[Leica] observations at photo east

["Jeffrey Frankel" <jfrankel@worldnet.att.net>]

Last Saturday I went to the Photo East show at the Jacob Javits center

Here are my LUG observations:

The Leica booth was unusual in that there were black formica tables in an
oval.  There were no pieces of equipment on display in these tables.  You
had to ask for a specific piece of equipment to be taken out of a hidden
shelf.

The IIIa Minox replica:

Fixed focus, fixed aperature, fixed speed tiny camera with a seperate full
sized hand grip flash attachment.  It reminded me of the tiny toy roll film
cameras of the 1950's.  There were three prints taken with the camera lying
around.  Don't thow away your Kodak 110 camera for this one.

The Leica A redux:

A beautiful camera to hold (I got an angry stare when I wound and fired the
shutter)  The rubber plug lens cap was a necessity because the shutter slit
does not close when resetting the shutter and winding the film
The camera felt solid and there was a certain satisfying feeling about the
spherical black shutter button.
The view finder was unusual in that it seems that the camera had to be held
about 12 inches away from your eye to get the view in focus.
We were told that the camera would sell for about $3,000.  My wife asked who
would use such a camera.  Use???  "We sell this stuff to collectors, not to
users."

Wide Angle M6
What can I say.  It had the crisp M6 feel but you lose the 135 frame.

Et Al

Voitlander showed the 12mm LTM.  It looked great and felt smooth.  The
photos on display attributed to this lens were sharp, contrasty and with
little objectional distortion.

Well that about wraps up the OT stuff that I saw.

Jeff