Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/04/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]RE: Brand loyalty. Pro's are in fact loyal to a brand until they start losing income because they can not deliver the shot. Pro's who shot sports had to migrate to C in the early 90's because the 300 and 500 Canon lenses on the 1 could focus on an athlete and deliver shots that the N users could not. The AF allowed the non planned shot to be taken. It doesn't mean that the guys who had been shooting manual couldn't still get the shots that they were always getting. It just meant that a newbie could turn around, see something interesting, and nail it with his/her C gear while the F4 user's were still cursing the focus. In the middle 90's a lot of press guys switched because the 35-350 made shooting much too easy for papers. Also, it must be admitted that there was some real funny money going to newspapers to switch to C right around the 96 Olympics. In the late 90's the reverse happened. N came out with the D1 and again, if you wanted to be competitive, you switched. If you didn't, you were paying Kodak much money for an inferior product. Later, with the advent of IS lenses, again, people could get shots that others could not. So, you switched to keep the assignments coming. Again, the top 5% of pros could still deliver with existing systems, but the rest needed the crutch. Currently, C is gaining many new customers with the 1Ds. With three T/S lenses even table top shooters are picking up the camera. You know, $8000 is nothing compared to what a scanning back costs for large format. You know that N has been feeling pain from IS when they scrap their truly great 80-200 to produce the 70-200VR As to digital, the proposed standard will have to deliver something that is not being offered by N and C to get people to switch. You know, the proverbial 20-500 F2 lens that is diffraction limited and focuses to 1:1. Absent that, why switch? Olympus is trying to get back in the pro body business, and Kodak is trying to remain relevant. As an aside, now that the DSLR's are being produced in enough numbers that they are actually on the shelf, my local pro store is not selling very many E20's. Their customers are going for N or C. So again, Olympus is trying to become relevant in the non P/S market. This is actually a really big deal as the owner of the store is married to an Olympus VP. To bring this on topic, Leica really has to come out with a digital interchangeable lens camera real soon. Look at this list. How many fairly fanatical Leica users have bought N or C in the last six months? Even if they had to come out with a fairly limited lens selection to fit some ones sensor, it needs to happen real soon. Don dorysrus@mindspring.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html