Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/03/26

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: Leica & Contax test
From: "Kotsinadelis, Peter (Peter)" <peterk@lucent.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 16:13:49 -0800

Mark,

Sounds likes someone hit your sensitive button.  IMHO, the G is not a poor
excuse for a Leica, it is simply another camera much like a Ford is to a
Cadillac. Some prefer the Caddy others the Ford.  Some prefer a Toyota.  In
the end, they all get you to your destination.

Peter K

- -----Original Message-----
From: Mark Rabiner [mailto:mrabiner@concentric.net]
Sent: Friday, March 26, 1999 2:14 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Leica & Contax test


You know how your friends are often very competitive with you and can
waver into being your adversaries? Well I have had three such "friends"
or close acquaintances become a bit jealous and competitive over my
interest and ownership of Leica M's. They went out and got Contax G's as
a way to outdo me with a smarter cheaper easier more modern "buy."
If I have a sore spot over that camera is it for the reason of my three
x friends buying them or was it already there beforehand or was it not
there. The answer is all or none of the above.  Egocentric? Maybe; no.
I say the Contax G is a poor excuse for a Leica. And I say that knowing
that it was never intended to be one in the first place.
The mentality of the design and use of the G is so different from the M
that perhaps the people who use both should be applauded for being so
open minded and dexterous. 
But I see people with more cameras than they have time to understand.
And that's OK. Why not have a hundred cameras? 
Until your reason for selling one of them is because it is less
"useful". Because the USE of this whatever camera is something that you
with your huge collection of toys are hardly going to take the time to
understand. 
You may be able to list its features and quote the pop magazines test
results but you don't know what this camera can really do. You haven't
lived with it. You haven't put enough film through it.
A camera with the long tradition and intelligent design evolvement such
as the Leica M deserves more than a cheap brushoff. 
What other cameras belong in this category?
The Rolleiflex TLR
Speed Graphic
Deardorf
Nikon F
?
Cameras that evolved to near perfection but had that perfection built
into its first inception.
Mark Rabiner