[Leica] Re: [LUG] Digital storage??? and delurk

[Sean Murphy <murfman@pacifier.com>]

> Hello all

This is a first post so a small intro, (didn't get around to that roll
call!) my name is Sean Murphy-live in Vancouver Washington. Third owner
of a beautiful IIIc kit (lenses filters cool accessories all from the
same period - that's a story for later). We had our first baby this year
so I got a Minilux. Its all the new Leica I could afford; as I was
spoiled by that Leica glass, and the IIIc is to slow to catch a 10 month
old in action!  The the IIIc and the Minilux both have Summarit formulas
(1.5/50 and 2.4/40) and its almost the same form factor. Best of all my
wife can shoot with it too!

I work as Director of Technology at a Pre Press systems integrator based
in Portland Oregon, which has over the years, given me access to the
best scanners, ink jet, dye sub, imagesetters, digital cameras, software
etc... I've scanned Kodachrome 25 from my IIc on 8000+ dpi scanners for
instance. I thought I would mention a few thing here and if any are
interested, I''ll keep posting on the subject. After all it is a Leica
not a digital imaging list!

Some of the posts in this thread mention storage, size, resolution and
line screens when scanning and printing images. When scanning with a
8000+ (some go to 14000 or 16000) all that resolution is used for
scaling, not just detail capture. An 8000 dpi drum scanner is capable of
a 26x enlargment with enough detail to print a 200 line sceen @ 8x10 on
a high resolution device. This is enough to scan down to the grain of
many 35mm films and is the reason that most pro shoots for scanning are
done 4x5, it is easier to get to a larger print with out so much
enlargement.

As one post stated, this is enough to enlarge a 35mm to 30x36 way past
the point where grain becomes apparent (ask me about "oil mounting" of
transparencies sometime). This is assuming that the output device has
the ability to render the dyanamic range of the scanner (measured in
bits per pixel, 8,10,12,16). This is where is see the most confusion in
the posts I see. When you are talking halftone dots like in magazine
printing (lpi), then there is a mathematical relationship between output
resolution (dpi) and tonality. To get greater dynamic range (tonality),
then you need more resolution, at higher halftone dots per inch; say 200
linescreen limited edition prints, you would want to output at 4000 dpi.
If you output device is "continous-tone" ie dyesub or ink jet, you can
get away with less output resolution as you are not making halftone
dots. I have an Epson 800 that I have output Leica transparencies sanned
on 100K drum scanners that have made pro that I respect alot say "that
was a computer printer!?" Garbage in garbage out ya know!

I could go on but I won't unlees there is more interest, this all
confirms that it would take about a $25-35K dollar scanner at today's
technology to really match what a Leica can capture in terms of
resolution and fidelity.
A the pace of imaging tech it will be about 4 - 5 years before that
comes down to Leica pricing!
 

Thanks for tech tolerance!
 

Sean