Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 06:50 PM 11/16/1999 -0800, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: > >The SLR revolution happened 40 years ago, with the introduction of the >Nikon F. This is ancient history. > Sorry, Godfrey. The SLR Revolution began at the Leipzig-Messe in 1949, with the introduction of Hubert Nerwin's Contax S. Herbert Keppler wrote a fascinating article in Pop around seven or eight years ago about the immediate and dynamic effect this had on the professional community of the time, and Dechert has also done so, in his fine monograph, THE CONTAX S CAMERA FAMILY. Both were working pros at the time. It just took a decade for the innate conservatism of the photographic community to accept the change, and they then grabbed the most accessible and reasonable SLR available, the Nikon F. (The Canonflex was not nearly as handy as the F, the Contarex was priced beyond all reason and belief, and the Nikon F was world's ahead of the Praktica line. If ONLY the East Germans hadn't shuffled off to work on that interesting dead-end, the Praktina, but had kept the Contax SLR line in production, instead of that thirty-year hiatus before they came out with another really competitive design, the Praktica B.) Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!