RE: [Leica] squabbling over digitial vs. film.

["bdcolen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Good points, Adam.

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Adam
Bridge
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 1:50 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] squabbling over digitial vs. film.


On 2003-08-05 bdcolen@earthlink.net (bdcolen) thoughtfully wrote: 

> Rather, we are in a period of
>transition in photography in which the main mode of image capture 
>shifts from film/chemical to electronic/digital, just as transitions 
>from one capture media to another occurred in earlier ages. Film will 
>certainly be around for a long time to come, but it will be less and 
>less relevant to a larger and larger percentage of photo hobbyists and 
>pros. That doesn't mean film isn't good, it just means that the end of 
>an era is upon us. ;-)
>
>B. D.

Last week I bought a high-definition television (a Sony Grand WEGA 50"
to answer the question). Since I have DirecTV I got a free subscription
(for a month) for the DirecTV high-definition channels. Of course I
immediately slipped into "new stereo" mode - you know the one: where you
put on ever great CD and even pull out the Sheffield Direct-to-Disk
vinyl recordings that are saved for SPECIAL occasions just to enjoy the
new speakers,amp, pre-amp, whatever.

Anyway, I was watching one of the special HD channels and there is an
interview with the director of "Desperado" and the "Spy Kids" franchise:
Robert Rodriguez. He shoots entirely in HD (what is called 24p - 24
frames/sec, progressive scan). There are lots of reasons for this as a
film-maker - but some of the most important to him are: immediacy of the
product after it's been shot - no overnight waits for "dailys" and no
transfer from film into the computer for editing -  you're working from
the 1st generation images all the time.

In this interview he said something that really talked to me: that to
work in this medium you have to not only be an artist, you have to be a
techie. Fortunately you can LEARN to be a techie and he has worked hard
to do that. He also observed that it's not about the difference between
film and digital - it's about the final result that is projected on the
screen.

This is true for us as still photographers: it's about what we print and
what people see. It doesn't matter how  it gets onto the paper. What
matters is what is ON the paper and how people interact with it.

Back in the early days of photography people really had to become
techies! They had to put away the paints and the pencils and work with
all these fancy chemicals. Today we put away the packaged developers and
work with computers and get all tuned in to the specifications of
sensors and the arcana of the digital domain. It's just new technology,
a new language. 

What matters is the images we make.

Adam Bridge
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