[Leica] Obituary

[feli2 at earthlink.net (Feli)]

Paging Dr. John van Selton to the operating room! Dr. van Stelton to 
the OR!

http://www.focalpointlens.com/

Maybe you can get a beat up donor lens off of ebay or from KEH.com.

Feli

On Jan 19, 2005, at 4:54 PM, mak@teleport.com wrote:

> NO Stop bring it back for another round...it deserves to live on...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Clough <bill_clough@yahoo.com>
> Sent: Jan 19, 2005 4:47 PM
> To: Leica Users Group <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
> Subject: [Leica] Obituary
>
> USA
> TEXAS
> CORPUS CHRISTI
> 19 January 2005
>
> Obituary
>
> Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens, following a long battle with
> congestive iris failure.
>
>       I started in the business of photojournalism in 1960, with
> a company-supplied Polaroid camera. The lens was, I think,
> f5.6.
>
>         Walking around on a shoot with drying prints
> between the fingers of both hands soon became a bore.
>
>       One late-autumn day, I walked into Sears in Amarillo,
> Texas. Sears sold cameras then. Under the counter was a
> Nikka, Japanese copy of a Leica III. Attached to it was a
> piece of glass so large it looked like a headlight.
>
>       No one could be more proud as I walked into the weekly
> newspaper?s office with that camera around my neck.
>
>       The publisher, in riser shoes, stood about 4-foot seven.
> He made up for it by wearing Italian eyeglasses with thick,
> black frames. Apparently they hurt his nose because every
> time he said something important, he took off his glasses
> and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
>
>       ?Now Clough,? he said, ?everyone knows you can?t get a
> good news picture unless it?s taken with a 2-1/4 camera.?
>
>       I was crushed. I had just paid more than $100 for the
> camera and lens?on a salary of $25 a week.
>
>       Despondent, I went downtown to Hertner?s Camera Store
> (still in business, by the way). Inside, the chief
> photographer for the daily newspaper listened to my tale.
>
>       ?Well, I don?t know why he told you that. LIFE?s been
> using them for 30 years.?
>
>       I kept the camera. But, for the first year, I just cropped
> all my pictures square.
>
>       I retired the lens in 1970--and that should be the end of
> the story.
>
>       Except, a few years ago, after a hiatus of seven years, I
> absent-mindedly Google-searched for ?Leica Users Group.?
> That led to the PAW project.
>
>       I took out the old lens to start shooting?only to find
> leafs of the iris floating inside the lens.
>
>       Called Nikon. I realized the youngster at the other end of
> the line was 30 years younger than the lens.
>
>       Enter Tom Caldwell, the former Tokyo Bureau Chief for the
> late UPI Radio Network, where I also used to work.
>
>       ?Send it to me,? Tom said. I?ll take it to Nikon here.?
>
>       This was in the summer of 2000, just when Nikon
> re-introduced its SP rangefinder. To do that, it had to
> bring out a bunch of people from retirement who knew how to
> work on the SP.
>
>       So, somewhere in the depths of Nikon in Tokyo, they
> refurbished the lens.
>
>       Sadly, after almost five years in remission, the problem
> has returned. This time, I think it?s time to out the this
> faithful piece of glass back on the shelf.
>
>       Nikkor #392879: 1960-2005: Retired with honor.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>               
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>
>
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>
________________________________________________________
feli2@earthlink.net                     2 + 2 = 4                      
www.elanphotos.com