When Leica rolled out the long awaited M8 digital rangefinder at Photokina last year, I’ll have to admit I was one of the throng willing to queue up at the Leica booth for 30 minutes just to get my hands on the prized piece of German engineering. Unfortunately that euphoria was dashed as press reviews revealed some of the shortfalls of the camera, extreme color shifts due to a lack of infrared filtering and poor image quality at higher ISO ratings.

Fortunately Leica seems to have taken these shortcomings seriously, releasing infrared filters and posting several firmware upgrades, including their most recent, M8 Firmware Update 1.107.

Through the combination of infrared filters and firmware upgrades the M8 image quality continues to move in a positive direction. This latest upgrade was released to address concerns over the auto white balance not hitting the mark and amount of digital noise showing when using the higher ISO range of the camera. A quick test of the AWB after upgrading displayed that Leica engineers still have a little more work to do, at least when dealing with florescent lights.

These firmware upgrades are highly recommended and continue to bring the M8 closer to the quality considered needed to be a serious replacement for the venerable M series film cameras.

— Ken Geiger

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