Re: [Leica] Empiricism

[Dan Cardish <dcardish@microtec.net>]

What you seem to be implying here is that the sensitometry route a la Phil
Davis is not the way to go, that it is preferable to put away the
densitometers and simply use your eyes to do the testing.  To add my own
extension, if the eyes can't see it, who cares if the densitometer can?

Dan C.

At 07:38 AM 15-11-00 -0600, Mike Johnston wrote:
>
>Ted,
>It's kinda funny. I've always been basically an empiricist. If you take a
>bunch of prints and show them to people, they'll say, "Oh, I like this one
>and that one." You learn more about what people really think looks better
>than you do if you merely listen to what they _say_ they like.
>
>This methodology was the basis for a lot of our assumptions today--some of
>the work of men like Loyd Jones and C.E.K. Mees, the JND test, minimum
>exposure, target CI--most of it was orginally done with stacks of prints and
>large number of viewers. That's how the technical system we take for granted
>was arrived at. That's how Kodak whitecoats originally decided how much
>exposure film needs and how much contrast prints need, and so forth.
>
>Yet nobody does it any more. We don't tend to think it's "scientific." I
>learned early on, writing articles, that you can learn a lot by just asking
>people to look and then listening to what they say. Because a lot of times,
>if you ask people, "do you like qualities X and Y, that film Z is supposed
>to provide?" They'll say, "oh, yes." But you show them a nice print from
>film Z and also one from film A, they'll say, "This one looks better to me,"
>and point to the film A print.
>
>Getting people to actually _look_ is one of the hardest things in
>photography. (In teaching photography, it's also hard to get students to
>really decide if they like something or not. They tend to pick what they
>suppose other people like.) But lots of times, people just don't want to
>look at evidence. They don't want to look at prints when judging lenses.
>They don't want to look at results when judging film. They miss things on
>their own contact sheets. (How many times I've said to a student, "I kinda
>like this one," and they answer, "I never noticed that one before!") When
>teaching lighting, everybody wants to look at lighting diagrams and nobody
>wants to look at light.
>
>Over the years, many people have e-mailed me asking me to tell them my
>opinions about the optical properties of lenses THEY ALREADY OWN! I think
>that's really funny. I just tell them to use the darn thing and look at the
>results.
>
>A lot of the conclusions I've arrived at were arrived at empirically--many
>times, using others as the basis for the essential information. My notions
>of format size, lens angle of view, even what technical properties are most
>desirable in lenses, were mainly arrived at that way.
>
>In judging D-23 vs. Xtol, most people wouldn't think it's important to do
>trials and actually look at results. We know what we like. We can hear a
>list of properties expressed verbally and "decide" what we approve of best.
>Never mind looking at actual pictures.
>
>Most people love the idea of grainlessness. But what do you suppose I found
>out when showing people Tech Pan prints and Tri-X prints? T-Max 100 prints
>and TMZ prints?It's very, very interesting. Sometimes what people _say_ they
>like turns out not to be what they actually prefer.
>
>--Mike
>
>
>