Re: [Leica] Why R sales down...

[RBedw51767@aol.com]

Donal:

Yesterday I went into the park with a couple and their 4 & 5 year old sons.
The purpose of the outing was to take some Christmas gift photos for their
parents.  Great day, great park, great subjects and a wonderful photo
opportunity.  

I have what you refer as the hammer.  I have 2-M6's, and an R8.  I didn't take
either, but I wish I could have.  I chose to take equipment with me that  I
knew would provide me with many high quality shots.  I wanted to totally take
my mind off of the equipment and focus my attention on the subject.  I took a
Hasselblad 503CW and a Nikon F5.   The Hasselblad was used for the posed
pictures and a tripod was used.  I took 24 exposures and I am very pleased
with what I see on the negatives.  I took 72 pictures with the F5 and it
appears that there are at least 60 that will meet the criteria.   

As much as I wanted to use the M6 or the R8 I didn't want to take a chance in
not being able to capture these wonderful little boys in their natural
activities.     I am sure that there are many LUGGERS that could do what I did
with an R8 but I can't.  The only reason is it's lack of autofocus.  The
tradeoff was Leica quality negatives vs. speed.  There are shots that I
achieved with the F5 that I could not have taken with the R8.  For my personal
style and inabilities I made the right decision.

Donal, I agree whole-heartedly with your statement,  "No, it is a tool that
works for the job it has to do".   I agree that you fit the camera to the
task.  Leica, in my opinion can evolve the R8 into an autofocus model and
never upset users.  It will be difficult for them to do this with the M
series.  IF......Leica had an autofocus  "R" series there would not be an F5
system in my bag.

Now I must go into the dark and start printing.

Thanks,

Bob Bedwell


<< B. D. Colen wrote:
 > ...It might well be argued that the only reason Leica survives in the
 > photographic realm is that it does continue to produce an anachronistic
 > product - the M - but a product that enough customers highly value and are
 > willing to pay a premium to obtain. 
 
 I must say I get real tired of these sentiments.  Hasselblad doesn't
 have AF, but still sells, even the 500 series.  So does Linhof, Sinar,
 Toyo, Cambo and many other "anachronistic" cameras that don't have AF,
 AE, motor drive, even metering at all.  Then there is Pentax 67.  How
 many Sinar P2 compuwizard $35,000 cameras do you think get bought each
 year?  Anachronistic?  Is a dump truck an anachronism?  No, it is a tool
 that works for the job it has to do.  Just try to sign your paycheck
 with a Pentium computer!  Nope, ya' gotta use an anachronistic ball
 point pen.  
 
 You can buy an air compressor, a hose, a nail gun and drive a whole
 bunch of nails.  But mostly a simple hammer is the elegant tool for the
 job.  
 
 donal >>