Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/01/15
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on 16/1/01 9:43 am, Bill Lawlor at wvl@infinex.com wrote:
> Recently I was enjoying a copy of David Douglas Duncan's beautiful 1960
> book, Kremlin.
Great book and surprisingly well printed for the time. DDD has been a big
Nikon fan for some time and is a bit of a celebrity amongst Japanese camera
aficionados. Last photo I saw of him he was toting a Nikon F100. I would not
be surprised if Nikon gave him it (and a bit of cash for incidentals) such
has been his value to their brand name.
As Marc suggests there is enough in the archives to keep anyone interested
in your question busy for quite a while! In brief though the lenses he chose
were most likely the very best of their respective types at that time and
well as for the M3Ds: not much to compare with those even now...
It seems that Leica were only positioning themselves as premium optics folk
as the competitive threat of Zeiss receded and their technological advantage
wore thin after decades of barely changed products meant direct comparison
with Japanese upstarts made them look increasingly unappealing to the larger
market they had initially sought out. Early advertising for Leicas stressed
the simple operation and economical benefits of the miniature wonder rather
than the picture quality which was clearly not its selling point compared to
its larger format competitors.
Of course we the enlightened know that everything Leica ever made is magical
and well BETTER.
Rs n Ms
Adrian
- --
Adrian Bradshaw
Corporate and Editorial Photography
Beijing, China
tel/fax +86 10 6532 5112
mobile +86 139 108 22292
e-mail apbbeijing@yahoo.com
OR adrianpeterbradshaw@compuserve.com
website: http://www.apbphoto.com
http://www.liaisonintl.com/bradshaw.htm
http://www.liaisonintl.com/bradshaw_e.htm
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