Jim. I think you are right 100% about what it means being part of the forum.
As a matter of fact, I have been in the forum for years (as well as in photo.net) with my real name!
And I love the forums. If you only knew how many people helped me when I had technical questions on techniques (especially lighting techniques) and such....
I mean I have done jobs around the world and before leaving, I was going back and forth with pros all over the world on how some hard to do lighting was supposed to be done, what gear to bring not to be left behind etc. etc.
Trust me, I am in the forums and I love them and some things I have been accomplished would not at all have been possible if not for the great photographers that share their experience in these forums. And the best tips come by the people who are not famous but share their knowledge and I would want to hug them all
But the point here is that I want to express my opinion (which has been cancelled as if I were an email address, not even a person, just like that) on a camera that I own and I love and it is just not fair that I cannot share videos and images to show what I think shows these differences are.
And it's not fair when a producer tries to pull another producer down, when they are making two completely different products, especially when all of the attention on Polaroid conversions has been mainly drawned by WL, even if he wasn't the first.
Even if we were speaking about the external details / decoration alone, there is so much more work on the Littman. We don't see the differences between a Woolsworth bag and a Prada one, but our wives do! And it's not like our wives are material or superficial, they have a different sensitivity, that's it! But don't they often see things that we don't see? Isn't it cool when they walk like a sexy cat with that new shiny bag they spend all our money on?
To me it is fair that someone who has put such effort in making such beauty, is prized for this effort, and should point out the differences, when there are, and to me there are differences. And it is unfair that other competitors compare their cameras to his being in a different price range when they have so obviously not invested such amounts of money to obtain perfect parallelism, close up focusing, the center of the film plane correspondance to the center of the lens etc etc etc.,
Call Mr. Weigand at Linhof and tell him that with much less (1/3) you can buy a Shen Hao and that it does the exact same things. See what he says! It probably infact does the exact same things, or very similar functions. But would we ever say that is the same camera? would we ever say that they have the same exact value and that there is no point for Linhof to have a small share of the market? would we like if Linhof weren't there anymore?
(I know myself it is such a pushed comparison. But you have to remember that here we are not talkin about companies with capitals and private equity, german or japanese. we are talking about a single person investing all they have in a project in which they believe in, which to me needs to be safeguarded at all costs)
Anyways I love my cameras all of them and I love all of the producers that have done them and the engineers that have built them, and I cannot call up Mr. Mamiya and do that but I can do that with Mr. Littman! (who is always exagerated in his words, but again if he doesn't defend his position he wouldn't at all be in the market and that to me would suck).
And I love the forum so now this is the last post with this "emergency identity" - I am going back to my work and my love: photography!
Nick
(whether you use a ground glass or not, well that depends on how you compose really. It's not that the camera is "meant to be handheld". That is an option you have but you don't "have to do it". If I want to have an option to compose in a different way, which I do, and want a proper gg, well, then you need the gg, and it better be good!)
(attourneys? never liked them)
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