[Leica] A Negative View

[Afterswift@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/11/99 12:04:32 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us writes:

<< Perhaps because I live here in Silicon Valley, and though I cringe as
 I type it, I have to point out that the days of film are numbered.>>
- -------------------
Byron,

You're overlooking one asset of film: the direct-from-camera negative. It's 
only with sturm & drang that a digital system could produce it. Why is the 
negative so important?

Because the negative is the back-up record of the positive's statement of 
reality.
At least from the POV of a field photographer -- which I am. Second, the 
negative is immediately available; it is its own data storage, compact and 
easy to visually examine. It doesn't require a complex mechanism to call it 
into existence.
At most, I use a little Kodak slide viewer. The negative is also universal; 
anyone can make sense out of it who has any interest. 

You have the impression that photography is ephemeral. If you work and live 
in Silicon Valley that view of the world comes all too easily. A photograph 
isn't abstract. It is a tangible. It is not a mathematical formula. Chemists 
and physicists involved in film research might use intangible means in their 
work; but always the objective is a material product that can be sold off the 
shelf. I'm invoking the nature of photography here. It isn't digital. It's 
analog. 

There's a place for still digital imaging, just as there's one for TV or 
other imaging technologies, present and future. If you slap a digital back on 
a film camera, it ceases to be a mature traditional photographic instrument. 
It becomes something else. Without film, a Leica isn't a Leica.

Best,
Bob