RE: RE: [Leica] And Now for Something Completely Different

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Greg - I realize that you and I are unlikely to ever agree on anything,
including whether or not the sun comes up in the morning. But that said,
don't you see that everyone of the comments you quote is telling us what
the features are; telling us how the camera feels and handles - NOT how
it performs.

** "Put simply, the Digilux 2 is a camera that just HANDLES like the
real thing."

** "it APPEARS as if Germany has had a major input as to the way the
camera actually LOOKS and FEELS."
 
** "Hell, there's even a round shutter speed dial that you twirl with
your fingers - my kind of "digital" control - as well as a manual
focusing ring that feels as if it were placed on the lens deliberately,
and not as some post-production afterthought." - Again, this is about
LOOK and FEEL - not performance.

** "As for the lens, it's Leica glass, which should be all that I need
to say. A 28-90 mm (35mm equivalent) Vario Summicron zoom that is plenty
fast at f.2-2.4. And sharp, too - aspherical glass with 13 elements in
10 groups." That tells us NOTHING about how well this lens PERFORMS.
After all, Leica's ASPH M lenses are world-class, and Leica has said
repeatedly that they wouldn't PERFORM properly on a digital M. So the
fact that a lens is made by Leica and is ASPH doesn't tell us that this
camera produces results that are better than those of cameras at half
the price, or are even any good. (I'm sure the results are fine, but Van
Ripper hasn't told me that they are.) 

** "Turn the focusing ring while peering through the viewfinder and the
center part of your image suddenly will enlarge so that you can focus a
whole lot more precisely." Okay - but does it produce sharp, in focus
RESULTS?

** "The pop-up flash, for example, is a very discreet thing that is
slightly elevated to lessen red eye. But it also can be clicked into a
45-degree angle (unheard of on almost every other digicam of its kind)
to render far more natural-looking flash photographs." Did he TRY it?

** "Here, you actually can adjust white balance within the chosen menu,
via a series of click stops that show real-time changes in the
viewfinder or LCD." And did he TRY it to be able to tell if what he sees
on that tiny screen translates acurately to printed results?

Etc. Etc.

Let's be perfectly honest - everything he tells us could have come
straight from a Leica publication.

I'm not saying these features don't sound great; I'm saying that this is
a report on features, not on how those features produce photos.

I could, for instance, write about the Olympus E1 (which I was given by
Olympus ;-) ) and tell you, among other things, that it has a feature to
boost the iso to 1600 and 3200. That would not tell you that the isos of
1600 and 3200 are quite noisy, which is something that a review of the
actual functioning of the camera should definitely include, correct?

I'm sure that some will view the DigiII as the greatest Leica since the
M3. Wonderful. All I'm saying is that this piece by Van Ripper doesn't
tell anyone who is already in love with the idea of this camera, and who
has already read the various Leica announcements, a damn thing they
don't already know.

B. D.




- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of GREG
LORENZO
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 10:10 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: RE: [Leica] And Now for Something Completely Different


B. D. Colen writes in part:

> Actually, I read this "review" yesterday, and was about to post
> it. But
> then I realized that there is not one word about RESULTS - in fact,
> there is no real indication that Van Ripper actually USED the camera,
> just that he handled one. But there is NOTHING in this review to
indicate 
> that Van Ripper actually USED the camera and has images from it that
he can
> compare to those from any other camera. 

Your not serious I hope? Perhaps you missed all of the following which I
quote from his article:


and

"But in the case of the Digilux 2, it appears as if Germany has had a
major input as to the way the camera actually looks and feels."

and

"Put simply, the Digilux 2 is a camera that just handles like the real
thing."

and

"One of the first I noted - and which took me back a whole lot of years
to the days of split image rangefinder focusing in oldtime SLR's - was
the Leica's novel system for manual focusing. Turn the focusing ring
while peering through the viewfinder and the center part of your image
suddenly will enlarge so that you can focus a whole lot more precisely."
"As for the lens, it's Leica glass, which should be all that I need to
say. A 28-90 mm (35mm equivalent) Vario Summicron zoom that is plenty
fast at f.2-2.4. And sharp, too - aspherical glass with 13 elements in
10 groups."
and



and

"The pop-up flash, for example, is a very discreet thing that is
slightly elevated to lessen red eye. But it also can be clicked into a
45-degree angle (unheard of on almost every other digicam of its kind)
to render far more natural-looking flash photographs." 

and

"Here, you actually can adjust white balance within the chosen menu, via
a series of click stops that show real-time changes in the viewfinder or
LCD."

and 

"There is a "burst" shooting mode that I made out to be about 3-4 frames
per second."

 


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