Re: [Leica] Nikon S3 war

[John Collier <jbcollier@home.com>]

I have not known Marc as long as you have but I am afraid I do not see why
pointing out how patents were able to be used for free and without
permission is racist. I think he is pointing out how Occupied Japan was able
to take advantage of its (very unfortunate) situation and jump (re)start its
optical industry. Marc is an enthusiast of the Ziess Ikon and Leica optical
groups. He gets a little passionate when he hears that the Leica and Contax
lenses of the day were poor compared to the Japanese lenses. I remember the
test that "proved" the Japanese lenses were better. It was about a
photographer seeing a dust speck in his picture(8x10?), enlarging the dust
speck and finding a helicopter. The claim was you could see the individual
rotor blades. From my scanty knowledge of news photographers, I doubt he was
using a tripod and fine grain film! I am sure the Japanese lenses were fine
lenses. Many of the Leica-uses have commented favourably on them but I am
also sure the prime motivation back then was to save a buck. Let's see, a
$10 lens with close to the same quality as a $100 to $200 lens, which would
you choose?

John Collier

- ---------------------------
> From: Ken Iisaka <kiisaka@pacbell.net>

> 
> Mike Johnson wrote:
>> Nope, you're wrong about that, Marc. David Douglas Duncan was very
> clear
>> that he switched to Nikon lenses because their sharpness blew him
> away,
>> and he got other Korean War photographers to do the same thing for the
>> same reason. The superior sharpness of Nikon lenses was what
> established
>> the company in America. This is a part of the historical record.
> You're
>> grafting current perceptions onto historical situations.
> 
> Marc is full of racist shit.  He refuses to admit that Nikon, or Nippon
> Kogaku had optical expertise well before the beginning of the WW II, and
> Nikon lenses, while similar in configuration to Zeiss lenses, were new
> computations.  Nikon's 50/1.4 was a derivative of Sonnar 50/1.5, but the
> former is not a copy of the latter.  Nikon built its 35mm skills by
> learning from the masters, but by 1950, it was designing all of its
> lenses on its own.  There are however close copies of Zeiss lenses: the
> original 50/1.5 and the earliest 85/2.  The lenses that made Nikon
> famous: 35/2.5, 105/2.5, and 50/1.4, all of which were introduced around
> 1950 were Nikon's original design.  Just because they were in
> double-Gauss, Ernoster, and Sonnar configuration, were they theft?
> 
> So, Marc will accuse Nikon of copying Contax mount, and ridicule Nikon
> of failing to make an exact copy of the Contax mount.  What he does not
> realise, or refuses to admit is that Nikon engineers were fully aware
> that the focal length of Sonnars and Elmars were slightly different.
> Contax mount was calibrated to Sonnars, but since Nikon was already
> building Leica-compatible lenses, it made sense to change the
> specification of the mount rather than redesign the lens.  Given this
> was in 1946, mere months after Nikon's factories were burned completely
> flat, this decision was made to accelerate the process of bringing a
> camera to the market.
> 
> I don't care what Marc will say.  He has long been admitted to my kill
> file for his racist crap.  Why doesn't he accuse Leitz and Berek of
> their theft of Tessar?  It's pure racist crap.  Nothing more.
> 
> David Douglas Duncan is still alive.  Why don't you ask him directly,
> huh?
> 
> There, I said it like it is.
> 
>