Re: [Leica] Leica is Listening!

[tedgrant@islandnet.com (Ted Grant)]

Dick Hemingway wrote:

>It wasn't all that long ago that when Leica came out with the 800 lens for
>the R cameras, a dealer in Oklahoma City (and else where?) threw in a car
>(VW?) with it!!!!

Hi Dick,

Yep you're right. I remember seeing ads in photo mags that if you bought
the 800mm 6.3 you also received a VW Bettle. I believe the lens was listed
at somwhat over $20,000.00 at the time. I think there were dealers in NYC
who were advertisng the deal.

I had one to shoot the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the first day I
used it my assignment was to photograph athletes lounging about inside the
Athlete Village and the roof tops of some buildings.

So I set it up in a motel parking lot right across the street from the
Village and was in the middle of shooting images when about a 1/2 doz
Montreal police cars and a couple of Mountie cars came screaming into the
parking lot and I was surrounded. :) Like right out of the movies!

hell I don't know who was more scared, the police or me!!!!!!:)

Here I am with this huge lens mounted like a mortor to lob shells into the
village, well that's what the police thought it was! :) And they didn't
think it was the least bit funny considering what had happened in Munich
only 4 short years previously.

So it was suggested I take my lens and find something else to photograph,
but get lost from the Village area. And there weren't any options
offered.:)

ted