Leica, as most will know, started the 35mm revolution 100 years ago, back in 1925. But the digital revolution seemed to catch it off-guard. Eventually, the company decided to catch up and develop its first digital rangefinder camera, the Leica M8, which was introduced to the world in September 2006 and available in stores that November.
In August that year, I got to use a pre-production M8 for review purposes. It was a delightful camera to use, handling just like any M-series Leica since the M3 from 1954. But it had a flaw: it used Kodak’s KAF-10500 sensor – an APS-H-sized 10.4MP CCD sensor, which was particularly sensitive to infrared… and the camera had not yet been fitted with an IR filter.
In most cases, the images were lovely even though the firmware was version 0.8 and not yet ready for prime time.. But certain shades of black had a purple tinge in the pictures. I’ll come back to that later.
From the back the M8 is definitely digital, with a screen and buttons, like most other digital cameras. But from the front, it has the classic good looks of a rangefinder camera from yesteryear. While down at the local park taking pictures of kids playing soccer, I was approached by a very pleasant middle-aged lady, who looked at the M8 and announced, in a lilting tone:
“My! What a lovely old camera!”
“Actually”, I replied, “It’s new.”
“Oh”, she said. “New to you… how nice.” And we left it at that, for I was not supposed to admit to what I had!
Shortly after that, the Leica M8 was put into production – still without its IR filter, which led to many complaints about the reproduction of some blacks.
In the end, Leica provided sets of IR filters to its buyers. It was a very expensive retrofit but, at that time, Leica had been struggling financially – and many historians credit the introduction of the M8 with saving the company.
In 2009 Leica introduced its M9, with a larger 18.1MP full-frame CCD sensor, again by Kodak – but with its IR filter! Later M-series Leica models all have full-frame CMOS sensors, and all are equipped with IR filters.
And they all still look like lovely old cameras.
Find out more about photography's past in David Young's book, A Brief History of Photography.
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Take a look at the best Leica cameras you can buy today – or read other articles in David Young's Classic Cameras series
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