[Leica] Ted is WRONG ( NOT QUITE!) ;-)

Wed Mar 18 19:21:16 PDT 2015

Hi Larry,
Well now most interesting to say the least. Well put me old son, well put!

I suppose a lot of my re-actions these days are quite probably due to
shooting photos daily since 27 May 1950 up until a year ago on a regular
constant one big lifetime assignment! Few have been so fortunate certainly
having the huge numbers of various assignments and their subjects as I have
about the world.

When my dear wife Irene, now passed away, gave me my first camera as a
birthday gift. She also gave me a half dozen rolls of Kodak Super XX film.
Which after reading some instructions on the KODAK box to go with my little
"ARGUS A-2" 35mm camera gift. Which I still have to this day. NO I haven't
tried a roll in it for several years. :-) 

About a 1/2 hour of fiddling with the camera and loading it the first day I
was out the door to give it a try within an hour!  And the rolls were taken
to a local drugstore chain and left for developing and printing of 4X6
prints which I picked-up a couple of days later.! And I was off into the
"WORLD of PHOTOGRAPHY!" 

But when she gave it to me a whole new world opened far beyond my wildest
dreams, yet with an ease it was never a chore. "IT WAS NEVER WORK! WHY?
Well that answer is quite easy really. 

"WORK IS MOVING CONCRETE BLOCKS!" "PHOTOGRAPHY IS AN INCREDIBLE NEVER ENDING
LOVE AFFAIR!" :-)

It came very naturally with little thought process. My first print
processing  trays were Irene's tin baking trays. Acetic acid in the stop
bath and other chemicals played hell with her trays! They all went black.
And I had to buy her a new set. Or as she put it? "I'D BE DOING MY OWN
COOKING."
Thank goodness I could at that time afford new trays, so she kept cooking my
home meals for 64 years.

Everything photographic was manual, so it was a simple case of read and do
it once? ..... "REMEMBER IT FOR A LIFETIME!" And that's as simple as need
be. After that it was one's abilities to observe life and their
reflexes.......CLICK!

Oh I don't have any problem with the auto-developing camera guys wherever
they are on the Planet. Actually I have a simple CANON AUTO-FOCUS MACHINE I
use occasionally quite simply because it's idiot proof in its functions. Oh
yes and it's??? "AUTOFOCUS!" :-) Too bad they weren't around 6o years ago. I
may never have become a totally committed LEICA FANATIC! Well OK lifetime
user. :-)

>>> I remember that years ago when I got my first fully automatic DSLR and I
complained about the 15 possible exposure modes, you simply advised me to
forget about it. Simply set my camera on Automatic and take a lot of
pictures. That time you were quite correct. It made my life much simpler and
predisposed me to accept the pictures made by my kid's cellphones.<<<<<<<

Well see, at least I'm not always wrong! ;-) 

Quite frankly maybe sometimes why I get quite "GRUMPY" about technical stuff
it's because it does make producing exposures with no thought, nor
knowledge. In turn, creating "fools who make loud noises" about their
photos! When in realities it's nothing but garbage! 

YOU sir are certainly not included! 

But there are photographers out there, well so called professionals. That if
they didn't have these all auto no brains cameras to use? They wouldn't be
"PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS!" 

You made a comment about manuals? Quite frankly I rarely if ever read them.
YES A MAJOR ERROR ON MY PART!
And I'm first to admit it. However during my growing up I was always
taught........ "WE LEARN BY DOING!" Little did I realize what that meant
until I went to high school and the school motto was............ YEP! only
in Latin  >>>> "Faciendo Discimus"<<<<  "WE LEARN BY DOING!" In Toronto,
Canada.

ERGO?  That's how I learned my photography. "KISS & Learning by doing!" :-)

Hopefully I've answered your post in a reasonable fashion.

cheers,
ted

-----Original Message-----
From: LUG [mailto:lug-bounces+tedgrant=shaw.ca at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Larry Zeitlin via LUG
Sent: March-17-15 7:00 PM
To: lug at leica-users.org
Subject: [Leica] Ted is WRONG

 Ted,?

Again with all due respect, you are simply WRONG. You have discounted a
lifetime of photographic experience as being a trivial skill in the
operation of a fully manual camera. Why on earth have manufacturers tried to
put all the mechanical details of camera operation into a piece of silicon
the size of your little fingernail if not for the fact that it will enable
the neophyte to take photos (almost) as good as you? Not necessarily well
composed photos nor those that have great content but pictures that are
properly exposed and in focus.?

I fully recognize that you are certainly a very competent photographer with
a long and excellent career. Certainly one of the best on the LUG. But you
are a self admitted technophobe and, like a true luddite, predisposed to
argue against the technological advances in the art. I remember that years
ago when I got my first fully automatic DSLR and I complained about the 15
possible exposure modes, you simply advised me to forget about it. Simply
set my camera on Automatic and take a lot of pictures. That time you were
quite correct. It made my life much simpler and predisposed me to accept the
pictures made by my kid's cellphones.

You can do wonderful things with a Leica but it requires that you be a
knowledgable photographer. It is so much easier to use automatic focus,
automatic exposure, automatic color balance, automatic ISO selection. Just
point the camera and let it do the heavy lifting. Isn't photography supposed
to be fun?

By the way, your estimate of the size of camera manuals is a bit in error.
My original Leica M3 manual, the one that came with the camera in 1954, had
31 pages but only dealt with the camera body itself. It assumed that I knew
all about lenses and exposure. The 1947 "Leica Manual" by Morgan and Lester
had 551 pages covering only the screw mount cameras. Five full pages were
devoted to how to put film in the camera. Clearly the difference between the
two manuals assumes a degree of photographic experience such as you
possessed. Andrew Matheson's "Leica Way" published after the introduction of
the M series cameras had 540 pages. By contrast, the longest manual for a
digital camera that I have is one by Olympus for the digital Pen. It has
only 130 pages and most of that is devoted to obscure modes of operation
that I never use. But then everything is automatic, isn't it?

Larry Z
- - - - -
Ted writes:
"In the "REALLY GOOD OLD DAYS" one bought the LEICA, added a roll of film
each time you wished to take more photos. And you did it that way and it
worked perfectly. oh for about 20-30 years and never let you down."

With all due respect this is a drastic
oversimplification.<<<<<

LARRY!
well it might sound like that! HOWEVER HARDLY AN OVER SIMPLIFICATION!

HOWEVER!
Bull shit! Not the least bit if you had two hairs of brains! AND WERE A
COMPLETELY WIRED HEART AND BRAINS INTO BEING A PHOTOJOUNALIST/PHOTOGRAPHER!

The Leica worked fine provided you had the knowledge to measure the light
properly, chose the appropriate lens opening, set the shutter speed, focus
the camera, have a good reliable processing service or did the wet work
yourself.<<<<<<

OH CRAP BULL SHIT AGAIN!?
First of all anyone buying, owning and certainly using a LEICA KNEW VERY
Well how to use a hand meter.?
As far as setting the camera settings? It came within 24 hours or less of
having the camera in hand. As soon as you had that machine in your hands you
fell in love with it! Handled it almost blind folded Better than a hot
passionate love affair!

You didn't have the machine of today that requires without question reading
a 200 or more page manual to learn what the hell all the buttons do? ON &
OFF for crying out loud! And if you don't read and almost memorize from the
manual you are immediately????? SCREWED! KISS? THAT ISN'T A WORD APPLICABLE
TO THESE NEW MACHINES.

Over the years my LEICA'S were my bread and butter for my family and self.
NOT TO FORGET THEY WERE THE INSTRUMENTS THAT TOOK ME ALL OVER THE WORLD AND
BACK AND FORTH ACROSS NORTH and SOUTH AMERICA!

8 Published books, TV network documentaries and all kinds of other stuff!
And you know why? KISS WITH MY LEICAS!

And it didn't take a 200 page manual!

AND THIS BY YOU???????????????
"If not being handled by a person with years of appropriate experience it
was a inert lump of metal and glass. Even loading the film took specialized
knowledge.<<<<<

WELL NOW WHAT RESPONSE COULD I POSSIBLY GIVE OTHER THAN?????????????? ?"BULL
SHIT!! :-)

Sorry Boss Brian, but sometimes it just has to be like this!

cheers,
Dr. ted

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