Fred Ward's comments

[Mark_Bishop@ipc.co.uk (Mark Bishop)]

I cannot disagree more with Fred Ward's negative comments about amateurs who buy 
fast, and to his mind *professional* lenses. He said this in the context of the
recent discussions of the relative merits of the two versions of the Summilux-M
35 1.4 that use aspheric glass.

I am an amateur photographer. I would have liked to become a professional but
here (the UK) there are very few professional photographers who earn really good
money. Instead, I enjoy using good photography in my own profession, first as a
magazine editor and more recently as an editorial consultant, and also like to
take photographs in my own time - especially while travelling. 

Since all my photography is voluntary I would say that I enjoy it at least as
much as some of the pros I know, some of whom are bored or photography per se,
and others of whom would be in a different branch of photography were it not for
the need to pay the mortgage etc.

My goal is to photograph what I see, as close as possible to the way I see it.
This is why I use a Leica M6, and a 35mm lens. I want the fastest lens possible
so I can operate unobtrusively, handheld, but I do not want to sacrifice quality
because this degrades the detail and purity of what I've seen. Hence I own the
f/1.4 Aspheric.

Mr Ward is right that a *high proportion* of my photographs would be *almost* as
good if taken with a 35mm f/2 Summicron. But I have taken the decision to spend
a little extra money to buy that extra percentile of quality and flexibility.
This I would feel guilty about in a high-tech Japanese camera with designed-in
obsolescence, but in a Leica outfit which I intend to keep for a decade or more,
the difference in cost is a very modest investment indeed, especially since it
should be possible to get back a good percentage of the purchase price of the
rarer lens when (if) I ever get rid of it.

Also, I do believe that psychology plays a part. If I buy what I consider to be
*the best* equipment for the job, and I turn out bad photographs, I have only
myself to blame. In the past (when I followed the fashion for autofocus, multi-
program, evaluative-metered polycarbonate SLRs with slower, more bulky zoom
lenses) I am convinced there were times when I would have taken a better
photograph, had my equipment been up to scratch.

These are only my reasons for buying fast 'pro' lenses for amateur use; other
LUG subscribers' may be quite different.