'build quality'

Joe, your build quality sucks! 😀

I sort of agree and disagree. It's like some others have said. I think it's subjective. I see people in the store here sometimes that complain that none of those digital things are any good, that film is waaay better and those digital cameras are just a bunch of plastic that will break in a week. They then discuss with me how wonderful their Canon Rebel film camera is and I have to bite my tongue. Then you have the guy that has used both film and digital cameras of all makes and models and says he likes this one because of a b and c and hates that one because of d and e. Well in that case I think he is qualified to discuss why he likes the feel of this over that because he has used both extensively.

So many people are just regurgitating what they read on those damn photography messageboards, which we of course all know are made up of pure fact and always true.
 
back alley said:
i would like to know who here has a degree in 'build quality'?
joe
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Joe: I have a degree in quality control. Does this count? 😀

Built Quality= "enough weight so that it can be thrown at an intruder at night."

This is one possible definition of a camera's built quality.

Another definition is as follows:

Built Quality="If it falls on your toe, it better leaves the toe smashed in pieces."
The latter is the more violent definition of built quality.

I will think of other insprirational definitions.

Raid
 
Joe Brugger said:
It will take all evening to get rid of the Nikkor/cheese balance image . . .

I equate build quality with a combination of design, materials and tolerances ... once spent a great deal of time around auto shops in the 1970s and the differences are immediately apparent.
Weight isn't always desirable, but balance nearly always is. 'Handling' is hard to quantify.
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To measure build quality, it is simple to measure the tolerances, materials, and methods of production. But, build quality is also how well all those well built pieces work together. If the mechanics aren't brilliant, they won't last long - and they won't feel good. Leica feels good, lasts a long time, and costs alot for a reason.

Best build camera I ever held was an M3. For all possible reasons and by all possible measures.
 
dcsang said:
The CL feels different than the M3
The M3 and M2 feel pretty close to being the same.
The M6 and the M7 feel different 😀
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Is that just attributed to the relative age of each camera you were holding... It's not like we're compareing a line up of brand new Leica models...
 
mwooten said:
I am reminded of a purchase I made this past summer. I needed to dig up some bushes out of my yard. So I went to the hardware superstore to buy a new pick-axe to replace my ancient implement. I found this really nice digging tool -- nice balanced weight, and a great handle. Best of all the head wouldn't slide down and smush my fingers like the old pick-axe. The new one looked and felt just right. Took it home, started to dig, hit a large tree root, and the blade folded up easier than a lawn chair. I then got the ancient pick-axe from the garage and finished my digging.
Sometimes what is perceived as quality is only that -- a perception and not a reality.

Michael
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I had the same experience last summer buying a maddox. The first tool I bought was "hefty." When I got it home, the hefty wooden handle snapped within 10 mintes. I replaced it with one that had a plastic handle. Right combination of strngth & flexibility. I removed dosens of roots, stumps & rocks without problem.

This whole issue of "build quality" should consider the changing requirements for today's technology. Build quality requirements are much different for something that is all mechanical in which energy is transferred through gears, levers, pulleys, springs, etc. A camera whose energy is an electronic impulse transferred through magnets has different requirements. Finally, we have tools (cameras) that use printed circuitry & micro chips that change the equation entirely.

Cars from the '50s had much better build quality & were safer because they used more sheet metal, right? Why is it that so many of those cars were also "rust buckets"? Today's cars use a lot of composites in the body. I haven't had a problem with rust in a tleast 20 years. But how about safety? With rolls bars, crash bars, & crumple zones, today's lighter weight cars are much safer. I was hit in the driver's side door last spring by a car going at least 50 mph. The car was a rented compact. No way I would have survived that crash in the old days. I walked out without a scratch. The crash bars saved my life. The car might have sounded tinny, light, & flimsy, but it was built to survive a crash.
 
Platon said:
Quality is three holy parameters!
1. Construction.
2. Choice of material.
3. Manufacturing.

The weight has little or nothing to do with quality.
Thats the reason why the Toyota and Hondas seems to go on and on forever.
I think the lighter Nikon S2 is a better camera than the Nikon S. Right?

Björn
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Design plays no part?


And welcome to the forum, I missed the post#
 
>>today's lighter weight cars are much safer.<<

I am amazed when I drive by accident scenes and see a compact car all crumpled up in a ball, with all its occupants sitting on the side of the road in a daze and maybe smoking a post-mortem cigarette. Twenty-five or thirty years ago, when I drove by similar accident scenes, the people were often in need of serious medical attention or still trapped inside the car.
 
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With cars, it's the crumple zones that make them safer. A rigid body vehicle transfers the kinetic energy of the crash to it's occupants - which have significantly lower build quality than the car 🙂. Soft tissue cannot handle too many bumps.
 
>>So we need cameras with crumple zones <<

Contaxes and (older) Nikons sort of use that idea. Leicas use a heavy cast outer body. Contax and Nikon use a cast inner chassis covered by protective panels. You drop a Nikon rangefinder (or Nikon F) and you get a dent, but all the gizmos inside keep on working.
 
rxmd said:
So we need cameras with crumple zones 🙂
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Ever tried a single-use camera 🙂

1/2 the slr's on ebay seems to have crumple zone testing on the top prism.
 
Kin's comment about "top prism crumple zones" put me in mind of a good point. Yesterday when this thread arose I was contemplating a Nikon FM I'd just received in the mail. Very rough looking -- corroded in places, and the front of the prism had taken a knock. Other scrapes and dings were all over the place. But it works fine -- all functions as smooth as when it was new, probably over 25 years ago. Now that's build quality.
 
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