>>4179755It flopped for a couple of reasons. They needed constant servicing and you had to mail it in to Kodak, who initially sent it to Germany until they got techs Stateside to service them, then you got it back. With newer lubricants you don't have to service them as much. Most other cameras you didn't have to. The advance mechanism on the Retina is also on the bottom which almost everything was on the top, so they weren't the most ergonomic cameras at the time.
The other thing was the lenses were slow compared to the competition. The fastest DKL lens is f/1.9 and the majority of them are slower than f/4. Granted, they are outstanding optics and you had your choice from Schneider, Voigtlander, Rodenstock and Braun which were all top shelf names but they were selling this at a time when you could pay the same money for a Nikon F and get a 50/1.4 and vastly superior ergonomics.
It's still a great camera and I have no regrets building a full system out of mine, it is a regular shooter now in my arsenal.
