Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/04/27

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Hasselblad vs. Leica
From: "Alan Hull" <hull@telia.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 14:56:58 +0200

The man who rents my house in Gothenburg is one of the technical gurus
at Hasselblad.  My next door neighbour is their number one company
repair man (he has recently gone freelance).  

I live in the shadow of greatness :-)

One day during a lawn BBQ at a time when I was a bit miffed about my
Leica system I offered to swap it for a Hasselblad "factory reject"
thinking I could get a good deal.  I will never forget the whithering
look I got from them.  Their response was too embarassing to relate
further.  Anyway we got to talking about reliability and, as they
needed repair men, Hasselblads couldn't be all that perfect.  They
agreed.  But they had an interesting philosophy.  Hasselblad could make
a camera that was totally reliable but would be so overbuilt that it
would be too heavy to use and therefore could never realize its
potential.  Completely useless.  A camera is a "thing".  And "things"
break.  Live with it.

Shelley put it better than anyone when he described a ruined statue in
the desert.  ... On the pedestal these words appear, "My name is
Ozymandias, king of Kings.  Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair" 
Nothing beside remains.  Round the decay of that colossal wreck,
boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.

A camera whether Hasselblad or Leica is a THING.  I remember when I was
at school and we cursed when something went wrong.  The teachers tried
to replace our curse by making us repeat Johnsons complaint ... Blast
the perversity of inanimate objects.  Naturally, as schoolboys it
became ... F*ck the perversity of inanimate objects.  Teachers will
never learn :-)

What really surprises me is the number of folk who are outraged when a
THING malfunctions.

Alan