Re: [Leica] Soft Release

["Dante A. Stella" <dante@umich.edu>]

In Tom's defense, his look nicer.

Anyone who wants to complain about $10 can find the old school soft releases in
most photo outlets.  Ritz was closing these out at $0.25/each.  They are "concave
down," and not made of aluminum (pot metal? Zamac? brass?) because they are much
too heavy.

Frankly, given my low quantum of free time, when I lose my current one, I'll fork
over for an TA soft release rather than search to the ends of the earth for
something cheaper.  Time is worth more than that, and given the average age on
this group, it is better spent finding your soul and having fun with your camera
than saving a buck (or even nine).

"Michael E. Bérubé" wrote:

> OK...I wasn't gonna post again today, but I've got to say that $10 for an
> accessory as great as the softie is for a camera system that usually costs
> at least $2k is a frequin' bargain.
>
> (no affiliation with TA, just love the softies...which are now on my
> minolta SLRs as I don't have an M any more.)
> Michael
>
> At 06:28 PM 3/13/01 -0500, you wrote:
> >  I wish that the alloy used was cheap. It is a certified areospace alloy
> > that
> >costs about US$ 15/kg and after that it is run on an automated turning center
> >that costs about $200/hour to operate. I dont know if you know anything about
> >machining, but the Softrelease is done in a single pass through the machining
> >center and the program for running it, boggles the mind! Several people have
> >said the same thing and gone to machinists to try to have the Softies
> >duplicated. In all cases they have been told 'Can't even run them for $10
> >each".  There are plenty of Softreleases available in "cheap" aluminium but
> >they suffer from one major problem. The threads are pressed in to the metal
> >and they often break off in the cable release thread of the camera. Simple
> >design is not necessarily cheap and high quality material never is!
> >Tom A