Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/10/01

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To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: All this R talk ...
From: "Charles E. Love, Jr." <cel14@cornell.edu>
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 22:27:50 -0400 (EDT)

At 09:24 AM 10/1/96 PDT, you wrote:
>	>Rocky Mountain National Park is wonderful--but you are right, it
>	>wants you to use longer lenses!
>	
>	>The R4 had serious electronic reliability problems--I would avoid
>	>it, and its running mate the R4S.  As far as I know, the other R
>	>cameras are OK.
>
>I was told that only the early run had problems, but the R4 now has the bad
>reputation and can be had for cheap


As I understand it from various sources, all the runs had problems until the
very last ones--they changed electronics suppliers several times.  I don't
know serial numbers here, but heard that  they changed the red disk on the
front from a flat one to one with a raised "Leitz" on it at about the time
they at last fixed the problems, near the end of the R4's run.

I had three R4s myself, one after the other, and they all developed serious
electrical problems after some time.  After all these exchanges of cameras,
finally Leitz USA gave me an R4SP, which was fine.  The problem is (if my
experience counts) that each of my R4s would be reliable for a few months
and then develop electrical problems, so I would be reluctant to buy a used one.
>	
>	>Leitz claims that the new f4 lens of that sort (Kyocera made) is
>	>good with the 2X APO converter, but then you are looking at a
>	>maximum aperture of f8, not too hot with the RMNP elk! 
>
>Some poacher shot Samson the elk with a cross bow!  The RMNP elk is dead.
>
Well, last time I was there there were lots of elk--did the poacher get all
of them? :-) BTW, the best elk photography there, I heard, is about this
time of year, and when I was there (two Octobers ago) they were mating,
calling, and generally easy to see and photograph.
	
>	>Charles E. Love, Jr.
>
>Woody Yeung
>yeung@reed.edu
>	
>	
Good luck with your camera search!--Charlie
Charles E. Love, Jr.
517 Warren Place
Ithaca, New York
14850
607-272-7338
CEL14@CORNELL.EDU