The M8 supports all existing Leica M-mount lenses; however, some older models might not offer all the functions due to mismatching cams.

In addition, Leica chooses to omit the Anti-Alias filter, citing the reason for higher resolution power of the lens.

However, the moiré artifacts can occur in scenes with closely spaced geometric patterns, such as fabric or mesh, distant buildings, balcony railings, corrugated roofing etc.

To prevent excessive vignetting due to closer lens mount than in a DSLR and thus higher light rays angle on the sensor periphery, offset micro-lenses are used on the CCD.

The sensor includes indium tin oxide as a constituent material, which Kodak claims leads to low noise, high sensitivity, and wide dynamic range.

It is designed for use with lenses with short back focal lengths – such as those common to rangefinder cameras – by including a microlens array to reduce fall off in intensity from the center to corners of the image.

[7] The Leica M8 suffered from some controversy on its release due to image quality problems reported by some users, especially an extremely high sensitivity to infrared light, which made black colors appear purple.

Leica has since released a statement saying that it will send two free special UV/IR screw-on photographic filters to all future M8 purchasers, and upon request for all current M8 users.