Re: Marc Riboud Show

[Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net>]

Dan Cardish wrote:
> Sorry, but there is no f*&%#$$ way that you can look in a book and
> determine that, yes, these pictures were taken with a Leica.  It's not
> possible.  Period.   I don't care how wonderful and great the optics are.
> I own a Minolta SLR system in addition to my Leica M6, and I bet I can fool
> you everytime!  Even with 16x20 original prints.

Dan,
Several weeks ago I had dinner with Ted and Irene Grant and Ted and I
looked through a book celebrating French culture to which he had
contributed.  Invariably I could pick out which pix were Ted's and which
were not.  Ted's were done with Leica.  Not only was the vision sharper
(even sharper than his wit!), but so was the quality of the images. 
Very distinct.

Recently I saw a large book on horse racing.  The photographer waxed
enthusiastic about the Minolta system and how his change to it made such
a difference.  But in the book, the best images were not taken with the
Minolta.  In fact, the Minolta images were embarassing poor quality.  

But I do think Minolta has done wonders with the metering and especially
the TTL cordless flash system.  With the R8 and the latest Metz flashes,
you can now have the same convenience.  But if you are happy with the
Minolta glass, you probably consider the R8 an extravagance.

For run of the mill publications done on web press, you are probably too
right about not being able to tell the quality.  Such a shame.  But on
high quality rotogravure, the difference does come through, as least to
me.

Unfortunately, most of what is published runs on the webs.

Donal Philby
San Diego