Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/02/24

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Subject: Re: [Leica] DR. BLACKTAPE WOULD LIKE TO RAISE AN EXTREMELY SERIOUS QUESTION REGARDING ERWIN PUTTS' "REVIEW OF THE NEW M7...
From: Marc James Small <msmall@infi.net>
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 13:40:50 -0500
References: <200202241647.g1OGlTq70620@riverside.haddockseyes.com>

At 01:04 PM 2/24/02 -0500, B. D. Colen wrote:
>Are we really expected to continue to believe that Erwin and his reports are
>what any neutral observer would call "independent" of Leica and truly
>objective?  We would suggest that we should judge his reports just as we
>judge Leica's advertising materials, press releases, and the endorsements
>from photographers to whom it gives free cameras.
>

BD

You really should get out more.  I'd suggest that you subscribe to, say,
the Hasselblad Users' Group, where Henry Posner of B&H is a very active
member.  On the Rollei List, we used to have a lot of input from Bob
Salomon at HP Marketing when they were still the US agents for Rollei, and
both Marflex and Harry Fleenor still participate in that forum, as does Bob
Shell.  Kornelius Fleischer from Zeiss frequently posts to the Medium
Format Digest.  No one accuses any of these other guys of being mere
company flacks, and it ill-suits you to suggest this of Erwin.

Erwin is a careful and cautious observer of things optical, and his
analyses and reviews are worthy of great merit.  That he receives support
from Leica (and Zeiss, on occasion) merely means that he has a chance to
evaluate gear before the rest of us can see it.  Now, if you are accusing
him of actual bias, I would appreciate your firm data on this -- can you
reveal to our enquiring minds a single example of a skewed test result or a
single example of his swallowing his results in the interest of mere
promotion?  

Long before you subscribed to the LUG, BD, I made the same foolish
accusations about Erwin, to the point that he protested to Brian about my
lack of politeness.  In the end, I began to READ what he was saying,
instead of simply engaging in a knee-jerk reaction, and began to understand
the depth and breadth of his work, and then I ceased my juvenile rantings
and laid down the mantle of Moral Probity which you, sadly, have now chosen
to don.  Give it a rest, BD.  The quality of Erwin's work speaks for itself.

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +276/343-7315
Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!

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Replies: Reply from "Stephen York" <S.G.York@worldnet.att.net> (Re: [Leica] DR. BLACKTAPE WOULD LIKE TO RAISE AN EXTREMELY SERIOUS QUESTION REGARDING ERWIN PUTTS' "REVIEW OF THE NEW M7...)
In reply to: Message from Brian Reid <reid@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> ([Leica] Erwin Puts' M7 report)