Re: [Leica] Holy memory

[Stephen Gandy <Stephen@CameraQuest.com>]

c'mon Mike, surely you are not implying some photogs  with the sharpest lenses
have the dullest pics.

isn't that why we spend so much time worrying about how great our lenses are, so
we can prove what great photogs we are?   our  pics are not important so long as
our lens tests look great.  some people have proven this many time on the LUG,
by now it should be accepted as fact.

if our lens tests are great, so are we.  to borrow from the Bard,  the lens test
is the thing, not the image.   hell, if pictures were important, the LUG
wouldn't spend so much time talking about lens tests, now would we?

so get with it Mike,  test a few lenses and forget these boring discussions of
dead guys that don't have one published lens test to their credit.  forget the
myth of "the Leica Glow,"  what could seven decades of Leica photographers know
to make such an unsupported claim.   pictures ?  ha, what good are pictures ?
give me a good lens test any day, lens testers rule !  please note this is
copyrighted, part of a future published article on Bullshit.

Stephen Gandy


Mike Johnston wrote:

> >I do think there is something to this Leica "Glow" thing, in part based on
> >Dermott seeing immediately on the light box something was different (the
> >"Glow") [snip]
> >Dermott has also said that with Leica lenses there really is a difference
> >apart from every other brand he has ever printed.
>
> True. They're better! <g>
>
> I'm not saying there's anything wrong with good lenses. I love good lenses.
> I love Leica lenses. Where I hop off the bandwagon is where someone OPINES
> that 1) good photographs can't be taken with other makes of lenses (utter
> nonsense) or b) that sharpness / resolution / lp/mm somehow helps a
> photograph be good. What crap.
>
> Hit the archives...look at lots of work...look at a thousand pictures from
> 50 years ago and tell me none of 'em look good. Some of 'em look WONDERFUL.
>
> In fact, about the same percentage as if you look at a thousand pictures
> today!
>
> A couple of points pop to mind. First, Nancy Rexroth did a very fine book in
> the '70s ('60s??) called _Iowa_ with a plastic toy camera that had a
> single-element lens made of plastic. And some of the pictures were great,
> and the book was great and so influential that a whole raftload of
> photographers copied her and the others who were working with that toy
> camera, and it got to be a fad. The fad is long gone now, but guess what? At
> least a few of the photographers who tried the toy camera when it was a fad
> _also_ took good pictures with it. I'm sorry my memory is so holy that I
> don't remember more of their names offhand.
>
> And I just dippped into my library and came across a wonderful book by a
> photographer I don't know very much about, name of Eric Newby (maybe an
> English Lugger can tell me more about him). The book is called _What the
> Traveller Saw_. And it's an absolutely wonderful book, full of great
> pictures. Most taken with an old Pentax and a budget 50mm lens. But taken by
> a good PHOTOGRAPHER.
>
> If you can't take a good picture with a bad lens, you can't take a good
> picture with a good lens. The art is in using the tools artfully, not in the
> tools themselves.
>
> --Mike