Re: R4, R4S

["Charles E. Love, Jr." <cel14@cornell.edu>]

I'm probably the one you are thinking of.  My source at Leica USA said, at
the time of all my troubles with R4's, that the problems were solved near
the end of the R4 production run, and that all R4SP's were fine.  You are
right, to the person who looks at features and changes, the R4SP is a
transitional camera between R4 and R5, but otherwise similar to R4S.
However, he also said, and at least one publication which I cannot recall
now but read once also said, that the R4S (which was made in the middle of
the production of the R4) had R4-type troubles too.  I never heard that the
"simplification" helped.  Really, the R4S (and the later RE, which was
really an "R5S") were ways of selling essentially the same camera at a big
discount--removing a couple of electronic exposure modes really wouldn't
reduce costs much, if at all!  I think the idea was to revive flagging
sales, after the first rush of enthusiasm that greets any new Leica R,
without discounting the flagship model and upsetting those who paid the full
price.

At 02:28 PM 11/18/96 PST, you wrote:
>     Hi,
>     
>     Somebody said that R4S had been as problematic as the earlier R4, 
>     which is quite opposite to what I have been hearing from the dealers.  
>     According to them, R4S should be fine because Leica simplified the R4 
>     to R4S by taking Programmed and Shutter-priority modes off.  These two 
>     modes were causing a bunch of problems in the electronic circuits.
>     
>     As far as I know, R4S-P is basically the same as R4S with a little 
>     more advancements.  Also all the R4's manufactured after Leica 
>     introduced R4S-P should be no problem if Leica fixed R4 problems on 
>     R4S-P.  Any comments on this would be appreciated.
>
>
Charles E. Love, Jr.
CEL14@CORNELL.EDU