[Leica] Re: Perfect for what is the question

[Jim Brick <jim_brick@agilent.com>]

At 11:31 PM 11/8/00 -0600, someone wrote:
>>
>>I still think the Leica R line is better than anything else taken as a
>>whole. The cameras rate no better than a B on the grade scale, and maybe
>>that's being charitable; but the lenses are A+. I would rate all the other
>>brands and lines being from A down to D (and I could grade them pretty
>>precisely if I had to).
>>

Having personally been doing this photography thing for exactly fifty
years, going through Brooks, working as a commercial photographer, medical
photographer, aerial photographer, and now a fine art photographer and
teaching workshops, there is only one way to "grade" a camera system
"precisely." And that is to live with is as a working system. To make money
with it or at least be a hard core amateur/advanced amateur user. Hard core
meaning hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands of rolls or sheets,  and
using it over a reasonably long period of time.

It is amazing how first opinions from casual use or merely fondling
something (camera system in this case) can lead to many incorrect
conclusions. What might seem to be a wart at casual glance will turn out to
be a wonderful feature. What might seem to be a mediocre lens, might turn
out to be stellar in actual hard use in the proper situations. Use a
Noctilux for general everyday photography and you would hate the M system.
Average photographs with a lens that blocks half of the viewfinder. But use
it at f/1, f/1.4, or f/2 in available darkness, and a whole new world opens
up. The lens/M camera becomes neither a pain nor average. It becomes stellar.

Real photographers don't care about connoisseurship or someone else's
feeble attempt at grading a camera system. What one person fondles and
dislikes, another will actually use over the long haul and love. And vice
versa. This is why I find those magazine camera ratings pathetic and having
no association with reality. Many writers/fondlers mercilessly panned the
Alpa camera. I used one at Brooks for small format assignments and
professionally after that and found it to be one of the easiest to use and
most intuitive cameras available. I used to laugh at the critics... all the
way to the bank.

So these folks that sit around and fondle, sit around and write articles
and reports, are no different than the TV news talking heads. No experience
with what they are yakking about. You should be listening to Ted, Donal,
Harrison, Gary Todoroff, Henning, Eric, Tina, Tom K., Tom A., and all of
those others out there who make a living by USING photographic equipment on
a daily basis, to make photographs, to make money.

IMH and real life experienced O,

Jim