Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/07/24

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Subject: Re: Some thoughts on the R8 ...
From: FKemper@aol.com
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:41:05 -0400 (EDT)

In einer eMail vom 23.07.97  11:09:22, schreiben Sie:

<< That said, I can and have become comfortable with whatever I have used.
 >>

I made a different experience. I have owned quite a number of different
cameras and I have sold some of them, because I failed to get fond of them.
So like to use a Leica M far more than a Rollei 35, so I sold the Rollei. I
also sold a huge medium format equipment because the image quality (Carl
Zeiss Jena) was not so stunning and the whole thing simply was too heavy and
too slow. My first "serious" SLR equipment was a Minolta X-500 (X-370 in the
US). I bought a Minolta SRT 101 as a second body and for backup purpose (the
X-500 is dead without battery). After one year I felt that the SRT 101 could
not excel besides the X-500 (dark finder, slow exposure meter). I always
carried it around but not really liked it. Finally I sold it.

When I switched to Minolta AF, it went the other way round. I got a cheap
Minolta 5000 AF for close to nothing (90$ with 80-200 mm zoom lens). I tested
the camera a little bit and was bored, because I could not modify automatic
operations. I thought: "Well, if you ever shoot a picture with this camera,
which you would not be able to shoot with your MF camera, you should think
about a change to AF". A few days later I sat at a river, when suddenly a
swan took off for a flight. I just aimed the camera and shot - I got the
picture. One week later I sold my MF stuff and bought a Dynax/Maxxum 8000i.
It was quite a task to get used to the new system (and to force yourself not
to shoot in auto all mode the whole time), but now I like it very much.

To get fully familiar with my Leica M3 I needed about two years.

Frank