[Leica] 75 'cron & Leica's inventory revaluation

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 11:01 AM -0500 6/6/05, Frank F. Farmer wrote:
>Greetings all,
>
>I just returned from a conference in Chicago (and resubscribed to 
>the LUG) and on my few chances to get out of the hotel I wandered 
>down to Central Camera on South Wabash.  Central is a great old 
>camera shop and I learned two things while there:
>
>1)  After never really putting much value in the 75mm focal length, 
>I want a new 75 'cron.  This was a solid lens but it balanced very 
>well on the camera and did not block the frame lines.  It didn't 
>suffer from the loose apeture ring that we've been hearing about. 
>It focuses faster and closer than the 'lux.  I think the fact that 
>the 'lux only focused to 1 meter was the limiting factor for me.

Take another look at the 75/1.4. It focusses, and always has, to 
about .7m, or possibly .75m. Since its release it has produced the 
greatest magnification of any Leica M lens without goggles.

>Unfortunately, I didn't get to burn any film with it as I was there 
>at closing time and didn't get to play as much as I'd like.
>
>2)  The other thing that I learned was that Leica, in it effort to 
>increase the value of its existing inventory, is planning another 
>price increase for July 1, 2005.  New bodies will be over $3,200.00. 
>Just FYI.  Is this news?  Probably not considering how common 
>they've become.  My brand spanking new M6TTL was only $1,895.00 from 
>B&H barely four years ago.
>
>Any thoughts on the issues?  Has anyone done much shooting with the 
>new 75 'cron?  There is a short article about it in the Leica news 
>magazine I just received but it is not the same as a real world 
>review.
>

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
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