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Irwin Puts Says Farewell to Leica?

Shashin

Well-known member
LOL! I'm sorry, Will, but the Leica M has not been the preferred camera type for the VAST majority of photographers since the middle 1960s. Sure, there's a niche market for 35mm, interchangeable lens, rangefinder cameras that still exists today ... but there's still a niche market for Daguerreotypes and one could hardly not call that an obsolete technology despite that fact.

All in good fun, sir. :D

G
I am, in all good fun, have to call you out in your reasoning. You seem to be confusing popularity with obsolescence. The vast majority of people do not use statistics, but that does not make it obsolete. :toocool:
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I am, in all good fun, have to call you out in your reasoning. You seem to be confusing popularity with obsolescence. The vast majority of people do not use statistics, but that does not make it obsolete. :toocool:
That's even funnier. I'm a Mathematician by training, with a speciality in Statistics. And statistics are amongst the most widely used mathematics in the world today. :D

The Leica M was obsoleted in the 1960s for all the reasons I articulated a dozen or so message posts back. The fact that it still survives and is quite popular amongst a niche market of users despite that obsolesence is quite nice, but that does not in any way make it anything other than obsolete. Many obsolete things remain perfectly viable objects of desire to some.

G
 

pegelli

Well-known member
I'm with Will here (still in good humour ;) )

If you use Godfrey's "first" definition of obsolescence:
Godfrey said:
Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service, or practice is no longer wanted even though it may still be in good working order.
(some bolding is mine)

I think there's still many people who "want" a rangefinder camera. They're still being produced, sold new and 2nd hand as well as used by people who buy them and that would not happen if people didn't "want" them anymore. So while they might be obsolete for some people (who don't "want" them anymore) they're in my mind not obsolete in general.
 
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MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
My 2p,

Obsolescence requires a use case as well. Horses are not obsolete, but horses as transportation from New York to Boston are. The Leica M is not now used in many situations where it once was. Counterexamples exist, but photojournalism has moved on.

By most measures, the only non-obsolescent cameras are found in phones.

As for statistics, it *is* used, or more correctly, abused by a large and diverse population, but that is still quite small as populations go. And for every 100 people who quote a p-value, only a few understand the hypotheses required for it to have relevance.

Matt
 

dave.gt

Well-known member
For practical purposes, I prefer to look at it as mind over matter.

If I don't mind, it doesn't matter!:)

I am perfectly happy with a fly rod in hand at break of day, when a video would show the stream and someone else catching fish. It is the experience for me that matters and it is up to me to produce the results and enjoy them.

So, I guess nothing is really obsolete for me. :ROTFL:

Back to the OP....

https://photo.imx.nl/blog/

I did look up the Erwin Puts blog (not Irwin Puts blog). I have heard of his books for years but had no use for such technical literature. I still have no idea what his day job is/was. Nor do I have a stake in his decision to say farewell to Leica. I do find it odd because there is no switching to another brand... maybe he should have said farewell to contemporary and future photographic gear. I presume it was a parting shot at something he didn't like, but he offered no alternative.

Nothing wrong with sticking with what one loves most.:thumbs:
 

pegelli

Well-known member
My 2p,

Obsolescence requires a use case as well. Horses are not obsolete, but horses as transportation from New York to Boston are. The Leica M is not now used in many situations where it once was. Counterexamples exist, but photojournalism has moved on.

By most measures, the only non-obsolescent cameras are found in phones.

As for statistics, it *is* used, or more correctly, abused by a large and diverse population, but that is still quite small as populations go. And for every 100 people who quote a p-value, only a few understand the hypotheses required for it to have relevance.

Matt
Good points Matt. The rangefinder camera might be obsolete for photojournalism (even though exceptions probably exist) but there's plenty other use cases for which is not obsolete and used a whole lot more than Daguerreotypes ;)
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Erwin Puts has always been conswervative and a bit pesimistic. He wrote the article "Death of Photography" back in... 2003? Unfortunately, that article isn't any longer available online. I tend to agree with many of his views, and I absolutely think that most people are not questioning "technological progress" often enough. Humanity seems very satisfied with everything becoming easier and more accessible. But I'm an oddball. I remember scratching my head as a child when a friend of the family had bought a TV with remote control (connected to the TV with a long cable). There was nothing wrong with his legs, and I knew for a fact that all TVs had buttons for all functions on the front panel.

Nowadays, my children's generation is being relieved from the exhausting button pushing. They have a device in their house with the same name as my ex-wife, fixing anything from TV programs to lights and heating.

"Strange" cameras like the M Series are becoming rare. I think Mr. Puts is at least partly right. In the future, we will all eat the same porridge and take photos with the same Sony camera.
 

dave.gt

Well-known member
Erwin Puts has always been conswervative and a bit pesimistic. He wrote the article "Death of Photography" back in... 2003? Unfortunately, that article isn't any longer available online. I tend to agree with many of his views, and I absolutely think that most people are not questioning "technological progress" often enough. Humanity seems very satisfied with everything becoming easier and more accessible. But I'm an oddball. I remember scratching my head as a child when a friend of the family had bought a TV with remote control (connected to the TV with a long cable). There was nothing wrong with his legs, and I knew for a fact that all TVs had buttons for all functions on the front panel.

Nowadays, my children's generation is being relieved from the exhausting button pushing. They have a device in their house with the same name as my ex-wife, fixing anything from TV programs to lights and heating.

"Strange" cameras like the M Series are becoming rare. I think Mr. Puts is at least partly right. In the future, we will all eat the same porridge and take photos with the same Sony camera.
Totally agree, Jorgen.

Farewell to my old television, though and only buy old televisions? No, there is no real alternative.

I, too, prefer the older M cameras and lenses. But to say farewell to Leica seems like shooting oneself in the foot. But then, that remote control would come in handy, I suppose.:ROTFL:
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Erwin Puts has always been conswervative and a bit pesimistic. He wrote the article "Death of Photography" back in... 2003? Unfortunately, that article isn't any longer available online. I tend to agree with many of his views, and I absolutely think that most people are not questioning "technological progress" often enough. Humanity seems very satisfied with everything becoming easier and more accessible. But I'm an oddball. I remember scratching my head as a child when a friend of the family had bought a TV with remote control (connected to the TV with a long cable). There was nothing wrong with his legs, and I knew for a fact that all TVs had buttons for all functions on the front panel.

Nowadays, my children's generation is being relieved from the exhausting button pushing. They have a device in their house with the same name as my ex-wife, fixing anything from TV programs to lights and heating.

"Strange" cameras like the M Series are becoming rare. I think Mr. Puts is at least partly right. In the future, we will all eat the same porridge and take photos with the same Sony camera.
Perhaps. If we want to...
I doubt somehow that we all want to. :D

Remember, there's no 'master overlord' telling you what to spend your money on. You vote by choosing what you want to spend your money on. And by not buying stuff when what you have is perfectly satisfactory. That sends the clearest message to the companies that produce stuff ... they have to come up with stuff that you want to buy.

If all the good cameras I like stopped being produced today, well, I have enough good cameras I like to last me for the rest of my life. Both film and digital. My Olympus E-1, first sold in October 2003, is still perfectly happy to make excellent photos for me anytime I want to use it. My 1968 Minox C I pulled out of the closet after not touching it for 11 years, put a battery in, and is working perfectly. So is my 1982 Minox EC... and my 1939 Berning Robot II! So I think most of the later cameras will continue to work just fine until far beyond when I no longer have the ability to pick them up. :)

G
 

drofnad

Member
... nothing wrong with his legs,
Similarly I'm appalled that there are major technological firms working on how to deliver by drones things bought by clicks on-line --so much is the urgency of this! (While millions struggle in uprooted-from-home conditions, refugees.)

Perhaps. If we want to...
I doubt somehow that we all want to. :D

Remember, there's no 'master overlord' telling you what to spend your money on. You vote by choosing what you want to spend your money on. A
Not entirely so, alas : you might be out-voted, and what you'd like won't be anymore available. (Like the correct use of "reticent" : how is it that so many these recent times seem to have fogotten that "reluctant" is a word and means ... what they want in mis-using "reticent" --"he's reticent to tell us ..." being the paradigm gaff. :mad: Enough of these *votes* by usage, and Webster's will suck it into the definition, and ... .)

-d.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Similarly I'm appalled that there are major technological firms working on how to deliver by drones things bought by clicks on-line --so much is the urgency of this! (While millions struggle in uprooted-from-home conditions, refugees.)



Not entirely so, alas : you might be out-voted, and what you'd like won't be anymore available. (Like the correct use of "reticent" : how is it that so many these recent times seem to have fogotten that "reluctant" is a word and means ... what they want in mis-using "reticent" --"he's reticent to tell us ..." being the paradigm gaff. :mad: Enough of these *votes* by usage, and Webster's will suck it into the definition, and ... .)

-d.
Yes, we're getting :OT:, but as a firm descriptivist, I must respond:



My bugbear is "utilize". It is almost never used correctly. Use and utilize have very different meanings!

:grin:

Matt
 

rayyan

Well-known member
Since this is about a camera design of a bygone era; let me paraphrase from a bygone era too:

The Leica sage: ‘ Where shall I go? What shall I do ? ‘; tearfully.

The Bedouin: ‘ Franky, my dear, I don’t give a damn ‘; gleefully.
And rides his camel towards the sunset and Ayesha’s waiting arms.

The End.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Unfortunately in our commercialised world products sometimes disappear not because nobody wanted to buy them and sometimes not even because they weren't profitable, but because they weren't profitable enough.

Leica has so far been a safe haven for obscure, outdated products, and there are others, but will it last? Is it even a problem? In my view, it makes os poorer sometimes.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Literally or figuratively?
Literally. You use a washing machine to wash clothes. You utilize a washing machine as ammunition for a trebuchet. "Utilize" implies a nonstandard usage. I suppose the usage can change over time. Early on, digital cameras were utilized as film scanners. Now they are used for that purpose.

My younger daughter (who just turned 18, so I am officially done parenting!) was visiting RIT. The speaker utilized "utilize" roughly three times per sentence (figuratively). "The way we utilize technology company buy-in facilitates student utilization of leading edge technology to... blah blah" I literally wanted to figuratively strangle him. That's when I looked it up.

(And I do like the "Misuse of literally drives me figuratively insane" T-Shirts. Along with "Let's eat Grandma. Punctuation is important.")
 

dj may

Well-known member
You're nuts or your nuts?:LOL:

Literally. You use a washing machine to wash clothes. You utilize a washing machine as ammunition for a trebuchet. "Utilize" implies a nonstandard usage. I suppose the usage can change over time. Early on, digital cameras were utilized as film scanners. Now they are used for that purpose.

My younger daughter (who just turned 18, so I am officially done parenting!) was visiting RIT. The speaker utilized "utilize" roughly three times per sentence (figuratively). "The way we utilize technology company buy-in facilitates student utilization of leading edge technology to... blah blah" I literally wanted to figuratively strangle him. That's when I looked it up.

(And I do like the "Misuse of literally drives me figuratively insane" T-Shirts. Along with "Let's eat Grandma. Punctuation is important.")
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Literally. You use a washing machine to wash clothes. You utilize a washing machine as ammunition for a trebuchet. "Utilize" implies a nonstandard usage. I suppose the usage can change over time. Early on, digital cameras were utilized as film scanners. Now they are used for that purpose.

My younger daughter (who just turned 18, so I am officially done parenting!) was visiting RIT. The speaker utilized "utilize" roughly three times per sentence (figuratively). "The way we utilize technology company buy-in facilitates student utilization of leading edge technology to... blah blah" I literally wanted to figuratively strangle him. That's when I looked it up.

(And I do like the "Misuse of literally drives me figuratively insane" T-Shirts. Along with "Let's eat Grandma. Punctuation is important.")
I am not surprised by the language at RIT--I went there. Still, it is not unique.

I am not sure I am winning the battle for the serial comma. But I was given patience by my parents, the Pope and mother Teresa.

Dictionaries are fundamentally flawed devices, they assume you know how to find the word you don't know how to spell in the first place. I am still looking for newmatic (or is that knewmatick? Prehaps Gnumatyc?). Naturally, spell checkers help:

I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC
It plainly marks for my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea

I've run this poem threw it
I'm shore your please to no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My checker tolled me sew

Close spellings are bothersome too. In a government report by the DOI, apparently the word public really does need the L. Unless their statutory authority has been somehow expanded...
 

Duff photographer

Active member
Erwin Puts' blog comment for those that haven't looked...

For more than 35 years I have been intimately involved in the Leica world, encompassing the history of the company, the analysis of the products and the use of the products, all under the umbrella concept of the Leica World.

I have experienced and discussed in detail with relevant persons in Wetzlar (old), Solms and Wetzlar (again, new) the digital turn and how the company evolved and changed while adopting the digitalization of the photographic process and the changing world of the internet based photography. The most recent event is the evolution from a manufacturing company to a software-based company. While a commercial success, this change of heart has accomplished a, perhaps not intended, impact: the soul of Leica products has been eradicated. A renewed interest in classical products is the result. The SL and Q are currently the hopeful products for the future. The ghosts of Huawei and Panasonic can be seen all over the campus and while the M-system is still being promoted as the true heir of the Leica lineage, it is now sidelined. Once upon a time, Leica followed its own path, guided by gifted and pioneering engineers and keen marketeers. Nowadays its products are as mainstream as every other camera manufacture.

The company has sketched a future and follows a path that I am no longer willing to go.
I'm not entirely sure what the blog is about. For example, Leica are still a manufacturing company - not just cameras and their lenses but also binoculars, telescopes, riflescopes, microscopes, etc. The adoption of software development into the business seems a no-brainer for any high tech company. Is he referring to in-camera software that corrects image 'errors'?

What is meant by "the soul of Leica products"? Film? Quality with no compromise? Rangefinders? ????

What does he mean by the "ghosts of Huawei and Panasonic"? I assume he's referring to the new 'co-ops' where Leica produces the optics for these companies products - surely a good thing for Leica financially.

Did Leica ever follow its own path? Yes, it wanted to produce the best products possible and I guess to a degree Leica did follow its own path but only because a good number of people also wanted to follow Leica down that path. It's a two-way thing - always was and always will be. People will always want and/or admire quality. If Leica veer away from that then they will lose custom.

Yes, some products (as third party product producer for other camera/phone camera manufacturers) are mainstream but if a company is to survive nowadays, they have to branch out (as if binoculars, telescopes, riflescopes, microscopes, geosystems etc, wasn't enough branching out way back when), and that doesn't mean dropping the high-end gear such as the Leica S series and the lenses (as an example). In this case, as Puts has written himself a while back, he considers the S lenses to be the best in the world (and having been a bit promiscuous myself with lenses over the years, I cannot disagree with that). These products are hardly mainstream and I have not heard of Leica dropping this side of things any time soon, although Puts is clearly in a better position than me to judge that. Leica is just moving with the times but hopefully they will still produce a section of products that are superior in quality than the rest. To me that quality is still there and has to be for the company survive. I dabble in other areas of Leica products (through other interests) and can attest that their products are regarded as amongst the best, if not the best, in the world, e.g., binoculars, telescopes, microscopes where they compete with the same companies as in the camera world along with a few others such as Swarovski and Kowa.

I think Puts is just having an off-day or maybe Puts is being too much of a traditionalist which I can understand.

If Puts is commenting on the growing lack of native quality in lenses (for example), i.e., no software (in-camera or otherwise) needed to correct distortion, colour aberration, ugly people, or whatever, then I would entirely agree with him. I'm a fan of lenses that are just damn good and don't need post-processing to 'improve' the image. If he's lamenting the increasing electronic and software control of lenses, then I would entirely agree with him. I just had to send a high-end Nikon lens in for a replacement SWM unit at the cost of a very decent Leica lens (secondhand of course), a not uncommon issue with Nikon AF lenses (so, as an aside, Leica are not the only company to have AF problems with their lenses, but unlike Nikon and others, Leica have actually solved them!!). This is an issue I will not have with my Zeiss ZF lenses or an older Leica 560mm Apo-Telyt-R. More technology in lenses and cameras means potentially more stuff to go wrong and a consequent increase in cost of ownership and use. Very relevant these days where finances are becoming increasingly tight - yes, I know high-end Leica products are expensive but once owned and looked after they should not cost in terms of repair and/or servicing (at least in principle) and will often be less expensive than Nikon, Canon, Sony etc. in the long term (issues with the first versions of the Leica S and M aside) - a bit like buying a pair of £200 hiking boots that will last 10 years compared to a £50 pair that will last 1 year, sort of. Maybe I'm over-egging this side of things but I do speak from bitter experience :(

...and yes, I am a fan of getting up out of the chair and switching the off button on the tv set, my tv having just failed because the 'stand-by' wotsit thingy failed (there is no off-on button on the set) :facesmack: :loco:

Obviously I'm not familiar with Leica long term business plan but I would hazard a guess that while they are entering the 'mainstream' they will still be producing a small section of products that are a level above the rest or a level occupied by very few. With reference to the latter I don't think they will do a Hasselblad, at least I hope not.

With apologies for the overly-long waffle,
Duff.
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
It seems fitting that a discussion of Erwin Puts has transitioned into one about grammar. They seem to be in the same wheelhouse.
By the way, that old English is getting hilariously close to Icelandic. I have a feeling if we keep going, I could get back into the conversation again.

As far as I recall, Erwin Puts has always had it out for digital...I am surprised it took him this long to say goodbye. I am not sure there is anywhere else to go, however, except back in time. Other than a handful of view camera makers, I am not sure anyone is making film cameras anymore, are they? I say this as someone who loves film and still shoots medium and large format on a very regular basis.
 
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Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Other than a handful of view camera makers, I am not sure anyone is making film cameras anymore, are they?
The only one I can think of is Nikon with the F6. They even make some of the AiS lenses still. Many are still hoping for an F7 with the latest AF technology and compatibility with the newest lenses.

Then of course there's Leica. They still make the MP, and the M-A is a relatively recent addition. It's unfortunate that they discontinued the M7, but I suppose it was impossible to compete with the large number of second hand M6 bodies out there, a camera that essentially offers the same kind of functionality.

The Hasselblad H6D can take film backs, can't it? The backs are not in production anymore though, at least not as far as I know.
 
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