[Leica] LHSA meeting in Wetzlar; Leica Camera AG

[sethrosner at nycap.rr.com (Seth Rosner)]

Hi LUG friends!

I have resubscribed after a fairly lengthy absence to bring you all up to 
date on what I have learned about Leica Camera AG and its future at the LHSA 
meeting in Wetzlar ten days ago. Had an opportunity to visit at some length 
with Andreas Kaufmann whose Company has bought full control of Leica Camera 
and also with Steven Lee, an American who has assumed a senior management 
role with the Company. Both are photography and Leica enthusiasts and have a 
shared vision of where they hope to take the Company. As you doubtless have 
read, Leica introduced not only the M-8 but also three other digital 
cameras. The Leica booths at Photokina were mobbed, especially, naturally, 
that of the M-8.

What is most impressive is the enthusiasm at the factory. All of the 
feedback from our friends at the Company made clear that there is a new 
sense of excitement at Solms, that the tacit concern amongst employees for 
the Company's survival is gone. A truly great sense of optimism invests the 
place. As several staff members put it, everyone is eager to come to work 
again.  Evidence of this is that despite the fact that Tuesday 3 October was 
a national holiday and almost everyone takes off the Monday (2 October) to 
make a long weekend, production workers on the M-8 came to work voluntarily 
to ensure that the Company continues to produce enough cameras to meet 
demand.

I had a chance to read only a very few M-8 comments in the LUG archive and 
will comment on just one issue, the coding of older lenses for the M-8. I am 
ill-equipped to answer this technically but as I understand it,  because of 
the oblique angle at which light rays from shorter focal length lenses reach 
the sensor, Leica has placed before the sensor a device that adjusts the 
rays to reduce or elminate that effect. The code on older lenses tells the 
camera what adjustment is indicated for that focal length. I have been told 
that this is more important for lenses under 50mm, that the deleterious 
effect at 50mm is not too great and at the longer focal lengths, the lenses 
probably do not really need the coding.

The LHSA meeting really was pretty wonderful, on Friday a good day of 
programs and projection presentations and the banquet at which both Mr. 
Kaufmann and Steven Lee spoke about their enthusiasm for Leica and briefly 
about their plans for the future. Saturday visit to Photokina in Cologne, 
Sunday back to Photoboerse, a massive trade fair, Monday factory visit and 
visit to Braunfels and the castle, Tuesday a luncheon cruise on the Rhine 
and a medieval banquet and departure Wednesday. Twenty members stayed on 
through Wednesday for a Leica Akademie program with the M-8.

Surprising number of our members attended carrying..........digital cameras!
We're not all old f-rts stroking our - you will pardon the expression - 
Thambars!

Cheerio all,

Seth