[Leica] Zeiss Focus Shift

[billgem at hotmail.com (Bill Marshall)]

>Regarding Mark Rabineer's comments:

Mark, you listed one questionable assertion: "We decided to design our own 
camera body because other cameras could simply not match the performance of 
our lenses."

I'll give you that one. Zeiss crossed the line & should apologize for that 
statement.

Everything else you listed was marketing fluff & had nothing to do with 
performance claims about the body or lenses. It had to do with slogans, 
limited editions, etc. If you are offended by that, are you not offended by 
the Leica website. The first thing that hits you when you open it up is:

"Leica a la Carte" Yes, you can go to that page & decide whether you want 
alligator skin leather or burgundy colors or what have you. Not marketing 
fluff?

If that's not enough, the sign for the "a la Carte" program is followed by:

"Happy 50th Birthday: A New Special Anniversary Edition of the M7" Well, if 
you're offended by limited editions, there's one for you. And if the 50th 
Anniversary M7 isn't enough for you, just look farther down the page & you 
find:

"New Oscar Barnack Edition" Had enough? I think that Leica has outdone Zeiss 
in the marketing fluff department.

Finally, you did not talk about Rollei lenses made by Zeiss in your original 
post. You criticized Zeiss for 2 specific lenses being brought out in 
M-mount: the 40 Sonnar from the Rollei 35 & the 80 Planar from medium 
format. As a fan & user of the Rollei 35, you know that Zeiss never made 
this lens even though they designed it. The simple fact is that producing 
these 2 lenses in M-mount was a Rollei decision & Zeiss had nothing to do 
with it.You accused Zeiss of this decision when it was not true. You then 
went on to criticize them for them for something that they had nothing to do 
with.

I said above that Zeiss should apologize for the questionable assertion that 
they made about their camera body & the implied criticism of Leica & others. 
You too should apologize for your own questionable assertion, which was 
unfounded about Zeiss being responsible for the production of 2 Rollei 
lenses.

Regards,
Bill