[Leica] interesting magazine article

[Doug Herr <71247.3542@compuserve.com>]

ON  Thu, 05 Nov 1998,Nigel B. Watson

>I was browsing through the November '98 issue of Outdoor Photographer and
>came across an illustrated article regarding an association of  German
>professional and serious hobbyist photographers called "Natur Bilder"
>specialising in nature photography .  Some of the images were really
>rather good, in particular some macro work I believe.  A most interesting
>sidebar to the referenced article quoted the majority of those German
>nature photographers as using Nikon and Canon equipment.  Of course the
>overwhelming majority of nature specialists in other countries including
>the US and Canada also use Nikon and/or Canon but I had always halfway
>attributed that to the fact that the "famous" pros use them and then are
>emulated by others.  It sort of surpised me that there was not a heavier
>use of Leica reflex amongst the Germans, especially considering that most
>of the images presented in the article were (or could have been) captured
>easily without autofocus.

>Regards,
>Nigel

Nigel,

I have the same article in front of me and I was initially struck by the
same thought, but I realized that since Germans are subject to the same
marketing and financial pressures as anyone else (as well as being able/not
able to appreciate the difference Leica hardware can make).  And IMHO, not
one of the illustrated photos tells me I gotta have AF.

Outdoor Photographer's November 1996 issue featured the work of the
Japanese wildlife photographer Mitsuaki Iwago.  This particular article has
several of his photographs of african lions which IMHO are worth looking up
the magazine.  Iwago uses Leica-R, Olympus and some N****.  Asked what his
favorite lenses are, he replied "I have eight or nine Leica lenses, all
fixed focal length, rom 19mm up to 800mm".  OP expressed surprise that he
hand-holds his 400 at shutter speeds as slow as 1/30 sec.  Obviously OP is
too N**** /C****-centric to know about Leica equipment.

Doug Herr
Sacramento