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08-11-2018, 05:56 AM   #31
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
Does that work if you edit to say it's a Hassleblad?
Only if the pic is taken from an orbiting spacecraft. I'm not aware of Hasselblads being used for anything else.

08-11-2018, 06:00 AM   #32
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QuoteOriginally posted by jacamar Quote
Only if the pic is taken from an orbiting spacecraft. I'm not aware of Hasselblads being used for anything else.
My cousin who had a wedding photography business for Seattle's rich and famous had two of them. The last time I saw him or his Hassies was 92.
08-11-2018, 06:12 AM - 3 Likes   #33
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I've only seen a couple of Leica's in the wild but I did see a Leica store in Boston.

Hmmm... the store looked very sterile and minimalist white like a NASA lab and the staff seemed vaguely Australian.....
08-11-2018, 07:29 AM   #34
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QuoteOriginally posted by photoptimist Quote
I've only seen a couple of Leica's in the wild but I did see a Leica store in Boston.

Hmmm... the store looked very sterile and minimalist white like a NASA lab and the staff seemed vaguely Australian.....
There‘s also such a store in Munich. Guess you also get Ferraris at the location. Never‘ve been there. But if this talk goes on, the next days I‘ll go there and to take a photo with my iPhone to post it here on the Pentax-Forums.

08-11-2018, 07:49 AM - 2 Likes   #35
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QuoteOriginally posted by photoptimist Quote
the store looked very sterile and minimalist white like a NASA lab and the staff seemed vaguely Australian
Not to start a conspiracy but there just happens to be Leica Boutique stores in pretty much all the major cities in Australia.
08-11-2018, 08:19 AM   #36
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I've seen lots of Leica's over the years, some here in Vancouver and some while travelling. We have a lot of film shooters here in Vancouver, so spotting a Leica film body is not that hard.

On one of my trips to Antarctica, one guy from Germany had five Leica film bodies that he was using!

For newer Leica cameras, one of the local camera stores chains has a "Leica Boutique" in one of their locations, perfect for all the super rich people here in town.

Phil.
08-11-2018, 09:26 AM - 1 Like   #37
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QuoteOriginally posted by Digitalis Quote
Not to start a conspiracy but there just happens to be Leica Boutique stores in pretty much all the major cities in Australia.

Too late, my friend. You may have stumbled upon Australia's biggest secret:

Step 1. Buy up all the Leica's.
Step 2. Tell foreigners that 97% of their wildlife will kill them, so they don't have to share their cameras.
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit!

08-11-2018, 10:15 AM - 2 Likes   #38
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Let me explain. Leicas do exist but they are too expensive and valuable to be used in public. Owning a Leica camera is very much like owning a Ferrari car.

The product isn't actually that great. You can get the same or better performance from any number of mass produced, but journalists talk them up so much that everybody aspires to owning one. The factory exploits this by only releasing their products to a select few for testing. These so-called journalist heap praise upon the product, never is a bad word said. That would mean that the flow of test models and fancy trips to view new models would cease. This creates an incestuous relationship and a vicious circle that ensures that the legend keeps growing. The strange thing is that only these journos actually use the product in the way it is intended to be used.

Actual owners do not use their flashy cars and cameras very much. Taking it out in public is just asking for trouble. A Ferrari is not a point A to point B car. That means parking the car at point B and getting out of it, risking damage by onlookers. It is a point A to point A car. You get in, drive around for a bit and go back home. Not very fast, mind you. Keep well below the posted limit. Every cop who sees you will point his radar gun at you. If you want to burn rubber, forget about driving a red Ferrari. Get a white Camry V6, nobody will look twice at you.

Contrary to popular belief, owning an expensive car does not attract good looking women. When you stop to fill up your Ferrari, geeky car guys will come up to you and start talking about thing like lateral acceleration. Likewise, brandishing a Leica in public means answering questions about noise levels in low light condtions.

The biggest problem about actually using a Leica or Ferrari is that it loses value. When was the last time you saw a Ferrari on sale with more than 20 000 miles? Or a Leica with a shutter count of more than a thousand? Or any Leica, for that matter, but we digress. Everybody knows that these thing are investments in fine technology. This investment should not be sullied by use, that would be sacrilege. The fact that you need to be seriously loaded to buy one in the first place is not relevant.

Putting big miles on a Ferrari is just not done. The only ones who do are the Philistines who rent them out by the day to working Joes who want to impress somebody, or even themselves. This brings up a dark secret - they are not built to last. The finely stitched leather seats are in fact paper thin and show serious wear at 50 000 miles. True story (I saw it on YouTube).

We are missing the point. Owning a Ferrari or Leica is not about the product or using it. It is about being able to say that you own one. If you don't get it, you will never be a one percenter. Just drive your Camrys and shoot away with your Pentaxes, plebs.
08-11-2018, 11:15 AM - 3 Likes   #39
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Well, I have to admit that I went from Pentax to Leica in 1968, while working at a Leica dealer, and so got employee discount. Back then Leica pricing wasn’t so astronomical - as I recall an M4 wasn’t even twice the price of a Spotmatic.
Leica was the top brand with professionals through the 1950s, and was still somewhat popular in 1968, but even then was quirky and considered obsolete technology - basically a 1950s design. But, except for the early 1930s models Leica was never a technical innovator, and new models were just conservative tweaks of solid designs.
But some of us don’t care about the latest tech. I used my M4 as my main camera for a couple of decades, with the same 3 lenses I bought the first year I had it. In 1985 I added an M6 body; which was just like the M4 but added a through-the-lens light meter. I used the same 1968 lenses with it until 2010, when I used my retirement bonus to get an M9 body, which was basically just like the M6 but digital. I still used my 3 1968 lenses on it.
I had tried dSLRs, but hated them - don’t even like autofocus.
The Leica M series still works just the way I want: fast manual focus even in very low light, controls that work the way I am used to, and great, small lenses. Last month on a vacation trip I took two Leica bodies: one digital and one film. They use the same lenses, operate the same way, and “see” the way I do.
They are now priced beyond my means, but I still carry and use them everywhere. No one recognizes them or cares. If my digital gets lost or stolen, it’s gone, but I can still dust off my 1968 M4 and carry on.
08-11-2018, 12:06 PM   #40
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Knew someone who had a fancy Leica digital but this person never brought it out much for fear of ruining the pristine finish of such a collector's item. Sold it for a different brand kit that could actually be used.
08-11-2018, 12:18 PM   #41
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QuoteOriginally posted by stevebrot Quote
I live near Portland and have seen Leica in the wild and even know a few regular Leica shooters. Leica are not uncommon here. I would say chance of seeing one is on the same order as seeing a Miranda in the wild here in Portland. We also have a fair share of exotic cars on the road and even in the grocery store parking lots. (I was passed by a Lamborghini on I-5 northbound three weeks ago and saw a Alfa-Romeo 4C coupe in the grocery store lot just last week.) Portland is strange. Even stranger is the fact that the Leica shooters I know drive fairly dull cars and that the Miranda owner I know shoots Leica and also owns a Pentax 6x7.



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I wish Syracuse could be weird. But we've built our reputation on being average. That's why so much market research takes place here...or used to...I don't know if it still does. Upstate is basically Mississippi economically.
08-11-2018, 12:20 PM   #42
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Here's another thought. How many old Leicas are actually fakes? Soviet era Feds made to look like a Leica? A good percentage of those being sold on eBay are...
08-12-2018, 12:37 AM   #43
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I suspect that there’s a fine line between ‘fake’ and ‘inspired by’; thinking about the Kwanon (later Canon) from the mid-30s.
08-12-2018, 01:06 AM   #44
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Leica is just the poor man's Contax. Check out these prices from 1939. (In pre-decimal pounds/shillings/pence. £10 then equals about £635 today, or $845 US dollars.)
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08-12-2018, 05:59 PM - 1 Like   #45
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QuoteOriginally posted by boriscleto Quote
Here's another thought. How many old Leicas are actually fakes? Soviet era Feds made to look like a Leica? A good percentage of those being sold on eBay are...
I saw and handled a Zorki-based fake at Blue Moon in Portland a few months ago. It would would not fool anyone familiar with layout of the real thing, though it was also surprisingly solid and might be worth the asking price of $100 USD except that the salesperson indicated that it scratched the test roll of film he put through.


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