[Leica] Re: Digititis

[Vondauster@aol.com]

Hi All,

Walter S Delesandri wrote:
 ><snip>
 > Also, I think as the digital age continues, there has been a
 > resurgence in fine documentation (kinda as "art"?) ...
 >I think as digital replaces film for the
 > Sports, Wire, and major magazine photographers, we'll see more
 > and more fine "essays" in "alternative" publications...seems to
 > be the trend where I live....or am I being selfishly optimistic?

This is an interesting thread. I agree very much with Jim Brick's take on the 
practical disadvantages and qualitative shortcomings of the current and 
near-future digital camera offerings. Even though I have switched to digital 
for my color print production, there is not yet anything in the handheld 
market that comes close to replacing film. There is another consderation, 
though.

With a digital image, whatever "veritas" inherent in film is lost. One can 
never again know that an image is indeed what the scene shot actually looked 
like. Yes, of course we could always manipulate analogue images, and this has 
been widely done and is no different from manipulating digital images. Yes, 
the end viewer has never really been assued that the print he or she is 
looking at accurately represented the reality of the original scene. But - 
and this is important to me - at least the original artist is able to go back 
to the original image on film and know that is what was in front of his or 
her camera. With digital images, it is very tempting to keep only the 
"cleaned up" file, due as much to Jim's aforementioned storage considerations 
as anything else. Even the shooter will seldom, if ever, again really know 
what the original image looked like.

I will lament the loss of this original reference point when environmental 
regulations are inevitably used to force film off the market in a few years...

...whoops! A civil servant shouldn't be that cynical.

Will von Dauster