Re: [Leica] Cool Leica Pictures

[Alan Ball <AlanBall@csi.com>]

Eric Welch wrote:
> 
> At 06:31 PM 4/8/98 +0200, you wrote:
> 
> >We could do blind tests. Please check the CoolPix 900 info page on the
> >Nikon site: some of the pictures there could serve as propaganda for Leica
> >glass and high quality film. They are just plain perfect. On the Web. try
> >this: http://www.nikonusa.com/products/imaging/images/moosebird.jpg
> 
> Tell me about it. Like the Apple ad for their first digital camera, which
> was a piece of crap and made pictures that were no good at 2x3 inches! The
> ad in the magazines were all superb. You sure they were made with that camera?

These images could serve to showcase Leica equipment. Nikon introduces
the images with the following statement: "taken with the Coolpix900
digital camera by world-renowned photographers Jon Ortner and B. Moose
Peterson." I find Moose Peterson's images there absolutely gorgeous. Not
so keen on Jon Ortner's. I do not believe for a split second that either
Nikon or these photographers are organising a scam. I believe these
images are what they say they are. The files are very big. And I
conclude that they are making a point regarding Web publishing
technology more than regarding digital cameras and their usage for high
quality enlargements or printing. 

> 
> >get 24-bit at the office though.Your JPEG compressions are destructive and
> >larger pictures would take too long to download. I think this is an average
> >Web experience. The more I look at it, the more I believe black and white
> >is better suited for Web scrutinity than colour.
> 
> Where do you get the impression that JPEG destroys it? Where do you see JPG
> artifacts in my pictures? Sure, blow them up real big, and they get jaggie,
> but the tonal modulation is also destroyed at that size.

Okay. I saved the "bride.jpg "image. Opened it in Micrografx Picture
Publisher 8.0, with screen settings of my office NT 4.0 workstation at
24-bit. Visualizing the image on a high quality 17" Philips Brilliance
17A. The properties of your image are the following: 24-bit RGB color -
396 pixels wide, 246 pixels high - 72 dpi resolution - image size of 285
Kb in memory and 36 Kb on disk. These figures already show heavy
compression and low-res scanning. JPEG compression is destructive by
nature. JPEG's de-compression algorithms include a lot of interpolation
and "guess work". If you compress the file at a high ratio, you destroy
proportionaly more info and you imply more interpolation work on the
visualizing side.

For me that means that the image I have here on screen is remotely
evocative of your neg or print (did you scan the neg or the print BTW ?
It looks like print scanning to me). The information that it gives me is
that you have taken a picture of a bride and friends having fun. I do
not know these people, so I am not really touched by their actions as
related by this picture.

If I want to get more info on the faces, the expressions, the dresses,
the objects around these people, try to get acquainted with them and/or
get info on the imaging qualities of your hardware, I have to zoom in.
So, let's be fair, let's do a modest 150 pct enlargement. Well, Eric, I
get absolutely fuzzy pixelisation, and cannot see anything more on the
image. At 200 pct, which remains reasonable, it is even worse of course.
Can't figure out what the bride is holding in her hand or what the guy
on the left is holding to his mouth. Is it a bottle, a microphone ?

So, I maintain, repeat, unrepentantly, that this image does not give
credit to the fact your were using a R8 with 19mmf2.8 Elmarit. Could
have been a Stylus Epic (except for the angle of view of course), or
could have been a 17mm Tokina. So, again, I would not publish it under
the heading "Cool Leica Pictures", but somewhere else in your portfolio
where you would show that you can provide non-classical wedding
pictures.

If you download moosehse.jpg from the Coolpix 900 page (the house in the
snow), you fill much more than your screen at 100 pct. No use zooming
in. It is full of detail. With very nice gradation. On my monitor the
snow is a little blue. But it could be due to my monitor. It could have
been provided by a careful JPEG compression of a high end scan of a "M6
+ 35mm f1.4 at f5.6 with Royal Gold ISO 200"   ;-/

> 
> Enjoy Marakkesh. I remember Bruno Barbey talking about Fez smelling like
> the stench of a thousand dead camels. Hope Marrakech is better. :-)

I know Marrakkesh quite well. It smells great. I'll be hiking in the
Atlas as well.
 
> Go ahead and share your pictures. I think if all we do is flex our
> "spending" muscles to prove what great equipment we bought, and not
> pictures that mean something to us, well, we're pretty dang boring.

That is a wise statement. Photography is about pictures. I am extremely
surprised how agressive this has turned out to be...

Friendly regards
Alan
Brussels-Belgium