On Jan 31, 2014, at 12:35 PM, Bob W <[email protected]> wrote: > http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jan/31/leica-100-birthday-photographers-messages
Thanks for the link, Bob! I know it's an editorial piece but there's a curious historical inaccuracy: "… The R-System, an SLR camera that many Leica M users never came around to, kicked off in 1976 with the Leica R3 – their first electronic camera. …" The Leicaflex was first produced in 1965. It was the Leica Reflex (R) system, the lenses always had "-R" in their names (e.g.: my 1965 "Summicron-R 50mm f/2"), and the 'flex bodies (Leicaflex, Leicaflex SL, Leicaflex SL2, with MOT variants on the latter two) were produced from 1965 to 1976. They renamed the bodies with "Rn" designation when they switched production to use the more modern design Minolta XK series derivative body castings in 1976. The R series lenses and bodies were ferociously expensive, even from the very beginning (a Leicaflex SL with Summicron-R 50mm lens was more than twice as much as a Nikon F Photomic FTn with 50mm lens in 1969, and the Nikon F was a pretty expensive camera itself compared to others), but in some instances they were the best that even Leica had to offer. They put their whole development effort in the Reflex line for a long time. Leica-wiki on the bodies: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/Main_Page#Film_R 100 years is a short time, but so much has happened since Oskar created the Ur-Leica … even in the little niche world of photography. Something to reflect upon. G -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
