Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Nathan wrote: <<F'rinstance, I can sharpen up digitally any lens which is not up to scratch. Likewise colour rendition etc. Not to mention cropping, dodging, and other traditional techniques. So the nub of the argument is something like this: 1) A photographer can have a vision of what he wants at the 'decisive moment'. 2) If he hasn't quite got it as he wants it, then photographic/digital manipulation may be quite in order to enable the photographer to express what he wants to express. (For 'he' please read 'she' - Tina and her sisters are the greatest!) 3) Quite logically - it's the final image that matters - not the kit it was taken with, or how it was achieved. It's a bit like asking Van Gogh which brushes and brands of paints he used.>> The question is a two part one, and Nathan answered well the second part, digital manipulation - after the photograph was taken. I've used the $60,000.00 digital cameras; ones with sophisticated MOS &/or CCD/CCP digital backs (either second party mods or with the makers name on them), even played with one costing a $Million bucks once (NASA). There's something to be said for linear resolution when you have a sensing array with 800K+ pixels square and 256 levels deep. BUT, nothing (IMO) compares to continuous tone, emulsion based imagery. It is the essence of photography, its’ very foundation. While a person can manipulate an image obtained in either realm (digital or traditional) to ‘appear’ sharper, nothing really changes the actual ‘circle of confusion’ as it relates to sharpness. It is the way the light passes through the lens, and the lenses ability to NOT resolve the apparent acuity of latent image- that quantifies sharpness. If NASA was using a Blatzmo lens on their million dollar gem, it would be less sharp, no matter what. [They don’t BTW, it’s a Zeiss.] The only way to manipulate sharpness in a digital image is to adjust the relative contrast between adjacent pixels. It neither enhances the resolution of the image (that was decided before manipulation), nor does it correct for spherical aberrations. Digital is here to stay, of course. It’s something any photographer should become acquainted with. But, like motion pictures (movies), film won’t go away. [Movie industry was all abuzz with tales of doom when video came out, talking the late 60’s here, but it’s still doing quite well!]