[Leica] The shortest 4-letter word in photography

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

> I don't consider Leicas pro cameras. More non-pros use
> them. <Snip> Not trying to be argumentative here.


I remember a poll of pros done a number of years ago by PDN that showed
that Leica was over-represented among pros based on its market share,
and Minolta under-represented. But that was based on market share. There
were still more Minolta-using pros than Leica-using. A lot of pj's
reported owning Leicas, but very few said they used M's as their main
cameras or for most of their work. Of course pjs are a minority among
professional photographers, to a dispiriting degree.

What was more common to see in the Washington press corps was a guy with
three F4s draped around him (that was then) and--maybe--one Leica M. If
you watched them work, the M was used seldomly.

Not one in 200 pros uses Leica R as their main SLR system. Not in
America, anyway. In Germany I'm sure it's more common to find.

It's just a simple fact. It partly depends on whom you count as a "pro,"
but by most sensible definitions, I'd say that not more than 5% of
people who make their living as photographers in America (i.e., pros)
use Leicas of either flavor as their main or only camera system. That's
being generous--it's probably actually more like 2 or 3%. If you
disqualify all the wedding and portrait photographers from the "pro"
category (not very fair!) the number might jump up, say to 8-15%, if
that. It's a connoisseur's camera, an artist's camera, a photography
lover's camera--and some wonderful photographers (and some damn fine
pros) use it--but it's not primarily a pro camera.

- --Mike