RE: [Leica] Rangefinder or SLR?

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

I understand what you're saying, Marc. It's just that I feel that for the
times I feel the need for an SLR - and, for me and my eyes, and for my
esthetic sense, that's pretty much any time I need more than a 75 mm, or 90
at the outside - I want a "real" SLR....Thus far I've managed with a Nikon F
backing up my M system. But I can see where I'd really benefit from having
an autofocus, powerwinder, SLR of some sort...I must admit though that
something like the new Mamyia 645AF, or the Contax or Pentax larger format
AF SLRs, might fit the bill and kill two needs with one camera...

But, yes, for at lest 80 percent of my photography, an M with a 35, 21, or
50 is not only all I need, but all I want....

B. D.

And, by the way, at one point in the distant pass I owned a Visoflex...and
it's a neat piece of equipment...mechanically intriguing if nothing else....

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of
> Marc James
> Small
> Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 1999 9:05 PM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Rangefinder or SLR?
>
>
> At 01:10 PM 12/29/1999 -0000, B. D. Colen wrote:
> >True, and you could also choose to do all your photography
> on glass plates.
> >A Visolflex is an interesting artifact of the dawn of the
> reflex age -
> >whether or not they continued to be manufactured until
> relatively recently.
>
> Sorry, BD, but you missed my point.  The original query was
> simply about
> the limits of the M system, and I simply pointed out that the
> M system can
> be expanded, rather dramatically, by the Visoflex.  If I were shooting
> sports for a living, I might sink to an SLR but, otherwise,
> I'd avoid one
> like the plague.  Hell, I own a nice Canon EOS 10s set with
> some gorgeous
> lenses -- but it is just a heavy, clunky camera compared to a
> Leica M, and
> its not been used in two or three years now.  As to macro and
> micro work,
> it doesn't matter the platform to which my Micro-Summars and
> Luminars are
> attached:  any camera is equally limited doing this sort of work.
>
> Understand me:  the Visoflex allows the basic M to be
> expanded to include
> the full range of photography possible within the sharp
> confines of the
> 35mm format.  The average photographer spends 90% of his or
> her time, I
> suspect, between 21mm and 135mm;  to suggest that such a photographer
> invest in an M6 for most of their work and to then invest in,
> say, an R8
> for the remaining 10% strikes me as economic lunacy,
> especially when a nice
> Viso III, the three basic Telyts, and a Bellows II for half
> the price, or
> less, of the price of an R8.
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
> Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!
>
>