Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/11/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>All I can tell you is that i am running right down the wire 242 against 242 as >to a Contax RTSIII or a Leica R8. mark rabiner Dear Mark, I spent months agonizing over whether to get a Contax. The one I really wanted was an RTS II. It's just a gorgeous body and although I have never owned one I have been in love with the thing since I used to sell them in the Eighties. But Leica also beckoned which is why it was such a difficult decision. In the end I joined the Contax list and lurked & that's where I started finding out about the level of product support Kyrocera provides. It turned out that parts for the RTS II I wanted had already been cut off. I'm sure that across the industry discontinuing parts after a camera has been obsolete for ten years is fine, but to me it isn't OK with a camera of that quality. Put simply, I think that Contaxes are of Leica quality, and if they want to be considered in the same breath the support should be similar. Ten years is just too quick - after all the car I drive is fifteen years old and I can get parts for that, so why should a professional-level camera be any different? And we know that Leica supports cameras a whole lot older than that. Given that the N1 system is coming out, I would be worried that the whole MF line is going to end up like Olympus OM - an orphan. After that happens and the price of MF Contax gear plummets on the used market as a result I may still get one. But in the mean time I'm loving my new M6 TTL, which is a camera I know I can keep and not be forced to junk because of someone's planned obsolescence. (And my new 35mm f2 asph!) Simon Stevens