[Leica] Whitman on resolution and esthetics

[hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)]

Well, I care, but that?s because I can (like I?ll bet any one of us) 
appreciate the quantitative fundamentals as well as the esthetics. Of 
Spring, of photography, of the night sky. 

Which is not to say that I care about that more. To quote my favorite (as an 
amateur astronomer) expression of the same theme, by Walt Whitman:

        When I heard the learn?d astronomer;
        When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
        When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and 
measure them;
        When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much 
applause in the lecture-room,
        How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
        Till rising and gliding out, I wander?d off by myself,
        In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
        Look?d up in perfect silence at the stars.

?howard


On Apr 12, 2014, at 7:41 AM, Jim Hemenway <jim at hemenway.com> wrote:

> 
> Reminds me of:
> 
> "While you and i have lips and voices which
> are for kissing and to sing with
> who cares if some one eyed son of a bitch
> invents an instrument to measure Spring with?"
>     e e cummings
> 
> Jim, "go take some photos" Hemenway
> 
> 
> 
> On 4/12/14 12:52 AM, Geoff Hopkinson wrote:
>> Howard yes no maybe depends and yes you have too much time on your hands 
>> ;-)
>> 
>> This might be of interest 100% (pixel for pixel on your screen) crop
>> http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman/image/155191481
>> 
>> 
>> Cheers
>> Geoff
>> http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman
>> 
>> 
>> On 12 April 2014 14:14, Howard Ritter<hlritter at bex.net>  wrote:
>> 
>>> As my work schedule slows down towards retirement, I seem to have way too
>>> much time on my hands. So I decided to pursue a question I've been
>>> wondering about for a long time. I got out some cameras and lenses and a
>>> couple rolls of film and shot some photos of the house across the pond,
>>> scanned the film, and cropped down to the small central portion of the
>>> images to compare. I'd read that the best general-pupose emulsions 
>>> resolve
>>> as high as 150 line pairs/mm, which corresponds to 300 pixels/mm, or 
>>> 7200 x
>>> 10800 pixels in a FF sensor. That's around 80 Mpx, which is also in the
>>> same range for estimates of the information content that I've seen quoted
>>> for 35mm film. This led me to expect that digital would fall short of 
>>> film,
>>> which puzzled me a bit as I have been not at all impressed by the 
>>> technical
>>> performance of the slides and negs I've been scanning.
>>> 
>>> I picked Fujicolor 200 and Tri-X to compare with the D800, M typ 240, M8,
>>> and NEX-7, 35mm lenses for the FF cameras, and 24mm for the M8 and 
>>> NEX-7. I
>>> also shot the same scene with both the M8 and NEX-7 at 35mm so I could
>>> compare performance at the same image scale on the sensor.
>>> 
>>> Suffice it to say that I was surprised by the results, linked below. Sure
>>> wish I could try Panatomic-X!
>>> 
>>>  http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Res+Test+Crops/
>>> 
>>> I was also surprised to discover that even the highest pixel-count FF
>>> sensor yet available does not match the capabilities of the lenses we 
>>> use.
>>> I've posted to that effect before, but here are the images to illustrate
>>> the point.
>>> 
>>> Comments and corrections of my misconceptions invited&  appreciated.
>>> 
>>> --howard
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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> 
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