[Leica] A Humbling Experience

["Glen M. Robinson" <gmrobinson@imation.com>]

     I just received a humbling experience.  My wife purchased a photo album at
a garage sale yesterday that contained family portraits from Renaas Studio in
Decorah, Iowa.  No one at the sale had a clue who these people are and the date
when these pictures were taken, but based on the clothes they are wearing we
guess that the photographs are at least a century old if not older.

     I have been an amateur photographer for forty or so years and have done my
own darkroom work during much of this time.  I use Leicas, Rolleis, and Canons
and enlarge my Ilford 100 Delta and Kodak Tri-X negatives processed with XTOL
and D-76 with Schneider apo lenses.

     I am terribly humbled by these antique pictures; I cannot produce this type
quality with my high tech gear.  The sharpness, gradation, and other visual
characteristics of these prints are breathtaking.  I realize that these pictures
are contact prints, but are the wonderful films and lenses that we use today in
reality lower in quality in the essential operating parameters than those of
that time?

     Glen Robinson