Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/02/01

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Subject: Re: FIE ON COLLECTORS!
From: "Charles E. Love, Jr." <cel14@cornell.edu>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 13:35:01 -0500 (EST)

At 08:25 PM 1/29/97 -0500, you wrote:
>At 03:53 PM 1/29/97 -0500, Charles Love, man of import, wrote:
>
>>I do hope the USERS means what it says, too--but there is a lot of collector
>>stuff on this list as well.
>
>Y'know, I've been a LUG-nut for pushing two years now -- and I've NEVER
>heard anything of collector interest here.  I use ALL my gear on occasion,
>and I suspect everyone else does as well.  
>
>Marc
>
>
First, Marc, thanks for the promotion.  "Man of import," eh?  I'll put this
one in my fan mail file!

As for my remark about  "collectors:"  I'd suggest three categories in
talking about them, and us on LUG:  (1) Pure Collectors:  People who collect
cameras they do not use, though they may fondle them once in a while :-).
(2) User Collectors: People who collect and use old equipment.  Such people
do make photographs, and want them to be good, but part of the pleasure for
them is in the using of the old equipment for its own sake.  (3)
Photographers: People whose objective is to achieve the best possible image
(whatever that means to them), and who see equipment primarily as a tool to
reach that goal.   Of course people can fall in between these a bit, or mix
them up. 

 Anyway, by this standard, there are few pure collectors on LUG, I'd expect.
But I would say there are lots of user collectors, and some photographers.
By this standard, too, I'd say I moved from user collector toward
photographer over the years as I tried for higher and higher image quality
(landscapes, architecture, abstracts), though I do like equipment for its
own sake too. (I have sold off all my screwmount and early M and R,  and
have been working a lot in medium format lately).

So: when I referred to "collector stuff on this list," I was really
referring to the material that would be of primary interest to user
collectors--and there is a lot of that here, and a good deal of it would be
interesting to pure collectors as well (e.g. your discussion of the 40
f2.8's rarity).  We all have different ways of approaching our
hobby/vocation/passion!

Charlie

Charles E. Love, Jr.
CEL14@CORNELL.EDU