Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/12/04

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Subject: RE: [Leica] OT - Apple comments Computers same as cameras?
From: Eric Welch <ewelch@neteze.com>
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 07:47:54 -0800

At 11:41 PM 12/3/1999 -0800, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote:
>Some tools are more pleasant to work with than others, though. A quality
>photograph taken with a Canon EOS-1n is indistinguishable from one taken
>with a Leica M6 except for the rarest of cases. Can you tell whether I
>typed this note in Netscape Navigator on my Macintosh or in pine on my
>UNIX host? No, you cannot, except by examining the SMTP email header for
>the originating signature. It's the same concept

It is not the same concept. There are differences between the two. One 
being the Internet becomes the filter through which all data gets taken 
down to basic bits and bytes and then reassembled. If you put a Leica photo 
through a cheap enlarging lens, the concept holds up. But it falls apart 
when you use an all-Leica path, such as a V35, or a Leica projector (with 
Leica or Navitar lenses), a top-quality scanner or a very good enlarging 
lens. Then the quality is transferred to the final image. Computers are 
like camera bodies, not lenses. There is no qualitative difference in the 
use of the body that is directly translatable to the image (other than 
something like the difference between AF in an F5 and an F4, then with the 
F5 you'll get more in-focus pictures). Lenses are the opposite. Otherwise, 
why are we not using the cheapest lenses we can? The answer to that is 
either quality, or pride of ownership, or it "feels good."

Most people use the cheapest computers they can - because there is no 
difference in the document in the end. Though smart people use Macs for a 
number of jobs, because it get the job done easier, faster and with the 
right color calibration. PCs haven't caught up in pre-press/desktop 
publishing until Windows 2000 is out and working everywhere. By then OSX 
will be out, and Mac will jump ahead again with a real UNIX (i.e. 
stable,  fast, cooler) alternative to W2K.

I think I'll go out and buy a G4! :-)

Eric Welch
Carlsbad, CA

http://www.neteze.com/ewelch

More hay, Trigger? No thanks, Roy, I'm stuffed!