Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Eric, its partially true. A larger opening/lens mount provides more space for things like electrical contacts. Minolta changed theirs when they came out with the Maxxum for technical reasons as documented in Sam Kusumoto's autobiography (he was the President at the time, I have a copy of this book if you are interested.) Canon did it because their FD mount was passe. Nikon thought it would provide a sort of investment protection, but the limited diameter is problematic since you have to constantly look backward (for compatibility) to advance forward. Minolta and Canon avoided MF lens compatibility issue by changing mounts entirely. Smart move! Peter K - -----Original Message----- From: Eric Welch [mailto:ewelch@neteze.com] Sent: Monday, November 29, 1999 9:02 PM To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us; leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: Re: [Leica] God, no Canon vs. Nikon... At 06:11 PM 11/29/1999 -0800, Joe Codispoti wrote: >Nikon's biggest blunder - when it comes to executive decisions - was >designing the auto-focus system around the old mount in order to make new >bodies compatible with the manual lenses. Thus they could not overcome the >design challenges of incorporating all the features that Canon had packed in >theirs when they abandoned the FD mount in favor of the larger EOS. >Finally Nikon has surmounted some of the hurdles, albeit too late. This is a great urban legend, but it's simply not true. Perpetrated by Canon no doubt, but I had a long discussion with the head of NPS on this subject, and there is not one single technical advantage Canon gained over Nikon, except electronic control of the aperture. But with the F5 they over came that disadvantage. On the other hand, Canon did make their lot work for them because it was a necessary technical improvement over the lens mount they had. Nikon's problem was that they were too arrogant and didn't listen to their users, until too late. They didn't consider AF a professional tool until Canon kicked their butts. Thus the F4 is a miserable AF camera while Canon and Minolta had AF systems that were vastly superior. They caught on to what they did wrong, and it has taken, as you said because of their size, some time to do it, but they have nearly pulled off the comeback in film cameras, and are blowing the competition away in digital. Eric Welch Carlsbad, CA http://www.neteze.com/ewelch Canadian DOS prompt: EH?\>