Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/01/24

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Radioactivity and dopey M's
From: Rob Schneider-Laura Tully <robslaurat@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 11:10:16 -0500

> >>>Wouldn't a radioactive element in a lens cause film fog?  Seems
> strange
> that
> it should be purposely built in...<<<
>
>
> The earliest Super-Takumars for the Spotmatic had a radioactive element.
> Roger Hicks says that if you let it sit for a while on a sheet of
> Polaroid and then pull the Polaroid, you can see a faint shadow. I've
> never tried it.
>
> - --Mike
>
If I wrote up a cogent artist's statement, are there galleries that would
exhibit and sell this kind of work?  "Faint shadows" sounds like a
wonderfully evocative title for such a show.

BTW, I'm still pissed that after almost 50 years of development the M camera
still doesn't have TTL viewing.  What's with this dopey
viewfinder/rangefinder crap?  Short of a straight viewfinder and scale
focusing, that has to be the most antiquated and inaccurate
sighting/focusing method imaginable.  Every other camera manufacturer seems
to have figured this out; Herbert Keppler in Popular Photography has figured
this out; heck, even Leica Camera has figured this out -- they make R
cameras don't they?  So what's with this stupid, old-fashioned M6?

It just burns me up.  And what makes it worse is I didn't realize what a
hopeless camera the M6 was to use before I bought a second one.  Now you
tell me!

Rob Schneider