Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/06/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I know that I antagonized a lot of you when I first joined this list a few months ago. Wish I'd done it differently, but I didn't. Since then, I've met Tom Abrahamsson (sic) and Reinhold Mueller, had two fine cameras restored to optimal specs, and gone about my business, not in the rumenerative sense, but as the amateur that I am. What surprises me a little here is all the talk of Leica specs and how little whe actually look at each other's work; not in the sense of some imminent judgment, but simply in the sense that the point of owning this gear is to capture light on an emulsion. What's the point of owning this stuff if it doesn't cause us to be better than we are, to capture more precisely and with greater fidelity the decisive moment, the prefigured print, whatever it is that drives us to carry and use a camera? I've checked out, for intance, several sites, where photos captured w/ thousands of dollars worth of gear are indistinguishable from equivalent images that one might have shot with a disposable camera: flat, banal, mere reportage, which can be engaging if it reveals some sensibility, but, if not, is nothing more than an Instamatic's glimpse into the rich world we inhabit. It seems to me that the potential of the LUG is that we can exploit the resource that the web offers in an unprecedented way. We all admire the - -Family of Man-, for instance. We could make it happen in a different way here, to capture and present, as it were, our own, unique worlds, the particular valence of our perspectives, share and comment upon them. Instead--and here I shall piss you all off again--we sputter and moan over red dots, serial numbers, the virtues of the Noctilux, and whether the RS series is the summa of "leica vindcated". In the end, I suppose, the whole point of this is what do we *see*: collectively, individually . . . No amount of talking about the resolution of an aspherical lens equals the simple presentation of a compelling image captured with one . . . yrs in the pursuit of light Chandos At 02:55 PM 6/11/98 -0700, you wrote: >Right on, Tom. The differences are lost in the scanning and even the best >monitors are all but useless for subtle detail and tonality. Not to mention >the effects of lossy file compression... >However, I too love seeing what other photographers are doing. One of these >days I may get up enough courage to post some of mine. > >Mike Turner > >At 05:31 PM 6/11/1998 EDT, TEAShea@aol.com, you wrote... >>Some people seem to think that they can demonstrate the quality of a lens by >>photos posted on the Internet. While one may be able to tell the difference >>between a disposable camera and a current generation Summicron 50 2.0, it is >>simply not possible to distinguish between higher quality lenses by this >>method. >> >>This is not to say that it is not interesting to see posted photos. Such >>photos are often very interesting and can tell a lot about the style of the >>photographer and the subject. Such photos, however cannot distinguish >between >>a current generation Leica lens and a 30 year old Minolta consumer grade >lens. >>Both will look the same. >> >>When people seriously discuss the differences among reasonable quality >lenses, >>the differences are actually very small. These differences are much smaller >>than the resolution ability of posted photos / monitors. >> >>Keep posing those photos. I love to look at them. But do not think that >they >>prove the quality of a lens. They don't. >> >>Tom Shea >> >> > Chandos Michael Brown Assoc. Prof., History and American Studies College of William and Mary http://www.resnet.wm.edu/~cmbrow/