[Leica] The Donatists

[Gaifana@aol.com]

Leica is a religion.

One thing that brings me infinite amusement is history. I did my undergrad in 
early medieval history, and just remembered many nights of  Latin readings 
for my thesis. My thesis was on the Donatist controversy, which was an 
internal persecution in North Africa based on who was a "real" Christian, 
i.e.  who had been persecuted. Let me translate the story into terms familiar 
to this group. I'll take a little liberty to fit our facts.

Once upon a time, there was an asthmatic lens designer known as Oskar 
Barnack. Oskar, for whatever reason, decided that it was time for a change. 
One of his favorite expressions was "for what good is it to have the image 
quality if you lose the image" or some such thing. He suggested to the 
establishment that maybe there was a better way of doing things. He created a 
technologically-sophisticated camera that was easy to use. And it was 
convenient. His followers were persecuted, but they kept the faith while the 
mighty Zeiss empire rolled on.

Barnack's cameras were eventually legalized. After the Great War, his church 
brought out a new model, known as the M3 (clearly because it was 3 cameras in 
one body - one for a 50mm lens, one for a 90 and one for a 135). His 
followers initially despised it, saying that it was inferior to the old one, 
and who needed lever wind or a combined finder? But new adherents latched 
onto the more liberal religion. As time went on, the resistance faded and 
everyone fell in line. (1968).

At about the same time, competing cults known as Canon and Nikon began to 
attract the followers of Barnack. They made it easy, making lenses for Leicas 
first and then slowly easing them into full indoctrination with bodies. The 
Church of Barnack tried hard to adjust its dogma, and it upgraded from the M4 
to the M5. But to no avail. The M5 was flogged and executed. The 
establishment began persecuting again. The number of followers dwindled. 
Canon and Nikon gained more followers by encouraging the "lazy man's way). It 
was a dark day, and the Church went into exile, shipping all of the tooling 
to Canada. (1970s).

Eventually, the dark days of the persecution ended. The M4-P was in 
production and the church was regaining some of its lost members. Some were 
unsure about their souls, and especially unsure about the stamped top covers. 
Things went relatively well until the M-6, when the Pax Wetzlarensis came 
crashing to a halt. 

Suddenly, the Church was divided into two camps. One, the Church of the M-4, 
said that all automation was evil and that it's a slippery slope. "If you 
really care about *images*, you wouldn't need automation; only if you are 
persecuted by inconvenience are you a true follower; there is a certain 
pleasure in inconvenience." The M6 adherents retorted that a little 
automation was a good thing, and it was the spirit and not the letter of the 
law.

As time went on, the M-4 people became more and more bitter, talking about 
the old days and how the cameras were better-made. They ultimately concluded 
that "good pictures come through suffering alone." They decided that the M6 
and a subsequent prophet known as Hexar were false, and so they persecuted 
the two of them; they had decided that the true M-7)essiah would eventually 
come, and all the automation worth having would come from Leica itself.

And here we are today. 


Cheers
Dante