[Leica] Apology (sort of)

[kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)]

My rant about the battery indicator and subsequent "cheapskate" 
posting set off a feeding frenzy of comment, so I'll bore you all 
with a bit of biography.

First, I relearned an old lesson, which is don't send email to anyone 
when you're pissed off about something; wait until you're fully calm. 
When pissed off, your mind just doesn't work. For example, I damn 
well knew that the info on number of shots left applies to the SD 
card, but I managed to forget it. Even worse, I didn't even stop to 
think about how battery charge indicators had to work. And I should 
have; I was once a physicist (Ph.D, Univ. of Chicago, 1951). The only 
way a battery charge indicator can work is to monitor the battery's 
voltage, and dollars to donuts, that functional relationship probably 
varies between battery specimens. So, a percentage battery life 
indication is something between fact and fiction.

Re cheapskate, here is the story. I always wanted a Leica, but 
considered the price out of my range. During the period 1970-1978 I 
was working in England on a a British salary scale. At one point, a 
fellow member of a camera club let me handle his M4. All you had to 
do was work the silky film advance level and click the shutter a 
couple of times, and, but God, you wanted one. I investigated and 
decided I could afford to buy a used one, but was spooked by the new 
price of accessories--items which probably would be hard to find 
used. That was the ultimate in naivety; if one body and one 50mm lens 
was good enough for HCB, it should have been good enough for me.

Step forward to about ten years ago.  I bought a mint used M6 TTL 
from B & H for $1500, to my mind an extravagant expenditure, never 
having spent more than a couple of hundred for a camera in the past, 
things of the order of Rollei 35, Nikon F2 and the like. I then 
bought a couple of used ancient lenses for about $600 each, a 35mm 
from that shop in Atlanta, and a 90mm from Henning Wolfe--yes, I 
discovered the LUG before the Leica purchase.

Eventually, darkroom work burned me out. With the obvious exception 
of Kodachrome, I did my own developing and printing in B&W and color. 
So, for a couple of years, I quit photography. Then, one fateful day, 
my wife persuaded me that, in our old age (I'll be 89 in June), 
wanting to remain in our house, we really needed a second bathroom in 
the event a caretaker had to live here. There went my darkroom!

I really wasn't enthusiastic about digital. I've spent two much of my 
life dealing with computers. But there was no choice. And I 
remembered how much I enjoyed using the Leica. I wasn't primarily for 
the higher quality of the results; I very rarely made prints larger 
than 8 x 10. It was for the sheer joy of using the thing. So, I 
bought Lightroom2 and a junk P&S Nikon to see if I could live with 
digital. When I decided I could, and had the thought "You can't take 
it with you," I made the plunge and bought the M9. Sticking with my 
old lenses, however.

I still find it hard to think of spending $130 for a battery; it's 
probably the effect of having grown up during the Great Depression. 
Re Tina's good experience with $10 Hong Kong batteries: for a number 
of years, there have been incidents of Li ion batters setting 
themselves on fire. Granted the odds are against it, and there 
haven't been recent reports, but my feeling is that I'd want to wait 
for a couple more years of freedom from such reported incidents 
before I'd take the chance.

Since my living does not depend on getting the picture, I'll probably 
just see if I can get along with reasonable battery charging 
discipline. However, if I get bitten just one more time, I'll buy a 
second Leica battery.

Herb


-- 
Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Do not meddle in the affairs of cats,
for they are subtle and will pee
on your computer!