Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/07/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:22 PM 7/29/96 -0700, you wrote: > >> The R3 cameras labled MOT were motordriven, but the problem was that the motor was >really just a winder capable of only 2 fps--not fast enough to quality for the Motor >designation. A European lawsuit, I was told, forced Leica to stop using the MOT >designation for a winder. I really doubt this story, simply becasue the MOT designation made it through the first run (most defective, by the way) R4 series, which were all called R4mot, because they all used winders and motors. The other reason why I doubt it is because the name on the winders is Motor Winder. Pretty obvious. Sounds like an urban legend to me. >The problem with Leica's handling of the R4, which I consider corporate lying, is that >the camera was sold as the best you can buy and then discovered to be inherently Again, you can't complain about the camera once it's fixed. Every camera company has had this happen to them. Early Nikon F3s were pretty defective, but Nikon got it down to about .005% failure rate before the last runs. >should have done is taken out full page ads to recall all the R4's within the problem >serial ranges. Of course they didn't in order to save the corporate buck. Looks like >a coverup to me---along the theory of "what they don't know won't hurt them." I don't think it's a coverup. Just business. But you have a right to think so. My experince with Leica has always been they are more open and honest about their equipment - even if they don't like to compare it to others when it doesn't stack up. >and the 135 Elmar. My memory was not entirely accurate on this one. While the 135 is >labled as single coated and the 35 & 50 make no mention of the coating, the 90 I really doubt Modern knows what they're talking about. I'll ask Arthur Kramer next time I'm on Compuserve. If anybody can clear this up, he can. He's the master at subjects like this. Leica has been coating their lenses since the 50s. Just ask them if you don't believe me. Multicoating is not importnat. Coating is. And Leica does just that. Coating the lens elements that need one coat with one coat, and those that need more with multi coats. Multicoating, all >lenses were not multicoated in this period. I have no data on Leica M multicoating >today although I could not find it mentioned in the M6 brochure. Read their lens brochures. They won't say multicoating, because they don't multicoat every element. That's the point. It's a dubious distinction at best, and misleads consumers. >The focusing "test" I referred was repeatedly focusing on objects at different distances >with different lenses and different cameras. The "test" was to see if all the cameras >would focus the same lens at the same distance by observing the focusing scale. That's fine, for gross differences, but the only way you can know if your tests are truly accurate, are by shooting a high contrast subject with fine grained film that will show the differences in focusing. Eyeballing it is not a good test. It's a good test of repeatability of the photographer guessing focusing, but at best it's useless to communicate any valuable information to others. But please don't take this as a flame. I'm glad you're here. And I'm sure your contributoins will be valuable, keep on playing with this wonderful junk! <G> 1. Go to "File|Select Signature" and select the signature file to use; Or type your signature here. 2. The select a tagline and click "Display Draft" to show the draft signature. 3. Lastly, save the revised signature file and start the timer. "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a tagline out of my hat!"