Re: M5 is not a dog. Was Re: CL vs CLE features?

[Fred Ward <fward@erols.com>]

Chris, 

It really isn t that I do not like the M5. It is just that is seems to
me like a duck out of water.... neither one thing or the other. It is
not a real M, and yet is not the first of a brilliant new design
attempt. It seems more like a trial balloon that went nowhere. 

I remember when it came out. I was working the White House every day
then for various magazines. I borrowed one from a Leica dealer and the
Washington POST photographer got one from the paper. We both tried them
for a couple of weeks. I was mixing mine with a pair of M4s and an M3
and I found I was losing shots. Things were not where I expected them to
be on the camera, and in a very tight time frame where events occurred
in seconds and you got the picture or you did not, I could not afford to
have one non-standard Leica. The other photographer stuck with it and
got another. I gave mine back and stayed with the other Ms. 

It was just too big, too bulky, and had its controls placed just enough
differently so that I could not integrate it with my other Ms. 

Fred Ward