Can We End the Term "Japanese Summilux?"

[Deleted member 65559]

How far back in the dark ages do we need to go to placate those who think having some common decency for others is a bad thing? Culture changes, language changes with it.

Phil Forrest

Thank You Phil!

 

[xayraa33]

Probably so Xayraa. But don't you agree it would be "innocuous snobbish"? Hardly an argument for anything I would say.

On digital land, I consider my self a Canon boy, and in no sense I feel the term is denigrating or taking any of Canon great achivements. I would take a Canon f/1.8 over my Summicron on many shoots, since I like the optics and ergonomics better.

By the way the nikkor comments was a failed joke. Probably should stick to more seriousl comments 😛

The joke was understood but like all good jokes it had a foundation of truth to it ..so it was very clever and witty along with being funny .

The "BEST" as a comparison standard is usually based on price and sometimes its connected rarity so it can end up as a snob's trinket...it does not even have to be a good item, like the Rolls Royce car...not necessarily a reliable car or cheap to fix but it is considered as top of the pops and a hand made quality standard in our lexicon.. whether that is a real thing or not in actuality.

Alpa 35mm SLRs come to mind...I was lent one...expensive camera , hand made but a ergonomically a horrid camera and it was repaired 4 times in 45 yrs...the lauded 50mm Kern Switar lens on it was no better than a 50mm f1.8 Pentacon lens and easily bettered by my 55mm f1.8 Takumar or Rokkor 50 mm f1.7 lens.

There is reality and then there is legend and fable.

 

[mpaniagua]

The joke was understood but like all good jokes it had a foundation of truth to it ..so it was very clever and witty along with being funny .

The "BEST" as a comparison standard is usually based on price and sometimes its connected rarity so it can end up as a snob's trinket...it does not even have to be a good item, like the Rolls Royce car...not necessarily a reliable car or cheap to fix but it is considered as top of the pops and a hand made quality standard in our lexicon.. whether that is a real thing or not in actuality.

Alpa 35mm SLRs come to mind...I was lent one...expensive camera , hand made but a ergonomically a horrid camera and it was repaired 4 times in 45 yrs...the lauded 50mm Kern Switar lens on it was no better than a 50mm f1.8 Pentacon lens and easily bettered by my 55mm f1.8 Takumar or Rokkor 50 mm f1.7 lens.

There is reality and then there is legend and fable.

Well commented on. And yes, I had the same issue with Rolleiflex SL35 camera line. Really wanted to like the cameras but the only quality on them was the name. Lenses were good but cameras were quite buggy. Bought like 4 of the SL35E before I gave up and sold the lens.

Bad thing about this whole thread is that I'm starting to search for a good Canon 50 f/1.4. Sold mine but GAS is awake now.

Have a great day.

Marcelo

 

[David Murphy]

The Canon 50mm f/1.4 LTM rangefinder lens is not a copy in any way of the V1 Leica Summilux and is a unique design. I'm not sure where this term came from, but it seems to do an injustice to the Canon engineers who designed it. Maybe they are all dead or did not care, but I've never liked the implication that anything good out of Japan in the 1950s or 60s "had" to be a copy of something European. My two cents.

I have an idea: Can you please stop telling us what we can and cannot name something to appease your "woke" political sensibilities?

 

[xayraa33]

They'd charge you with the High Crime of 'cultural appropriation', as chef Jamie Oliver discovered, for the ugly offense of cooking jerk rice.

That is just a division making fad and just as unfair and unjust as the Spanish Inquisition ( Fascism by another name).

Ride a car, plane, motor boat, watch TV, flush a toilet, use a fridge or freezer, buy cheap flour or corn meal, get anaesthetic, x-rays, use a computer, camera, air conditioner, Forced air furnace, use cheap to buy steel, use cheap to
buy aluminium, use anti-biotics, water purufication, eye glasses, aspirin, Tylenol, turn on an electric light, answer a telephone etc. all that should also be cultural appropriation...as what is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Using catchy phrases to hammer people you don't like on the head because of their colour, or race or religion or beliefs or what you imagine they represent creates no new utopia..who ever convinced anyone that is a good tactic to harass innocent people with is more than an evil entity with a hidden agenda.

Nothing is new under the sun..divide and conquer is not new...so is order out of chaos, not new. Anyone who falls for this fascism disguised as woke-ism is just a useful idiot...as they don't control the narrative or the end-game no matter what they been led to believe. Social engineering is not done by SJWs or any other three letter ready made organisation , they are just the useful pawns or the useful cannon fodder.

 

[retinax]

I was unaware that the word "Japanese" still carried connotations of lesser quality for many. I oppose the nickname just because it fulfills no purpose at all, doesn't even sound good.

 

[retinax]

Why the deal to marry or force fit something photographic, be it photography in general or camera and lenses with woke-ism or PC ness or general SJW philosophy?

Not all of us here on RFF are white or of northern European stock but we still admire good photography and talk about photographic equipment no matter where it is made..and we generally have good repertoire and overall great bonhomie with all our RFF brothers and sisters of all races , colours and creeds and sexual orientation.

Fact is most of the technology everybody uses has its roots and development in and by people of mostly European descent, be they European or American...that is a historical fact...so now people like Tesla, Edison, Carl Benz, Faraday, Steinmetz, Daguerre , H Fox Talbot, George Eastman, Paul Rudoph, Ernst Abbe, Ludwig Bertele, Oskar Barnack, James Clerk Maxwell, Lee Deforest, G. Marconi, Vladimir Zworikin, Louis Pasteur, Wilhelm Roentgen, James Watt, Frank Whittle, William Morton, Robert Koch, John Herschel, Robert Goddard,Willis Carrier,Carl von Linde , Charles Babbidge, Wm Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, Henry Bessmer , Elias Howe ..etc etc etc
have to be written out and replaced with fictional or revisionist SJW approved characters that had nothing or little to do with these inventors and their great inventions that make our world better for all of us regardless of race or colour to suit some nefarious agenda that no one voted for ? I see no fragility in anyone...everyone is an individual, everyone is a human being.

Sure the Japanese are great people and Japan of 154 years ago was a closed nation, and not technically advanced but they built up their nation on the technology of others..mainly of those technologies developed by Europeans and Americans, yes other people improved and advanced these technologies be they black or white or Asian or of any other colour, race and gender .

Let us be thankful for all these great men and women regardless were they came from.. as in the end it does not matter who did what when I turn on a light switch or go to my fridge to heat something up in a micro wave then go drive my car and go to the clinic for an X ray and head back to my air conditioned house to watch some TV or admire my Nikon S2 or my Leica black chrome M4 and the myriad of lenses made in USSR, Germany, Japan, England, France, Canada, USA, Vietnam and now China .

Life is too short to build up strawman arguments just to pick senseless fights and cause needless arguments...enjoy life , be good to others and go out and make great photos that please you.

Everyone's the same so let's just forget all the discrimination that's a thing of the past and yet it's very important to remember that most good things (inventions! Technology!) come from white men 😕
I won't even go into the "they want to write white men out of history" conspiracy belief. That's nonsense because the lizard people preferably masquerade as white men.

 

[former member]

The Canon 50/1.4 was introduced in 1957, the Leica Summilux was introduced in 1959. The Canon was the lens that likely made the existing Summarit "look bad".

Japanese Summilux- does not mean it is a copy, some used it as a compliment. Maybe it should be called the Japanese Motivation for the Summilux.

 

[mpaniagua]

I was unaware that the word "Japanese" still carried connotations of lesser quality for many. I oppose the nickname just because it fulfills no purpose at all, doesn't even sound good.

I don't think it does anymore. My wife will only allow Toyota cars on my house, due to their great quality. I would trusts my digital images only to japanese made cameras. Also, I think Voightlander/Cosina beat the crap of some of Leica lens 😛 . I specially like the skopar 21 over Angulon (probaly Japanese Angulon?)

 

[mpaniagua]

The Canon 50/1.4 was introduced in 1957, the Leica Summilux was introduced in 1959. The Canon was the lens that likely made the existing Summarit "look bad".

Japanese Summilux- does not mean it is a copy, some used it as a compliment. Maybe it should be called the Japanese Motivation for the Summilux.

Now thats a great name.

 

[mpaniagua]

By the way, I think I would better start the thread "Can we end the term Hasselblasky?" Soon.

 

[xayraa33]

How long will it be till we hear "The Chinese Cosina Voigtlander " or the "Chinese Takumar " or "the Chinese Zeiss" or "the Chinese Nikkor" or "the Chinese Zuiko" as China is making some great and not so great lenses now...the Chinese Nikkor or Chinese Zuiko will be the real thing as these bankrupt or almost bankrupt Japanese firms will and do make lenses in China and other parts of Asia.

The thing is with Chinese products is that if you are willing to pay them a good high price to make you a quality product then they do...as good or better than made anywhere else.

 

[maigo]

Funny how BMW and Mercedes cars models come to my mind in numbers: 3 series (or 3-er), 5 series, 7 series, E190, SL55, S500, GLK500 But many Japanese vehicles are referred to by name: Civic, Corolla, HighLander, Rodeo, Lancer, Skyline.
Of course, I am generalizing here and one would have to survey the entire industry to know what the trend actually is.

Vintage Lenses are the opposite.
German companies gave their individual lens type or series monikers or marketing names (Sonnar, Biogon, Ultron) but Japanese companies tend to refer to them by the basic specifications of focal length and max aperture.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jszokoli]

Japanese Summilux

Japanese Summilux

This is the most interesting tread, look into the mirror of "Japanese Summilux" and we see who you are...

Joe

 

[xayraa33]

Funny how BMW and Mercedes cars models come to my mind in numbers: 3 series (or 3-er), 5 series, 7 series, E190, SL55, S500, GLK500 But many Japanese vehicles are referred to by name: Civic, Corolla, HighLander, Rodeo, Lancer, Skyline.
Of course, I am generalizing here and one would have to survey the entire industry to know what the trend actually is.

Vintage Lenses are the opposite.
German companies gave their individual lens type or series monikers or marketing names (Sonnar, Biogon, Ultron) but Japanese companies tend to refer to them by the basic specifications of focal length and max aperture.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Some of the Datsuns had numbers in North America and names in Japan , 510 = Bluebird in Japan ......240Z=Fairlady Z

Before the Scotty Kilmer hoopla over the present indestructible Toyota Corolla the good Japanese sedan car to have in 1970 was the Datsun 510

Some 1970s reminiscing:

But despite the nostalgia Datsun electrics were not great on their cars.
Mitsubishi cars were known for their bad piston rings.
Earliest Subaru cars like their 360 were tiny 2 stroke death traps.
Mazda had super bad gas mileage with their Wankel engines.
Early Honda Civics had valve problems at low mileage.
Toyota had some weak differentials and less than stated HP and torque and rode like trucks.


They all improved their cars.

All rusted fast and bad on salted winter roads

 

[raid]

Funny how BMW and Mercedes cars models come to my mind in numbers: 3 series (or 3-er), 5 series, 7 series, E190, SL55, S500, GLK500 But many Japanese vehicles are referred to by name: Civic, Corolla, HighLander, Rodeo, Lancer, Skyline.
Of course, I am generalizing here and one would have to survey the entire industry to know what the trend actually is.

Vintage Lenses are the opposite.
German companies gave their individual lens type or series monikers or marketing names (Sonnar, Biogon, Ultron) but Japanese companies tend to refer to them by the basic specifications of focal length and max aperture.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The names of Japanese cars for the US market are often different from the names or numbers of the same Japanese cars targeting (say) Germany.

 

[raid]

Some of the Datsuns had numbers in North America and names in Japan , 510 = Bluebird in Japan ......240Z=Fairlady Z



All rusted fast and bad on salted winter roads

A friend of mine in Germany said the same thing about Japanese cars driven in Germany. They rust badly from the salt used with snow and ice.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

"I have no problem at all with inclusivity. I have a problem with virtue signaling and I'm seeing it here."

Not virtue signaling, David. Just speaking as someone who who only gets to tick off two of the boxes, and who has experienced the consequences.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

xrayaa33
"Some 1970s reminiscing:
But despite the nostalgia Datsun electrics were not great on their cars.
Mitsubishi cars were known for their bad piston rings.
Earliest Subaru cars like their 360 were tiny 2 stroke death traps.
Mazda had super bad gas mileage with their Wankel engines.
Early Honda Civics had valve problems at low mileage.
Toyota had some weak differentials and less than stated HP and torque and rode like trucks."
They all improved their cars.
All rusted fast and bad on salted winter roads"

A friend of mine in Germany said the same thing about Japanese cars driven in Germany. They rust badly from the salt used with snow and ice.

Raid, xrayaa33 was talking about the vehicles of the '70s. Datsun became Nissan in N America in 1984. Vehicle construction has changed a lot since then. I don't imagine you have a need for salt on roads in Florida, but come up to Alberta in the winter and you'll see that current Toyotas, Subarus et al survive the winter salting of the roads as well as any N American or German vehicle. The rusted cars that you see are the ones that never get cleaned and washed by their owners, and that's true no matter which part of the world the brand originates. You'll see well-maintained vehicles 5-10 yrs old without a sign of rust.

 

[raid]

xrayaa33
"Some 1970s reminiscing:
But despite the nostalgia Datsun electrics were not great on their cars.
Mitsubishi cars were known for their bad piston rings.
Earliest Subaru cars like their 360 were tiny 2 stroke death traps.
Mazda had super bad gas mileage with their Wankel engines.
Early Honda Civics had valve problems at low mileage.
Toyota had some weak differentials and less than stated HP and torque and rode like trucks."
They all improved their cars.
All rusted fast and bad on salted winter roads"



Raid, xrayaa33 was talking about the vehicles of the '70s. Datsun became Nissan in N America in 1984. Vehicle construction has changed a lot since then. I don't imagine you have a need for salt on roads in Florida, but come up to Alberta in the winter and you'll see that current Toyotas, Subarus et al survive the winter salting of the roads as well as any N American or German vehicle. The rusted cars that you see are the ones that never get cleaned and washed by their owners, and that's true no matter which part of the world the brand originates. You'll see well-maintained vehicles 5-10 yrs old without a sign of rust.

I favor Japanese cars over Germany cars for their durability. Our family car is a Honda.

My comment was about snow in Germany and rust in cars (in Germany).