Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/02/13

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Subject: Re: [Leica] M7 : a numeric camera!
From: "Jeff S" <segawa@netone.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 22:11:03 -0700

- -----Original Message-----
From: thibault collin <tc-lnc@u-picardie.fr>
>The M concept was in advance in 1953...
>Around those days, Leica used to be a step forward to the concurence...
>But now, the're not any more.
>Even the R8 is not (in)novative :

Can any tool ever be entirely obsolete if it's able to perform well by the
standards of the era, and no artificial barriers have been erected to
prevent it from continuing to do so?

That said, let me say that I certainly like the Leica M in it's present
form, but let's not turn our backs on new ideas. A newer camera might not be
M-like at all: Perhaps it could be the start of something entirely new. The
existing camera can be kept around, but why not also try something radically
new?  Most of the ideas put forth thus far are tame-just shoehorning
existing ideas into a dream camera. Contax has done a fine job of doing just
that; why repeat the excercise? Why not something entirely new?

- -Contrast and perspective control handled in-camera with no moving parts.
("Small camera, large-format results")

- -Wireless image upload to personal ftp site ("Endless supply of film")

A lot of new ideas sound nutty at first: Who foresaw MacOS or the Palm Pilot
while standing in line to enter their program into the timeshared computer
via a card reader? If you had asked folks of the era what they wanted,
probably they would've asked for a faster computer and a refined card
reader!