I preface this potentially inflammatory question by saying that this is not a tr oll or invitation to flames or intemperate responses. I'm genuinely interested to see what people think.
I was just talking with a fellow frequenter of this group in a private email exc hange about our not-entirely-satisfactory experiences with a well-known US maker of LF cameras. I began thinking about the camera-makers that I associate with unimpeachable quality: Linhof, Sinar, Ebony, some might add Arca Swiss to the l ist. Though I know there are partisans who really love their Canhams and Philli ps and Wisners, it occurs to me that I have just not found the same level of "fi t and finish" in US-made cameras that I've bought. Not that they can't be well or beautifully made, but I'm talking about that "throw it off a cliff and keep r ight in using it" kind of ruggedness that Linhof, for example, has. Or the perfe ct precision of a Sinar. Not wanting to take this TOO far off-topic, I have to a dmit that I'm driving German and Japanese cars, too, and just don't generally fi nd US-made ones to be as reliable. IS there really something cultural about Ger many and Japan, presumably Switzerland, too, that allows things to be made more precisely, reliably and ruggedly? What IS it? Obviously, there are exceptions to prove the rule (Gitzo tripods from France, the venerable American Deardorff, some might say Reis tripods, though I haven't been as impressed with their usabi lity as, say, my Swiss-made B-1 ballhead!)
I'm hoping to capitalize on the recent "philosophical" bent of a few recent thre ads in this newsgroup, I guess. I am, by the way, American, and not in any way trying to denigrate the US in general. More curious I think about what allows t hings to be made the way they often are in Germany, Switzerland and Japan.
Nathan
Bookmarks