[Leica] Duncan and Mydans and Nikkor Lenses

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

Marc,
Your analysis, for which thanks, is fascinating. It looks beyond the
quotidian assumptions of the "testers."

I would only add that there is a "soft" or psychological dimension to
such phenomena as well. Many times in the history of photography we have
seen poorer-quality items achieve the status of higher quality, or we've
seen prestige flip-flop--a low-prestige product becomes high-prestige,
or vice versa (cf. the "career" of pure bromide papers, for
example)--based on word of mouth, presumptions, and shifting fashion.

The psychological aspect of the Duncan/Mydans "discovery" of Nikon and
the ensuing entrenchment of Nikon in the U.S. market has to do in part
with issues that in part go beyond the actual quality of the actual
lenses. IOW, it could have been a perception-and-status kind of thing as
well. (I'm reading an account of a Peace Corps worker in Kenya, who
recounts a tribal elder explaining to her: "If the curse is real, then
we need a witch doctor. If it is not real, well, we still need a witch
doctor, because the people here believe we need one.")

This is NOT to say that the actual facts are unimportant or
uninteresting. And it is not to claim that the story does not hinge in
part upon them. It is only to point out that they aren't the entire
story. If it became the fashion for photojournalists to use Nikkor
lenses; or if the perception that they did use them became a truism in
the U.S. enthusiast press; or if the press created the demand for the
new brand in the U.S.; all these things are still important EVEN IF they
had no basis in the facts upon which they purported to rest.

- --Mike