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- Newsgroups: rec.photo
- Path: sparky!uunet!utcsri!torn!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!watdragon.uwaterloo.ca!drraymon
- From: drraymon@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca (Darrell Raymond)
- Subject: Re: How do they know?
- Message-ID: <BzoC5B.A2w@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca>
- Organization: University of Waterloo
- References: <1992Dec22.054431.23588@ultb.isc.rit.edu> <1992Dec22.115922.3218@sequent.com>
- Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 18:46:22 GMT
- Lines: 34
-
- In article <1992Dec22.115922.3218@sequent.com>, blue@sequent.com (Gil Delavous) writes:
- > In article <1992Dec22.054431.23588@ultb.isc.rit.edu> fjcppr@ritvax.isc.rit.edu writes:
- > >In the most recent Del's ad in Shutterbug, Tony "who knows Leica" says
- > >that you can stand on a Leica without damaging it. Should I believe
- > >that Tony or someone he knows has actually done that? Has anyone
- > >out there in Rec.photo every stood on any camera? If so, please
- > >include your weight in your reply. Also, did you stand on the camera
- > >with its bottom or its back to the ground?
- >
- > Ah Ah Ah! I like this one!!!
- > Seriously now, I always thought that cameras were made to take pictures.
- > Standing on it doesn't even mean that its robust; you can stand on a glass
- > but if you let it fall on the ground see what happen. Under certain
- > circumstance I'm also pretty sure that I could stand on my all-plastic EOS A2
- > without damaging it.
- >
- > Next year, advertise will say: "With the new CaKon F-EOS-0.5 you can play
- > football or dig the ground without damaging it. The only problem is that it
- > can't take pictures anymore" :-) :-) :-)
-
- Gil is perfectly correct that (i) cameras are not for standing on and
- (ii) even if you can stand on it, this doesn't mean it's robust. So the
- ad is pretty stupid from two points of view. The robustness of Leicas is
- demonstrated not by standing on them, but by the way they stand up in
- rough situations, and also over a long period of time.
-
- Just for the record, though, the best robustness story I have seen so far
- was about a guy who was shooting publicity photos for the US Air Force. The
- plane he was in got into trouble, he and the pilot had to punch out at over
- 30,000 feet, and he "dropped" his R4. When they eventually found it on the
- desert floor, he picked it up, and the shutter and mirror operated normally
- (no glass was left intact, of course). I think Leica even repaired it under
- their usual policy. And if they hadn't had such a policy, no doubt they would
- have repaired it anyway, just for the publicity value.
-