Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/03/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On 10 Mar 98 at 23:39, Eric Welch wrote: > At 08:47 PM 3/10/98 -0500, you wrote: > > > Please correct me if I am wrong but didn't even the venerable E.W. > > concede that all Leica "R"s with the exception of the R8, were of > > Japanese Minolta design with modifications by Solms and the R8 > > Not quite. It's a mix of Minolta design and Leica (Pre-Solms) > design. For example, the shutter is Leica design with Copal (?) > manufacture. The prism is different. The metering is different. > Unfortunately the film advance (except in the R7) is teh same. About the shutter -- the R3 had the Leitz-Copal shutter, which was built by Copal (Japan), although the design was partly Leica's. The R4 and later electronic models through the R7 had Seikosha shutters, made by the big Seiko watch company. The R6 and R6.2 have an honest-to-God Leica-designed and Solms-built shutter, the first all-Leica shutter in a Leica SLR since the SL2. Works like a champ, too. I dunno about the R8. Maybe someone can look in Eastland's new book and tell us. - -Patrick