Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/04/25

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Subject: Re: Leica vs Nikon
From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 16:01:02 -0700

At 05:56 PM 4/25/97 -0400, Marc wrote:
>At 02:25 PM 4/25/97 PST, David wrote:
<<I have heard some say that Nikon lenses were better than Leica or Contax
>lenses but >this is the first time to hear that Nikon rangefinders were
>much better made than Leica.>>
>
>Since Nippon Kogaku stole -- took without payment -- the designs of the
>best lenses of Zeiss and Leitz, their optics may be comparable, but are
>hardly "better", any more than a Kiev II is "better" than a Contax II.
>

The same thing is sometimes better, sometimes worse, depending if you are
buying, selling, or using.

We all know that the Japanese are very very good at copying technology.
Whenever you "copy" something, it's usually easy to add to it to make it
appear better. Better, however, is rarely the case. Recently, one of the
Japanese Ministers announced that Japan was going to push for educating the
Japanese industries to become more inventive and innovative. Instead of
copying, they want to become inventive. My personal opinion is that this
may take generations and a major culture change. I don't believe this will
happen.

Jim