Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/03/30

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Subject: Re: Burning film (was Leica bashing on usenet groups)
From: Steven Blutter <sblutter@worldnet.att.net>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 10:03:57 -0600

Kari Eloranta wrote:
> 
> captyng@vtx.ch (Gerard Captijn) notes:
> 
> >Very often maybe only 2-3 pictures on a 36-roll are really good. In
> >addition, practice shows that we often need to expose many rolls
> to >produce one really  excellent, exhibition quality image
> (National >Geographic probably won't disagree with these statements
> given the >level of film consumption of their photographers). Why?
> 
> Some time ago there was an article in NG about the working habits
> of their shooters. Although I don't find their kind of wholesome
> writing and photography so interesting anymore this was certainly
> very captivating reading. Among a staggering statistics: in recent
> years about *one tenth of a percent* of their frames ever make it to
> the pages of the journal. This inspite of them being very good
> people, surely previsualizing a lot and not just letting the motor
> chew off the film.
> 
> I don't believe that their Leica shooters are particularly
> efficient with film usage. To capture the moment and the mood in a
> definite way you need lot of film, period. Probably M-Leicas are a
> bit more suitable to capturing *the moment* than an SLR. On the
> other hand M-Leicas kind of invite you to shoot under apalling light
> conditions which automatically means a stiff film bill.
> 
> In additon to the shutter-delay advantage pointed out by Captijn
> there is another M-forte here, this time over medium format RF's
> (Mamiya 6 or 7). When you have to follow an unpredictable sequence
> of events it makes a differece to have some 38 shots per roll
> instead of some 16 or 24 at most.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Kari Eloranta

I look forward to hearing more when you make ANY sense.  isn't film
meant to be used and the cheapest part of photography?