Leica Article in Wall St. Journal

[TEZillman]

Interesting article about the Leica Company in this morning's Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122152103387739231.html

 

[BillBingham2]

Very light weight for a Times article but worth the read. Interesting to see Leica is still on their radar.

Thanks.

B2 (;->

 

[KoNickon]

Very interesting. Obviously, I think we all hope Leica stays alive and well. It seems as though Leica needs a Kobayashi-type person at the helm -- an enthusiast rather than purely a businessman, and it sounds like Herr Kaufmann fits that description (though "Kaufmann" translates to "businessman").

So it's news to me that Leica invented autofocus. Is that really accurate?

 

[Nh3]

Very interesting. I liked the bits about Mr. Lee and him calling Leica employees 'dumb farmers'.

Seriously, Mr. Lee was the worst thing that could happen to Leica.

 

[furcafe]

IIRC, Honeywell invented autofocus in the sense of developing it 1st. However, there were several different types of autofocus developed in the '60s-'70s. I remember Polaroid's ultrasonic sonar system for the SX-70. Since many different companies were independently working on autofocus technologies, it doesn't surprise me that the 1 that Minolta brought to market, which is I believe the method used in most modern SLRs & dSLRs, may have originated @ Leitz (on account of the cooperation between the 2 companies in that time period).

So it's news to me that Leica invented autofocus. Is that really accurate?