Re: [Leica]So long, Flare, we overknew ye.... was Shadow boxing

[ralph fuerbringer <rof@mac.com>]

together at last: the flare twins, meyers and wullf,official flare quardians
on the list.for the flair wulff uncovered in photographing  a brick wall
he received the uncoveted DE award(double expose, sky first then the
wall,get max flair)
 meyers contributions to flare myth  would require a 30 gigabite harddrive.
still you cant fault these two tech nincompops for presumption.for
their pathetic theory they demean a perfectionist, Philip Jones-Griffiiths.
they imply he would skip a helpful preflash to speed up his own or magnums
slide-copying,ignoring the best quality possible.there have been statements
galore here that flare and preflashing involve inevitable and severe loss of
definition and contrast. Philip Jones-Griffith statement to forget the
preflash  was  unqualified. in practical terms it verifies the unqulalified
one muddy meyers quoted from Erwin Puts:"the old story that you can use a
low contrast and/or flare prone lens to compensate for high contrast in the
scene is not accurate. flare adds nothing to the highlights,
just muddies the dark." cant we get flare interested in somthing else, like
 the epson 1270? . humidity and ozone are having a ball turning stuff
orange. flare, go there,give the orange a preflash.if it helps you'll be a
hero, maligned no more.  ralph
    
> From: Edward Meyers <aghalide@panix.com>     both hava reading disored
> Reply-To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 14:26:24 -0400 (EDT)
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica]So long, Flare, we overknew ye.... was  Shadow boxing
> 
> Thank you for this evaluation. Ed
> 
> On Tue, 8 Aug 2000, Henning J. Wulff wrote:
> 
>> At 2:20 AM -0400 8/8/00, ralph fuerbringer wrote:
>>> sincd ed meyers hides behind a magnum name with his flare infatuation i'm
>>> offering one in rebuttal. philip jones-griffiths is not just a photographer
>>> of equal repute but is a technician without an equal among magnum
>>> photograpers.  i once asked Philip Jones-Griffiths whether to get the
>>> preflashing attachment for the bowens famous slide copier. he said it was
>>> not just valueless but a handicap. he was doing or supervising (president of
>>> magnum at the time) tons of slide copying. if preflashing w/precise control
>>> is a handicap in a labratory setup what does
>>> the degrading imput of flare from an uncoated lens add to an outdoor
>>> portrait? meyers and wulff claim this is why the preflashing effect works:
>>> flare is so pushy and fast it gets to your film before your actual picture!
>>> flaretheewell,ralph
>> 
>> Maybe he likes the extra punch and lack of detail in shadows that that will
>> bring. Using the pre-flashing with the Bowens Illumitran does indeed help
>> control contrast at times. I had one for a while and found the pre-flash
>> definitely worthwhile for many shots. If you are using the regular slide
>> duplicating film the effort is often not worth the trouble, but the effect
>> is unmistakable.
>> 
>> Maybe he was referring to the use of the pre-flash when he had a ton of
>> images to copy and time was more important than ultimate contrast control?
>> 
>> It's a 'handicap' if you consider a flatter image a handicap.
>> 
>> As you generally gain contrast in copying, and usually shift the HD curve
>> as well, you usually need to reduce contrast. You do this best by starting
>> off with a slide duplicating film matched to your taking film as well as
>> possible, then try to lift the toe area out of the murk a bit by
>> pre-flashing. Fairly straighforward.
>> 
>> *            Henning J. Wulff
>> /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
>> /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
>> |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com
>> 
>