You raise the camera to your eye. In that one moment it becomes an extension of your mind, your soul. Every ounce of your attention is focused on that one moment. You press the shutter and you can be proud knowing you just captured a moment in time that can never be re-captured or repeated. Your image then becomes a memory. Like an emotional time machine to look back on years later. It IS important and it IS there because YOU captured it.

As I sit here and REALY think about it, I can not think of too many things as powerful as a camera and a lens. Sure, there are MILLIONS of people shooting MILLIONS of pictures each and every day but to each and every one of those people, their photos mean something to them and that is what makes it so special.

Wether you are capturing your newborn baby or your 90 year old parents/grandparents, each photo you take will live on forever. I am very passionate about photography and over the years have shot with just about every DIGITAL camera ever made and the only camera that has ever elevated my passion for photography even further has been a Leica M camera.

It is funny. I get a few e-mails every week asking why I love my Leica M8.2 so much. I am then told it is a much too expensive camera. It is just fancy “bling” they say. I get those e-mails saying “My Nikon D40 can outshoot your M8” and I even get those who tell me it must be nice to be rich. HA!!! If they only knew I have one foot in the poor house.

The truth is I have owned or tried almost every camera available to date and MY CHOICE, for my style is hands down the Leica M8/M8.2. No other camera that I have ever used or owned has come close to the feeling you get when you are holding that Leica to your eye, pulling focus, and pressing the shutter capturing that one moment in time that no one else can catch.

It is the whole package. The look, the build, the ergonomics, the rangefinder, the focus, the lenses and the smooth silky shutter of the M8.2. I must admit a little bit of that Leica mystique is thrown in as well.

BUT I will warn those thinking of selling off their DSLRs for an M8.

I see many hobbyists sell off their DSLR’s and buy an M8 only to sell the M8 a month later! They try the rangefinder for the first time in their life and are so used to seeing through the lens with a DSLR that it is alien to them. It is strange and hard to get used to.

They miss the telephoto, the macro and the blazing AF speed. They soon regret plunking down all of that cash on a camera and sell it at a loss. They go back to a DSLR and soon remember why they wanted to ditch it in the first place! The weight, the bulk, the huge lenses. Once again, they sell the DSLR and buy another M8 and then they GET IT.

If you are soon going to buy an M8 or M8.2, remember that shooting a rangefinder camera takes some time to get used to. It is NOT like an SLR. You can not see through the lens, and you might as well forget about telephoto and macro. AF? Forget about it!! Even without all of those fancy whiz bang features I am starting to realize the M8 is much more capable than even I once thought.

The M8 is my constant companion. It travels with me daily and that is something that never happened with any of my past DSLRs. I mean, imagine carrying around a Nikon D3x and 24-70 lens all day, every day, wherever you go! Makes me depressed just thinking about it.

I have many friends who have switched to M8’s and they would never go back to the backbreaking weight of a DSLR. Sure, many of them keep a DSLR around but they barely use them. The M8 just seems so much more “human” in its approach to photography. It really is an emotional experience and even after THREE years of shooting with M8’s, I love it just as much today as I did back then. To those who know me, than you know that is a remarkable statement.

I used to switch cameras every 3-4 weeks. I was always looking for that perfect camera and never found it until the M8 came along. There are better cameras made today of course, but none will offer the experience of an M. I guarantee it.

The size is perfect. The build is superb. The sensor is incredible and the user experience is sublime. It is not filled with gimmicks, nor super fast AF. Its metering is classic and the resulting images have a realness to them.

If you have a PASSION for photography and want to IMPROVE then an M8 does indeed help you do this. It slows you down much like a film M7 or MP does. You soon start “seeing” the shot before you even capture it. If you shoot the M8 and ONE LENS for a while you start learning how to get the shot you want without changing lenses.

The bottom line is I love my Leica and it has rewarded me with the best images I have ever taken, many of which I cant show here as they are for clients. But I can say that even my personal images have something about them that was lacking when I shot with a DSLR. Whatever it is, I like it and I look forward to the future of the digital M line.