[Leica] RE: New Zeiss Ikon

[lowiemanuel at yahoo.ca (Emanuel Lowi)]

Clearly, the ball (heavy as it is) is now in Leica's
court.

But to count Leica down and out now (apologies for the
mixed sporting metaphors)  is to sneer at the
company's survivability thus far.

Unless Leica intends to make its market out of 
cameras shuttered with pansy-coloured silk scarves and
clad with ladies' glove leather, Leica really has to
find itself a bed-mate with opto-electronic
competencies. Enough with the siren charms of the
ever-designing French.  What was that all about
anyway? Nostalgia for Paris, circa June 1940?

Zeiss took a long hiatus from the 35mm rangefinder
field, while staying in 35mm AF viewfinder and SLR
market with Kyocera/Contax -- in hindsight, a smart
move. Now just look how they are trying to roar back
into real rangefinders with their new partner.
Impressive! And if they can make the transition to a
digital M first, no doubt their design will be
something special.

Meanwhile, for me, the Zeiss Ikon lens line offers no
enticements yet. I can't imagine their optics
bettering my 21/2.8 ASPH, 28/2 ASPH, 35/1.4 Aspherical
or 50/2. And the price of the 15/2.8 will be leagues
ahead of the dirt cheap 15/4.5 Cosina -- anyway, this
latter is a very special purpose thing.

And where are the fast lenses?

But the camera sounds neat. If Zeiss's claims for a
brighter ranegfinder with better performance than
Leica's current .72 proves correct, that 's
super-duper. But I'll be checking the camera for how
it matches Leica in these areas:

- shutter release delay
- noise level
- comfort in use and carrying

These are the areas in which previous competitors have
failed, where Leica has excelled and thereby
facilitated  the development of a certain kind of
photographic practice  -- the Leica Way.

It's gonna be a looong time until May 2005...

Emanuel Lowi
Montreal



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