Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Afterswift@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 9/25/03 6:28:11 PM, kenf@speakeasy.net writes: > > << So you paid $77 for a perfect Nikon F? Pretty damn unusual. >> > > Maybe my arithmetic may be off. I think I paid about $300+ for the Nikon F > new with a standard pentaprism and f2 50mm lens, which I had converted by Nikon > to AE for $30 when they offered that deal. The store in question was charging > $600 for the pentaprism and $800 for the pentaprism and lens combined. I don't > know what they wanted for an F body. But it seems the F is constantly rising > in the market. Ever try to sell a used Olympus 4040 digital after the Oly 5050 > came out? Want a real bargain in a new Nikon? Take a look at the latest Nikon > FM family. I recall this baby will provide a full range of mechanical as well > as electronic shutter speeds. I have no idea how Nikon did that. Leica Solms > should have done it in the M7. I think the M7 furnishes two mechanical speeds. > > br I still have my FM from '77 when it first came out and it's just like a Leica. (nod nod wink wink) It has a battery which runs the meter. That's it. The similarities go on and to be eerie it also only goes to 1000th of a second. Also it used LED's to center the meter with just like an M6 vanilla classic or close. It does sync at 125th though instead of our 50th so you can go outside with a small flash and shoot something more than 5 feet away. The FE came out the next year with an automatic setting and silicon cells - same sync. I didnt like the looks of it. I like the M7 though! Wrong millennium! The FM2 didn't come out until '82 and the FE2 '83. These had a stop faster synced titanium shutters and faster shutter speeds by a couple of stops! The shutters were changed to good old aluminum at the very end of the decade. I shot my FM2 in the studio at the mechanical 250th of a second sync speed not draining batteries. Lots of film went through those camreas with those cheap MD 11 and 12 moter drives. The Titan FM2 was mainly made of aluminum but had titanium top plate, upper cover, bottom plate, rear cover. No empty Krylon titanium spray paint cans were evident. The High tech FA came out in 83 with microprocessor and a year before the Mac and the M6 and the Death of Ansel. When did that Canon A1 come out? The FG was an EM not made for the mass market and with better bells and whistles. I recall the FM ad campain used womens hands as if it were designed as a "womens camera" or for people with small hands. Every photogapher I knew had at least one. Few had small hands. Few were women. One was a women with big hands. I think they owed thier existence not to a new womens or small handed market but to the sudden existence of the revolutionary Oly OM1 which made everyone realize it didnt take a camera the size of a typewriter to expose a 24x36mm chip of film. And "it's the water". ANd that they could be more Like a Lieca. SLR Leica's. And a lot lite-a and cheep a. We tried to be HCB with them but our wide angles got in the way- 24's or 28's most of us. A 35 was considered a tele to this group of people here in 70's Portland. As we know on the LUG HCB used 50's. And Rangefinders. I'd never sell my FM's so what its worth does not interest me that much. I replaced the shutter at least once for more money then I could buy a whole camera used I'm sure. But it wouldnt be MY camera. It was worth it. The bulk of my body of work was shot with Fm's. I found Leica in 1990 and lost interst in the FM wavelenth. Now listening to the groovy LM electro-magnetic spectrum. LSMFT. Lucky strike means fine tobac-a. Mark Rabiner Portland, Oregon USA http://www.rabinergroup.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html