Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/21

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Meta Ph otokina
From: Martin Howard <howard.390@osu.edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:15:09 -0400

B. D. Colen jotted down the following:

> What I am suggesting is that far too often, in both
> industrial and graphic design, form qua form, as expressed by the designer,
> wins out over function.

OK, I'm going to shoot myself in the foot here: I think the F3 is a
brilliant design.  I love the way it feels and handles.  All the controls
(as I remember) fell right into place.  The only things I'd want changed on
it would be a true spot-metering mode added, and placement of the hotshoe on
the prism.

OTOH, perhaps placing the 'hotshoe' on the rewind lever was just a clever
plot: people would get so sick of trying to use a camera-mounted flash that
they'd abandon the whole idea and either go with PC-synched flash, or simply
use available light.

Still, it doesn't take long to realize that placing a flash over the rewind
is going to lead to serious usability problems.  Either you're going to have
to remove the flash each and every time you wish to rewind the film (unless
you have motorized rewind), or you're going to have to buy and mount an ad
hoc kludge solution thingy to move the flash out of the way -- in which
case, one wonders if not placing the damn thing on the prism had been
simpler, easier, and better all around in the first place.

M.

- -- 
Martin Howard                     |
Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU       | It's not who you are, it's who
email: howard.390@osu.edu         | you know that counts.
www: http://mvhoward.i.am/        +---------------------------------------