[Leica] My First day At Photokina

[grduprey at mchsi.com (grduprey@mchsi.com)]

Well, today was very interesting, did not see as much as I had hoped, so it 
is a good thing I have tomorrow.  ;-)  The Leica Booth was interesting with 
M8.2's everywhere for show, and the shutter is indeed quieter, including the 
shutter winder motor.  I got to play with the new Noctilux, and it is 
smaller than I had expected, and hardly intrudes into the viewfinder even 
with the hood extended.  And yes, I forgot to ask how much, but I'm sure it 
is out of my price for the foreseeable future, but really nice images.  They 
had the new projector on display and also in use, and the images are really 
spectacular.  Price 9900 euros!  They claim it is the lowest price in its 
imaging category...   I did get a look at the D-Lux 4, but the one I got my 
hands on was dead.  Build wise it is a very nice ly made unit, not what you 
expect for a point and shoot category camera.  Another unit was in use by 
another attendee, and the images looked pretty nice.  I did get a look at 
the S2, but no hands
 on, as they are not showing to everyone just yet.  It is a big camera, but 
smaller than a EOS 1DS Mk III.  For a prototype it looked pretty close to 
final form and the construction looked pretty detailed.  They did let me 
take a photo, so I will try to post it later.

I also checked out the Zeiss booth, the new lenses for the SLR users were 
quite nice, but I was not impressed with the ZM camera, specifically the 
rangefinder patch was hard to see, and the build is not M class,  Sorry 
those of you who like Zeiss cameras.  I got a look at the 15/2.8, quite a 
hand full, but I am not impressed with its build, I think the Cosina made 
units are better constructed, just my opinion.

I also visited the Hasselblad, Nikon, and Canon booths, and several others.

I'm not sure, but I think I saw a few LUG members there at the train station 
when we were leaving at 5 pm, but did not catch up with them to verify.  I 
will be at the Leica Booth tomorrow at 11 am, so maybe I'll see you there...

well got to go and eat dinner.

Gene