I have never figured out why people have this almost racist attitude to Leica and it's users. I have never owned a Leica myself. I can see why other people would buy it, RF, small, quality lenses, No AA, quality results, weighs little and quiet. As for the IR issue, Leica quickly admitted the fault and worked the best solution they could. Try getting Canon to admit to a fault, they had my 1DsmkIII back 3 times, every photographer I know that has one had the same fault and sent them back to get them fixed, yet talk to someone at Canon about your concerns and always the reply was "never heard of that before". So Canon sold me a camera that couldn't do infinity, crucial for my work and a basic prerequisite for any camera I reckon. It's sort of fixed, but should go back as all my lenses are microadjusted roughly by the same amount. If all I had to do was screw a filter on my lens to fix it, tat would of been easier and quicker than sending the camera off 3 times (One was for a new shutter, about 20,000 clicks, 5000 less than my smkII made).
If I have a criticism of Leica it's that they always technology wise appear to be one step behind others.
Kevin.
Kevin,
I do not think there is any kind of racism towards Leica. Most users, me included, have a great respect for such a lengendary brand. But I think that a lot of us and also potential buyers are feeling that something goes wrong in the red circle house.
The M8 was a problematic camera, and Leica tried to fix it, it is true. One big mistake is one thing and everybody has forgiven with the very impresive M9, but it seems that they haven't really learned from it.
In your example with Canon, if I understand well, this was a quality control problem, not a conceptional mistake. One think is a bad exemplary, another is an immature design. They will probably fix most of the problems in the future, but what they have done so far is put their image at risk and gave a bad taste to the pros. When you talk about a camera in this price, targeting the high end professional, you can not allowed yourself to make such basics imperfections.
If I write something wrong here in the forum, the consecuences are zero. When Leica put an imperfect product on the market, it is all an industry and human beings who are putten at risk.
Also, the S2 project was a very courageous but a very risky one. The natural way would have been, according to me, a R9 digital successor, FF in the spirit of the D3. They have choosen another path, more extreme but much more dangerous. (now Hasselblad is coming with cutted prices, Red is on the corner etc...) So mistakes are even less tolerated, they had to proove that their system is really competitive and failed so far for mistakes that could have been avoided if a better care and listening would have been done.
So there is this impression that they allowed themselves these sort of imprecisions just because they have the best reputation...mmm, very dangerous actitude.
My feeling, and I may be badly informed, is that they have the best fine engineers and "savoir faire" of photographic industry but there is serious problem in other departments.
Their commemorations special editions tell a lot about what kind of mentality has emerged recently from their marketing department.
Fred.
