Fwd: Re: [Leica] was leica marketed as a professional camera or a hobbiest camera?

[Photo Phreak <leicam4pro@yahoo.com>]

> --- SthRosner@aol.com wrote:
> Kyle:
> 
> I'll take a shot (fuhgettabout lawyers). I believe the
> answer is yes on all 
> counts. Go back to the 1930s when what was then called
> miniature photography 
> was just flowering. Professionals did indeed buy and
 use
> Leicas in increasing 
> numbers as the word got out on how remarkable it was to
> attend public events 
> with such a tiny, handy, precise and accurate camera. 
- ------------------------------------------------------------
 
    With all due respect to your time spent with LHSA I
must disagree somewhat.  My experience with pro
photographers is that the same percentage of them tend to
be inertia bound or just plain reactionary as the rest of
society.
 
    And the people who purchased the photographers work
were ( are ) probably even more so.  There was a tremendous
reluctance to accept even medium format for print media. 
Only a few "name" shooters could get away submitting work
from a 35 mm. to the major feature magazines.  The
Rolleiflex was considered a revelation at the time. Look
at all the evidence that newspaper photographers were still
expected to have a 4x5 press camera in the early '50s.
 
    The only pub that I know of that openly embraced and
encouraged 35 mm. work early on was the Nat'l Geographic.  

============================================================
 
> With a bow to Marc Small, Zeiss Ikon Jena developed THE 
> competing system, the 
>  Contax and its wonderful line of lenses and related
>  accessories. For the 
>  pros, the cameras, the lenses, the entire system,
>  marketed themselves.
>
- ------------------------------------------------------------
 
    My experience is that the pros tend to stick with
what
they already know, are comfortable with and what makes
them money.  That they may have used 35 mm for personal 
use is not doubted.  But most pro work had to be "spotted" 
and retouched to some degree.  And that is difficult enough
even on 6x6 negs.  I will not disagree that there were a
few "trendsetters" who embraced new technology, but the
rest followed slowly.  After all, for most this was (is)
not a high profit vocation, and new equipment was not
inexpensive.  I would submit that for every "Eisy" or     
Halstead there were thousands of working photographers who 
were just making a living.
 

============================================================
 
> 
> But the professional market was probably not big enough
> to justify the outlay 
> to develop the phenomenal array of equipment that both
> companies did. They 
> had to develop a market of well-off "advanced amateurs"
> who were interested 
> in the new-fangled miniature camera
- ------------------------------------------------------------
 
    Here is where you hit "pay dirt".  Consider the
average
standard of living in Europe before the war.  Only the
"professional classes" and the wealthy could afford
photography as a hobby interest.  Doctors, lawyers,
business executives, those with landed estates.  Oscar
Barnack was listed as a "mechanic".  But this is
deceiving.
 In american usage he would have been called an engineer.
 
And yet, he enjoyed only a modest income.
    At the same time, similar conditions existed in the
US. The average workingman's weekly wage at this time was
$25.00 a week OR LESS!  So again, if you look at the
advertising and the magazines it was placed in, the
target
market was the upper middle class.
 

============================================================
 
>  and so their print
> material, including 
> the Leica Manual - of which I also have a mid-1950s     
> edition - was aimed at 
> the non-professional photographer.
- ------------------------------------------------------------
  The professional
> didn't need the 
> "instruction" provided by the Manual.
- ------------------------------------------------------------
 
    I am not quite sure of the validity of this
statement. 
Moving from sheet film developed by "inspection" under a
safelight and even 6x6 to the 35 mm. format and the films
of the time would have been a big change in technique for
many.  And please don't disregard the inertia factor...


============================================================
> 
> I have a strong feeling that the very same thing is
> true
> today. The pro knows 
> just what (s)he wants - after hearing the experience of
> colleagues with 
> particular gear. Isn't that largely what the LUG is
> about, for our 
> professional members.
> 

> 
>  And remember, ten years ago there
> was no LUG. The 
> non-pro had to rely on friends or on the
> trustworthiness
> of his/her local 
> camera shop.
> 
> my 2p.
> 
> Seth      LaK 9
> --
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