Re: [Leica] Digital

["Jeff S" <segawa@netone.com>]

- -----Original Message-----
From: Alan Hull <hull@vaggeryd.mail.telia.com>
>Make NO mistake about this.  An almost total digital take-over is very much
>closer than many folk realise.  There is a lot of jockeying for position in
>the old and emerging industries, and cards are being held close to the
>chest.
>
>There will still be a need for chemical prints if only for the massive
>amount of information that can be stored/preserved in analogue format, but
>its day is effectively over.
>
Alan, I think that day may arrive, but I don't think I'm going to worry
about whether or not I should buy a 90/2.8M lens just yet :-)

A big change requires a lot of support from the buying public: How is
today's digital addressing the wants of those who have maybe $250 to spend
on a camera, shoot 1-5 rolls of film a year, and who simply want nice
looking snaps? I don't think it's addressing them at all, rather, I think
it's serving a new computer-owning audience, who want to use the things in
very different ways, such as email enclosures or website production; these
applications didn't exist until recently. If the pictures don't look as good
as 35mm, what of it?

Digital imaging is still searching for an identity: While our first instinct
might be to look into printing out the results (how quaint!) perhaps
someday, we'll be comfy with dealing with images which occupy no physical
space at all, and by the same token, maybe someday, computer software will
be accepted as a pure art form. Then again, we humans have had a fondness
for having painted or printed objects on our walls since the days of cave
painters!

Environmental concerns may put pressure on traditional film-and-paper
photography, but I don't think it'll be the pushover that the analog LP was.
I believe a Nikon E2 is around 4-1/2 times the cost of a new M6. Ouch.

Jeff