the rubberized surfaces now found on Nikons, Canons, Minoltas and other top brands.
But these are really minor quibbles. What the R8 offers, besides legendary Leica lenses, is a rugged and durable camera remarkably free of high-tech gizmos, yet still capable of pulling off a high-tech trick or two.
It took me a while to realize why looking through the viewfinder of this camera was so comforting. Then I realized: Here was the fail-safe manual focusing system I had loved using on my Nikons before they (and everyone else on the planet) went over to autofocus. The clear bright and blessedly uncluttered R8 finder features not only groundglass focusing but also split-image focusing at the center of the grid, as well as a prism grid that serves as a welcome third focusing aid.
This delightfully retro focusing system is one of the reasons legendary Washington photographer Fred Maroon swears by his Leica SLRs. Fred, whose black and white coverage of the Watergate scandal recently was featured in a major retrospective at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, has used Leicas for decades. He told me he happily upgraded to the R8 and loves it.
And who am I to argue?
Several other features on the R8 are activated with mechanical dials, not electronic buttons. [Electronic buttons are fine, but too much of a good thing can create an awfully confusing LCD readout, to show that all those buttons are working.] On the R8, for example, you achieve multiple-exposure capability by flicking a thumb switch; rear-curtain flash synch by moving a small lever from left to right; different exposure patterning by first depressing, then moving, yet another switch—all without having to to look through the camera viewfinder to confirm what you are doing.
Two other retro features include manual film advance (though a motor drive soon will be available), as well as manual film rewind—especially useful when you need either to be very silent or need to limit the possibility of static electricity ruining your film because of too-rapid motorized rewind in dry atmospheric conditions.
The only remaining beef I have with the earnest folks at Leica is the occasionally awful translation in their instruction manual. I quote verbatim: “Since the operating modes P, A and T already create a normally exposed photograph due to the ambient light, the flash should be throttled.” If I’m forking over three large for a camera body, I expect better from the instruction book.
In sum: The Leica R8 may be missing a lot of the bells and whistles now taken for granted on other cameras, but those that it does have can make beautiful music.
Now, if only I hadn’t throttled my flash.
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Ease of Use: extremely easy, even for an amateur
Durability: Built to last, and last
Battery life: average
Overall rating: 4
Recommend to friend: yes
Gift to technies (though not much high-tech on camera)
Others who’d like camera: Outdoor enthusiasts, people who have it all, sports fans.
[Check out Frank Van Riper's latest book: Down East Maine/A World Apart.]
END
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
frank_vanriper
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Member: Frank Van Riper
Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 120 members
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