Leica M8 - is the lens mount THAT expensive?

"Bill Funk" wrote in message

So, what should a poor artist do?
--

Become good enough to be able to work with the tools he/she can
afford.......

Gordon Moat wrote:

Or a Ducati, Porsche, Swiss watch, Canon L lens, et al. Plenty of other
choices out there in many products. So why do you imagine anyone buys
things that are not mass market items?

Except in the case of the M8 it is like they put in an under powered
engine (less then full field sensor) and then tried to make up for it
by leaving off the muffler (the low pass filter) so that at least it
would sound loud.

Scott

Chris Loffredo wrote:

So what do you have against a system which offers very compact &
functional body & lenses, is extremely reliable, focuses easily &
accurately in bad light situations, has an extremely bright viewfinder,
has no mirror and very little shutter slap, can use some of the best
lenses ever as well as some of the best-buy lenses ever, is extremely
quiet and unobtrusive and will last a lifetime?


He cannot afford it, does not remotely understand it and therefore
cannot put any monetary value on its excellence. His logic is, why
pay for something excellent when mediocre gear is more than adequate
for his completely undemanding requirements?

Name any brand of lens from Cosina to Zuiko, fixed focal length or
zoom, wide angle, standard or telephoto ... set it at f/8, and it
would provide images far better than anything he will ever need.

Leica glass would be completely wasted on him, and he knows it. What
surprises me, Chris, is that you find that fact surprising, and that
you think it is worth arguing with an imbecile.

As the esteemed Lisa Horton once said of him, with uncanny accuracy:

"A village somewhere is missing its idiot."

John McWilliams wrote:

It's arrogant to denigrate folks' buying decisions based solely on your
narrow p.o.v.


No group of people is more arrogant than the profoundly ignorant.

"Bill Funk" wrote

It's pretty hard to espress the grandeur of a sunset with a sheet of
white paper and a piece of black charcoal. [What's a starving
artist to do?]

If one can't do it then maybe it would be better to do
something one can do.

Naw, what the heck, blame it on the charcoal, the camera,
the sunset... anybody but me.

"Some people claim that there's a woman to blame,
But I know, it's my own damn fault." Buffet, J.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Darkroom Automation
http://www.nolindan.com/da/index.htm
n o lindan at ix dot netcom dot com

"Bill Funk" wrote in message
...
On 25 Sep 2006 09:57:57 -0700, Paul Rubin
wrote:

"jeremy" writes:
So it appears that there are no meritorious arguments to support that
Leica
produces images that are measurably better than those of the
competition,
and the only remaining argument is that some people pay Leica's prices
for
an intangible feeling of gratification from handling the equipment.

To which I respond, as did P.T. Barnum, that a sucker is born every
minute.

Just recently I read that prints of Ansel Adams' Moonrise over
Hernandez go for around $15K. You can get several Leica outfits
for that, and the print just hangs on the wall doing nothing.

Why does anyone ever buy them? Maybe they know something you don't.

"Maybe they know something you don't."

They don't know anything different, they feel something different.

But some people buy art goods with the expectation that they will increase
in value over time, and so be a good investment. That, plus they can hang
them on the wall and enjoy them while they are appreciating. - I can't do
this, because I am very bad at picking which ones will appreciate. One might
buy a Leica for the same reason.....It will appreciate, or at least, hold
its value very well, and at the same time, you can still take pretty good
pictures with it.....:^)

On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:50:29 -0700, "William Graham"
wrote:


"Bill Funk" wrote in message
.. .
On 25 Sep 2006 09:57:57 -0700, Paul Rubin
wrote:

"jeremy" writes:
So it appears that there are no meritorious arguments to support that
Leica
produces images that are measurably better than those of the
competition,
and the only remaining argument is that some people pay Leica's prices
for
an intangible feeling of gratification from handling the equipment.

To which I respond, as did P.T. Barnum, that a sucker is born every
minute.

Just recently I read that prints of Ansel Adams' Moonrise over
Hernandez go for around $15K. You can get several Leica outfits
for that, and the print just hangs on the wall doing nothing.

Why does anyone ever buy them? Maybe they know something you don't.

"Maybe they know something you don't."

They don't know anything different, they feel something different.

But some people buy art goods with the expectation that they will increase
in value over time, and so be a good investment. That, plus they can hang
them on the wall and enjoy them while they are appreciating. - I can't do
this, because I am very bad at picking which ones will appreciate. One might
buy a Leica for the same reason.....It will appreciate, or at least, hold
its value very well, and at the same time, you can still take pretty good
pictures with it.....:^)


The appreciation thing isn't about knowing - it's about guessing and
hoping.
Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. I read that
somewhere. :-)
Buying art in hopes of making money is pretty risky, unless you have
the money to buy what has already appreciated a lot.
Commerative Star Wars plates are cheaper! Very big grin

--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 19:28:24 GMT, "jeremy" wrote:

"Bill Funk" wrote in message
.. .

Yes, I like autofocus. It focuses as I want it to, so why not?
All-manual is a drag on what I want to do. I can do what I want to do
faster and easier when the camera takes over the mundane chores, such
as metering the light. With experience, I can tell what the camera
will do on its own, when, for example, I have my camera in Aperture
Preferred mode. Why should I then take over adjusting the shutter
speed to what I would have made it, when it will do it for me?
Of course zooms have (almost) taken over from primes; why not? Zooms
offer many more focal lengths than a prime without changing lenses,
and are, for practical purposes, as good as a prime. And, I can still
zoom with my feet if that's what's needed.
And yet, if the photographer wants all-manual, that option remains.

So why don't camera makers offer all-manual DSLRs, for example?
I'd bet dollars to donuts it's because the market isn't there.
--


You're right. There is insufficient demand for manual cameras. Now that
35mm has been supplanted by digital, it has pretty much become an
all-amateur format. Newspapers got rid of their chemical darkrooms years
ago. Perhaps some of the weekly or monthly magazines still have
photographers shooting chromes, but photojournalists, news photographers and
others have gotten out of the format.

I suspect that you learned on a manual camera, so you know how to achieve
what you want. But others have commented for well over a decade that
automation has been responsible for people not bothering to learn how to
take good images. This was not any original idea of mine.

Those who want to learn, can learn.
What digital has done is open photography up to a vast number of
amateurs who can now take decent photos, and that irritates a lot of
people who believe in the whole "You have to pay your dues" thing.
While "Life is rough" is a favorite saying of mine, life isn't near as
rough as it was 50 years ago (and, yes, I remember what it was like 50
years ago). Why shouldn't photography be easier, even for those who
don't know what an aperture is?

I have a couple of P&S cameras with autofocus and I can't stand the fact
that it is impossible for me to shoot using shallow DOF. The cameras'
automation selects shutter speed and aperture. The photographer has little
control over the final result.

True, but you picked the cameras.

Sorry, it's just not my cup of tea.

--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

Bandicoot wrote:
If you really knew watches you wouldn't say Patek was "considered the best
made". George Daniel surely takes that crown.

George Daniel's escapement is fine. It took him quite a long while to
find a watch company that will use it in their watch line. I saw that
most of the big companies, even Patek Phillipe used it at one point,
but each one dropped the technology in favor of their own. It appears
that Omega is now using the co-axial technology for some of their
watches.

Patek Phillipe must be doing something correct considering that they're
able to make a mechanical watch that has a 10-day reserve. I think that
Patek Phillipe may have dropped the George Daniel co-axial escapement
was because it wasn't made by Patek Phillipe. Only they really know the
reason.

To keep this thread part of the photo equipment Usegroup we should
mention something about cameras, so here it is....Leica.

"jeremy" wrote in message
news:uVTRg.10396$8O1.7251@trnddc04...

Same for lenses. Few manual-focus 35mm lenses remain. Everybody wants
autofocus. And prime lenses have long ago taken a back seat to zooms.
Everything for the photographer's convenience. And many of the images
reflect that.


What's the problem? There's eBay. Or KEH, or whatever.

Get yourself a Nikon FE or FM and a load of AIS primes,
and have a ball.

You complain that your digicams won't let you "take control."
Did you check the controls before choosing and buying?

Maybe it's dumb luck but none of my three digital cameras
has this problem. They can be as smart or as dumb as I
tell them to be.

Manual focus with most digicams is indeed a PITA, but
not much worse than it was for a 35 mm rangefinder. Focus
is one area where I simply let the camera have its way.
95% of the time, the camera does the right thing.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com