Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/02/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 09:21 PM 2/19/97 -0800, Ruth Locurto wrote: >Repair people I have talked to say Leica camera and lense build quality >was best in the 60's with the shutters allowing more accuraate timing >and the bodies and lenses having more brass and high quality metals and >engineering. Now the lenses are slightly better and the bodies are >lighter, and of course newer which add's to their usefullness as user's. This has been discussed on the LUG a number of times. I suspect there is more than a bit of bare nostalgia in all this, and that current gear is actually as reliable, or more so, than older gear. The replacement of metal by plastic does not, in every case, reduce the longevity of the gear: if the part is non load-bearing, it may actually reduce weight and, say, sensitivity to temperature extremes. The substitution of steel for brass is not, in itself, evil: the steel may well be tougher, more durable, and more resistant to impact damage. Und so weiter: the mere substitution of materials does NOT make a modern item cheaper or less long-lived than its predecessor. The M4, especially, was almost infinitely adjustable in its innards. It was made so because Leitz, in those far-off days three decades back, recommended an annual CLA. Today, these adjustable parts have, in large measure, been replaced with non-adjustable parts: if they are no longer in spec, the entire assembly is replaced. This is preferable for those of us who USE our cameras so much that we don't want them in the shop two months out of every year. I think we all have to give Leitz/Leica some credit: they have been manufacturing the basic M Leica for more than 40 years, now, and ought to now what they're doing. They sell a quality product to a discerning audience (a-HEM!), and surely we, of all folks, wouldn't still be using Leica if the cameras were no longer of the first water! Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!