RE: [Leica] Voigtländer with LSM

[Jeremy Kime <jeremy.kime@bbc.co.uk>]

Just got back from 'Focus' yesterday. This is perhaps Britain's equivalent
to the PMA in the USA and Photokina in Koln, though I doubt if anything of
any consequence is launched here!

But I did see the new Voigtlander and that pretty much made my day! Whilst I
had originally been told that there were problems with the use of the name
in certain world markets, esp. the UK and Germany, it seems that
negotiations will resolve this and the extremely rare pre-production Cosina
badged varients will become the collector's items! Sales in the UK are
expected to start in a few weeks/months time.

To recap, LSM body with TTL metering, based on CS-1 body shell. 25mm and
15mm lenses (along with viewfinders) are available and the leather case is
neatly (wierdly) designed to cover body lens and viewfinder. The hardest
operation was adjusting the shutter speed to obtain correct exposure as
one's finger needed to continue to apply pressure on the shutter release.
Exposure is indicated with a set of leds (a la M6 TTL) on the back edge of
the top plate.

Biggest news was the revelation of a r/f version arriving in mid-Summer
along with 35/50/75 and 90 lenses...
Cosina are in fact bigger/better players in the camera business than I knew,
they've made both camera and lenses for Nikon's bottom of the range SLR (EM
presumably) and also lenses for both Vivitar and Tamron. So although the
stuff won't be Leica quality, it won't be rubbish either.

I also had a long chat with Uli Hintner, M.D. of Leica UK and his reaction
was that this (and the new Konica Hexar 2) will be more trade for leica
eventually. Although they need to 'keep on their toes' looking back to the
Contax G1 arrival, it merely served to eventually increase M6 sales. People
tried the 'alternative' found it lacking and settled for the 'original and
best'.

Jem

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Pascal [SMTP:cyberdog@ibm.net]
> 
> Just read this on the website of Foto Hobby in Frankfurt:
> 
> on available the new Voigtländer camera with Leica screw mount type 
> lenses !!
>            Die neue Voigtländer Kamera mit Leica 
> Schraubgewindetypobjektiv erscheint im Februar/März 1999. 
> 
> !!!
> 
> Pascal
> NO ARCHIVE
> 
>