Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/05/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/5316/the-future-of-leica. html In this interview with Jason Schneider at RIT Andreas Kaufmann shatters a couple of very key assumptions or opinions I have about Leicas very much needed direction. Imagine no full frame digital Leica rangefinder. Imagine no digital R body. The second because our new Top Leica man seems to feel that a DSLR needs to be AF. A very very wrong feeling in my opinion. Imagine whirled peas. That's a whole lot of very bad news in one interview. Very bad PR. If I was the boss I'd fire myself on the spot. The R lineup of glass is nothing to cough at. The R system needs and deserves a compact R digital body. And so does the world. Including me! I'd buy one. I'd buy two! How about you? I don't need AutoFocus; I AM AutoFocus. I focused my 24mm Nikkor 2.8 lens down Broadway for three miles tonight from 62nd to 110. On a Nikon D40x. A whole lot of DSLR shooting is done with the AF turned off or with older AI lenses not just by me but by a lot of serious non Leica loving people I know. R&D needs to be continued to bend those little image grabbers at the ends of the CCD sensors inward so a lens right in the sensors face can be used right out to its intended image non crop circle on a digital M. And they should make for for a Hasselblad superwide while they're at it. A high end imaging company investing into crop circle formats strikes me as a highly questionable paranormal eyebrow raiser. Within 9 months with Nikon and Canon both in heavy competition bringing the prices down a huge movement will be created to anyone with the slightest pretensions to shooting a quality image to shooting 24x36 format. Kids at RIT for sure. Anyone with a bigger than letter sized inkjet printer. Ebayers who need to be shooting with the perceived latest best thing. The idea of Leica M glass coasting thousands of USD each only being used in its middle area is going to seem very off beat wacky in the year 2009. Can half frame film cameras compete against full frame cameras? Not in the production of quality images. Which means BIG PRINTS. And smaller prints and images made at very high ISO's. Imagine Leica modern mediocrity. Hasselblad went AF became it was bought out by a high tech company with little empathy and touch with Hasselblad tradition and it customer base. No heart. Hasselblad is dead. I expected more from what's happening now with Leica. I thought I was looking at some heart. You gotta have heart. Mark William Rabiner markrabiner.com