Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/03/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Douglas, I object to you continuously insulting the look and the quality of my Leica lenses. I personally believe, every Leica lens, Maybe with the exception of the screw mount f3.5 Elmar and 50mm Hector, where designed not only to be a joy to look at, but also exceptionally easy to hold and use. The 35mm screw mount lenses looked good, but where a dog to use. (by this I mean to adjust the diaphragm and set the focus. This applies to my early and to my late lenses. To the contrary, try to focus and set the aperture of many other brands, You find your hands are in front of the range finder window when focusing, or you adjust the distance setting instead of the diaphragm and vise versa. If you want to talk about the reduction in mechanical quality over time, look at Pentax. My screw mount 50mm f1.4s had ,beside being optically great, the smoothest focusing and diaphragm setting of any lens I had. The rot started to set in, with the bayonet mount lenses. Optically they where still as good or better, but mechanically they deteriorated. The diaphragm setting was jerky and quite noisy. It feels tinny. Not so with Leica. Because one Leica lens wich you may have, has a problem, that does not mean all the others have it too. Regards, Horst Schmidt Douglas Cooper wrote: > On 3/19/01 4:30 PM, Leica Users digest expressed the following: > > > I personally > > prefer elegant simplicity. > > I'm very much in favor of it as well. But please: are you really defending > the 90mm Elmarit-M (or any current Leica lens) as "elegant simplicity"? > Come on. Everything from the shape to the typography says "simplistic > inelegance." > > >> These really don't have to > >> be competing > >> goals: function vs. beauty. > > > > They CAN be competing goals though. They also may be a cost consideration. > > If Leica can't afford to pay a talented industrial designer, then they > shouldn't be selling lenses for a grand or more. A cheap design is > perfectly acceptable on a bargain-basement lens. > > Douglas Cooper > http://www.dysmedia.com > > NO ARCHIVE