That's kinda my point - and also partly why I stopped playing softball and now play table tennis.
Sure. It isn't going to wear as much due to abrasion. That seems common sense enough to me. But there are other issues. For instance what about impact issues. Is the plastic mount more likely to be resiliant, or is it more likely to break? Will a metal mount bend and need replacement instead? I certainly don't know the answers to these questions.
First, I think they are all using plastic mounts in at least some lenses. But more importantly, the chosen material can easily be a matter of perception as much as a matter of engineering superiority.
I don't share these prejudices. I know that aluminum has a fatigue life regardless of the stress load. And I know that the quality of craftsmanship and manufacture are what matter most in a gun.
I bought a nice but not extremely nice composite fly casting rod for my wife and it cost over $300 about 5 years ago. I think its hard to find fishing rod that isn't "plastic". Even the cheap casting rods I bought for myself were composite plastic.
Yeah. Those golfers drooling over advanced composite golf clubs are just silly aren't they? Just like all the modern would be photographers who no longer use film, rely on autofocus and autoexposure and want lenses with those stupid plastic lens coatings instead of just using "real" glass through and through.
Yep...But not in the Leica Forum.
Maybe. Like you said, who knows? Maybe the metal mounts will only last 5 years and the plastic ones just one year... In the end, wouldn't it be better to get the one that you know is going to last longer, no matter what that length of time is?
Yeah, I bought a plastic ocean combo for $59, but frankly, I'd like for my $600 purchases to be made of something a little more substantial than plastic, even if everyone is now calling it "composite". As "paternal presence" and "domestic engineer" I also have a broom and mop handle that are made of the same "composite" that NASA uses for space shuttle applications. In other words, as a stay at home dad and house husband, I have some mops and brooms with plastic handles. That still doesn't mean that I want to pay $600 for said brooms, whether they're called plastic, "space age polymer", "composite", etc. It's plastic. Albeit, a better grade of plastic than a disposable spoon, plate, or cup, but it's still the same thing -- plastic.
Hey, you would be surprised the number of golfers who actually are drooling over my "ancient" metal/wood clubs. Even the local pro that taught my teenage son during last Summer's "golf camp" took far more interest in my the clubs I loaned my son than the modern $2,000 custom sets that all the other brats were toting. Besides, when the business face of a driver is bigger than my size 12 shoe sole...really...where's the challenge/game anymore? When I play a good round of golf, it's actually saying something. Everyone else might as well just use a frickin' tennis racket as a driver.Yeah. Those golfers drooling over advanced composite golf clubs
are just silly aren't they? Just like all the modern would be
photographers who no longer use film, rely on autofocus and
autoexposure and want lenses with those stupid plastic lens
coatings instead of just using "real" glass through and through.
More susceptability to abraision, more potential for in-camera dust too.
--The Glock is Nylon 6, cast, with proprietary "maxtrix" of some kind. Do they make real baseball bats out of plastic, or are they wood, aluminum and maybe carbon fibre? The forces acting on the lens mount are abraiding and corner wear forces, not impact. Which is why knives are not made of plastic, except for disposible ones!
1: the word plastic is being used to describe every type of advanced engineering material in this thread > the material would be sometype of FRP (Fiber Reinforced Plastics) or Poly Matrix Composite
So....you're saying that my plastic...uh...composite mount kit lens would actually cost more than my metal mount one?
Well let’s take your ‘A Spade is a Spade F1 multimillion dollar racing team’. You’ve spent 18 million dollars going from Aluminum alloy to Magnesium alloy to Titanium alloy transmission cases and you have learned that your competitors are developing Plastic (Polymer Matrix Composite) transmission cases that are 50% lighter, 70% stronger, 35% smaller than your current Titanium alloy transmission case. The composite additionally will allow your competitors to increase ‘all parameters’ even maximum allowable oil temperatures in the transmission case. But NO you are to stubborn to accept the facts derived from ‘Predictive Engineering’ using advanced tools like ‘Finite Element Analysis’, ignore your 37 mechanical engineers, six material scientist, aerodynamic specialist etc., and insist on staying with your NOW obsolete Titanium alloy transmission cases.
