Re: [Leica] UV filters - and other one-sided "holy wars"

["Dan Post" <dwpost@email.msn.com>]

Doug-
Nicely reasoned post, and much needed, but like all good free advice, this
will rarely be taken!
I just live with it, since there are more important things to worry about! I
can give you an example!

The young lady who works with me at the camera store had the opportunity to
take a Pentax Photo seminar at Grandfather Mountain, in NC. She dutifully
took her two Nikons- an N70 and an N90, with her collection of lenses, and
her new Sekonic 508 to learn as much as she could so she could help our
customers. I did the prints of some of her film, and commented that she had
used a UV filter, and that it was on a zoom lens... and that she was not
using a shade; she was amazed that I knew what she was using just from the
prints, until I showed her clearly the two large amorphous flare spots
caused by the filter, and the several hexagonal flare spots in line that
were caused by the 13 element- 10 group zoom!
So, there is one more believer! We just have to work on them one at a time!
There is no teacher quite so thorough or harsh as experience, but these are
the best lessons, and long remembered.
Dan
- -----Original Message-----
From: Doug Richardson <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Date: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 8:48 AM
Subject: [Leica] UV filters - and other one-sided "holy wars"


>Reading some of the forcefully-expressed opinions of the anti-filter
>brigade, I'm slightly mystified by the one-sided nature of the
>discussion - the pro-filter zealots doesn't seem to suffer the same
>urge to express themselves so hotly.
>
>Similarly, whenever a long thread of interest to collectors starts to
>strain the patience of the users, the latter start calling the
>collectors "geeks", telling them to get a life and start taking
>pictures - you rarely see attacks on users by collectors.
>
>Why do we have these one-sided non-debates where one faction seems
>determined that its opinion must prevail? Can't we all respect the
>other guy's viewpoint a bit more?
>
>After all, much of what is being discussed on the LUG is a matter not
>of fact but of opinion - but seems only too often to take the form of
>opinions being presented as "facts" or even as dogma. If someone
>disagrees with an opinion, this hardly seems grounds for calling them
>a "geek" or "hard-of-thinking".
>
>The LUG is a valuable resource for Leica users and collectors - I can
>think of few questions I have posed over the last few years which have
>not resulted in useful responses, and in many cases the information I
>needed. But it saddens me to see the growing level of squabbling and
>quarrelling in our on-line exchanges.
>
>If one guy lovingly wraps his red & white box in bubble wrap while
>another leaves his on the camera store counter does that make either
>of them a better or poorer photographer, Leica lover, or LUG member?
>
>Although some people may have taken the discussion of scratchy
>pressure plates long past the point where others considered the
>information content of the postings to be near zero, did this really
>justify the number of hostile postings we saw? ( ... what someone
>amusingly dubbed the "Whiners about the Whiners".)
>
>When someone asked a question concerning Erwin Putz's relationship (if
>any) to Leica, why did this rapidly degenerate into a "flame war"
>before Erwin had been given a chance to reply? Erwin didn't seem at
>all upset by the question, and posted a reply, only to find himself
>the target of several hostile postings.
>
>I suspect we can all think of other recent examples of discussions
>which degenerated into undignified squabbles, or lengthy and
>relatively unproductive exchanges which triggered the fuzes of some
>LUGnuts.
>
>Could we not do more to recognise that many of our strongly-held
>opinions are just that  - opinions - and post them in less inflamatory
>style? ... then be more tolerant of dissenting views?
>
>(I realise that there are times when I've added my own share to the
>angry exchanges, but would plead that in at least some cases I'd been
>responding to original postings which had seemed to me to be
>intolerant of alternative views.)
>
>Regards,
>
>Doug Richardson
>
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