Re: [Leica] Smith-Corona Summicrons (was 35mm, 90mm, and now 50 mm?)

["Dan Post" <dpost@triad.rr.com>]

PAul-
Point well taken; I can see what you mean!
I guess my analogy was as a propos as trying to carve an Hepplewhite
breakfront with a chainsaw!
Dan :o)

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Chefurka" <Paul_Chefurka@pmc-sierra.com>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2000 11:39 AM
Subject: [Leica] Smith-Corona Summicrons (was 35mm, 90mm, and now 50 mm?)


> IMO a more appropriate analogy to photography than writing might be
fine-art
> printmaking.  The tools in that medium are of supreme importance, because
> they directly impact the nature and quality of the finished art.
> Printmakers spend a heck of a lot of time discussing papers, inks, paints,
> the materials they use for plates, presses etc. etc.
>
> Of course the quality of a printmaker's work is more dependent on the
tools
> than ours, but ours is way more tool-driven than a writer's.  A writer's
> output is pure "crystallized thought" - a photograph is an actual objet
> (sometimes even an objet d'art), in which the medium contributes to the
> final statement as much as the photographer's message does.  A trivial
> example of this is to compare the feeling of viewing black and white Leica
> street photographs displayed as 8x10 fiber prints to large-format colour
> landscape work displayed as 2x3 meter rear-projection transparencies.
>
> While it may be true that the brand of camera may be less important than
the
> photographer's vision (the NikCanolta wars come to mind), some tool
choices
> (Minox, or 8x10 view?) will drastically affect the final output.  While we
> may at times wax fetishistic in our thinking about camera equipment, there
> is at the bottom a sound reason for it.
>
> In short, I too think the camera/typewriter analogy is ill-considered.
>
> Paul
>
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Peterson Arthur G NSSC [mailto:PetersonAG@NAVSEA.NAVY.MIL]
> >Sent: Friday, September 22, 2000 10:02 AM
> >To: 'leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us'
> >Subject: RE: [Leica] 35mm, 90mm, and now 50 mm?
> >
> >
> >
> >Dan,
> >
> >I agree with the thrust of your message, and with Buzz's
> >message before it.
> >But as you "harp to [y]our camera group," you may wish to
> >consider that the
> >"analogy of writers" is not an apt one.  There would seem to be a good
> >reason why you "never heard them say, 'Well, I like the
> >Remington rather
> >than the Smith-Corona.'"  A photographer's medium is the
> >photograph, which
> >his camera produces through its lens.  On the other hand, what
> >a typewriter
> >produces is just a typeface, whereas a writer's medium is not
> >a typeface,
> >but rather the words.  A particular typewriter therefore
> >should be far less
> >important to a writer than a particular camera and lens (and film,
> >developer, etc.) to a photographer.  (And in any case, the
> >final, printed
> >edition of a writer's work will almost certainly appear in a different
> >typeface from that of his personal typewriter.)
> >
> >:-)
> >
> >Art Peterson