Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/02/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]To all: cops and Leica vs big and Nikon! I thought some of you might find this interesting as you trundle along in this wish list mode and why the ideas of automation, power, bigger etc might do you in under certain conditions. Today a Leica using M6 friend of mine just returned from an area of south East Asia where photojournalists and writers are not appreciated by the local constabulary or government security forces. He was picked-up for "questioning" one day about being a journalist and in the course of a couple of hours questioning and demanding what he was doing with 14 rolls of film exposed and unexposed was why they assumed he was a journalist. He explained he had been in the country for three weeks and that was hardly any film at all, besides they were only tourist pictures. They weren't by the way, but nothing that anyone of us wouldn't have shot in this particular country. Then the big moment came when one of cops pointed at his M6 and started yelling NIKON! NIKON! You are journalist all journalists use NIKON! Dwayne figured he had it made right there and then. He quietly explained this black camera was not a NIKON but a LEICA! "What is Leica? Is Nikon! you journalist!" the cop was yelling at him. So Dwayne took the bottom plate off and showed them, "See not buttons, only small black tourist camera, no big size like NIKON, not a journalist camera, tourist." "Look throygh here," and he held the M6 up so they could look through the view finder and one guy said, "OK cheap tourist camera! don't take pictures of soldiers or anything!" And they let him go.:) So guys and gals, so much for all the bells and whistles you want in our baby! :) The moral of the story is "Keep the M6 looking like a cheap tourist camera if you are going where the bad guys are!" :) Thieves, police or otherwise! :) Remember, KISS counts! keeping the camera simple and stupid looking, no biggy electronic bells and whistles and you to can look like a stupid tourist and maybe get your butt saved. Big and flashy sure isn't better. Apparantly all these guys knew was "journalists" carried Nikon, I guess they had grabbed enough of them. But they knew nothing of the obscure, but infamous black beauty M6 Leica! So some days I'll only have one camera, black with one lens, please!:) ted