Leica M8 field-tested in Iraq
© Michael Kamber, used with permission
Photojournalist Michael Kamber - currently attached to the Baghdad bureau of the New York Times - has posted a very thorough review of the Leica M8 on his website.
The review is a real-world, hands-on, in-the-field style review from the perspective of the camera’s use in combat situations. Mike is a long time Leica user but despite the advantages of the camera’s “unobtrusiveness” he found:
“the Leica M8 to be unreliable, poorly designed, and to deliver substandard results in most of the situations in which I have used it. I can’t think of any camera - or for that matter any electronic device I have recently used - that so thoroughly fails to live up to its potential and its heritage.”
Ouch. Read more here.
Update: Mike’s review has sparked a vigorous debate over at Lightstalkers with people comparing his review to more positive ones by the likes of Bruno Stevens and Ashley Gilberston and trying to work out how a camera can be both terrible and fantastic. If you like debates of the “Mac vs PC” or “Nikon vs Canon” variety, take a look at the threads here, here, and endlessly here.
