Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Back in the late '50's, Nikon revised their policy of support to pros using their gear. They rarely "gave" anything away -- heck, Leica has given more commemorative cameras away, probably, than all Japanese companies combined! - -- but they aggressively stood behind their product line in a manner distinct from all other manufacturers. This was the genius of Joel Ehrenreich. For instance, you were a pro who was hired to do a shoot which required an exotic lens. You called Joel and, blammo!, a lens was sent to you "on approval" -- but Nikon knew it would be in the mail back to them in a couple of days, and the "approval" was a fiction. You had a shoot in Missoula, Montana, on a Saturday. Friday night, you check into the Trail Trash Hotel & Diner and check over your gear. Uh oh! Broken body! Call Joel -- and a new body would get to you, somehow, by the next morning. And so forth. These services were extended not just to the top guys, but to most working pros. And it was such a change from, say, Zeiss Ikon, who would suggest that you BUY the lens or who would tell you to send your camera in so that they could give you an estimate for repairs, which would take four months. Canon, Leitz, even Rolleiflex operated the same way. Only Nikon really supported pros. And, as they were marketing a REALLY solid system, the pros flocked to Nikon in droves. By the middle 1960's, almost every middle and lower strata pro was using Nikon: only the very top few still used Leica or Zeiss Ikon or Rollei. Today, Canon operates a less-extensive but similar system, and Hasselblad has been known to occasionally move in that direction. But Nikon gives less support to pros, so the shift has been towards Canon since the early 1980's. It isn't so much "giving away" cameras which makes professionals support the breed: it is the constant support given them during their grueling and often frustrating daily grinds. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!