Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]A roommate of mine, who was a complete tech-head, was fascinated by an journal article which contained the following information (which I am recalling from a conversation held maybe 7 years ago?): Companies which always upgrade their software operate at a lower level of efficiency that those which skip upgrade generations. The reason, as it turned out, was that the learning curve on new software was such that the new generation of software hit the street before the users were proficient at the old one. Skip a generation of software, and you'll be quite adept and working efficiently for a longer period of time; when it's time to learn the new version of the software, you won't be that far behind those who didn't skip that generation. Which makes me think about Barney Quinn's message (no relation), about picking up the M6 with some dread, and finding that all of those old skills came right back. Also seems to relate to Simon Lamb and his wizz-bang (sorry: 'whiz-bang'?) cameras and using them like his M6: focus & meter once & leave it until things change significantly. I've tried shooting a friend's Nikon F100, my father's F5, a Contax N1 in the shop, and all I could think about was what my hands were doing. With my M6, all the energy that I put into thinking about the whiz-bang camera goes into thinking about the image. It's easy to get caught up thinking how cool it would be to have the hottest Nikon/Canon/Contax Auto-Everything, but our Leicas, old-technology and all, are still capable of giving us spectacular images. They are simple, the learning curve is short, and rather than spend days and weeks reading the instruction manual, we get to hang out on the LUG. Christopher "Luddite" Quinn