Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>So, dismissing those professionals or their work with low end innuendo >is an insult to the whole journalist profession (that includes >photojournalists ;-) ). Example of such innuendo : "maybe they're more >friendly to Leica now, because we see occasional Leica ads in magazines >these days". Geez, you guys can't take a joke! sheesh. On the other hand, such a sentiment is naive. Car dealers are notorious for pressure on advertisers. There was even an antitrust lawsuit, I think in Georgia, against organized car dealerships who refused to publish in newspapers that dared tell their customers how to buy used cars, or some such frivolous reason. You conspiracy theorists forget a major point. We have experience. When a magazine tells us something we know is not true, we tend to get skeptical. > but I find it very strange the way some of us reject test >articles as a whole by insinuating that the editors and labs are crooked >and/or incompetent and that their considerations are worthless as soon >as they are not sufficiently laudative for the revered L brand. Exhibit A. Distortion. I rest my case. I never said such a thing, but the desire to twist what I say to a preconceived notion some have of what I think is all too common here. Honest as they try to be, I don't think they are nearly as competent as the people who design lenses (Leica, Canon, Nikon, or even, Sigma) to set up tests that are truly useful. Thus their tests are worse than having no tests, because they give impressions that aren't factual, when they can have no way of understanding the design goals of a given company. Any test, other than in the field, is not going to tell me what I want to know. It's not just Pop Photo. I find people's reactions to the tests at Pop Photo or anywhere else (Hey, Pop Photo says Leica lenses aren't as good as blah , so don't spend the extra money, it's not worth it!) to be less than useful. If you do, fine. Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch Always be on the lookout for conspicuousness (or, It's hard to tell if someone is inconspicuous).