Re: [Leica] The M6 Fugue

[Dave Richards <dprichards@uswest.net>]

If I may kick in my two cents worth, you seem to equating ever-increasing
automation with progress.  Automation has it's place.  After all, email
would be pretty difficult in a world that considers the postage stamp the
height of technological enlightenment.  But it also has it's price.  

I submit that the fully manual camera offers something that the fully
automatic camera cannot, and that is the ability to look at a subject and
decide for yourself how it should be photographed, without reliance on wat
an engineer or programmer considers an acceptable exposure most of the time.

When I moved to Leica I gave up the convenience of an automatic Nikon.
Except that Nikon lenses are visibly inferior to Leica optics, the N90 is
considerably more convenient, and best of all, can rip through a
36-exposure roll of Kodachrome in less than 8 second.  But my M6 has made
me think, which is more than I have been able to say about a Nikon since I
sold my Nikkormat FTN.

Dave

>
>>>You are missing the point. The worst thing that could happen would be
>>to get 
>>>what you're dreaming about. If Solms bestowed an electronic M on you,
>>it 
>>>would be bogus. Why? Because it would not be manual. It would lose the
>>
>>>tactile quality that makes the M the precision camera system it is. It
>>would 
>>>be an assembled camera, not a hand finished camera. That loss would show
>>in 
>>>the negatives and prints.
>
>
>
>Does anyone believe they should have stopped the SLR design with the 
>Leicaflex SL2? How come it's OK for the SLR line to try to keep up with the 
>times but not the rangefinder line?
>
>Bob (waiting for the "right" AE M-camera) McEowen
>
>