Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I've been in my darkroom for the past two days. Emerging occasionally to catch the latest LUG chatter. After reading through the miles of "LensE testing...", the simple question begs... "why?" And I have a question Austin. How can you actually do "round one" of testing, or any testing at all, when, upon looking at the LUG e-mail times, you have never left your computer??? Are you simulating this? Or is it just the usual. Talking it to death. In order to show two images with possible differences, you have to actually take them on film, with a camera and lens, good fine grain film, process it properly, and then evaluate it carefully with a very good loupe. Unless someone comes over to your house and looks at them with you, or you snail mail the transparencies to someone else, your test is basically for your own edification. You will be telling everybody that with YOUR camera and YOUR filters in a situations set up by YOU, you see something, or not. Not exactly helpful to anybody. Actually a detriment as someone might actually believe something you say. So the question still begs... Why in hell is all of the LUG bandwidth wasted by totally incomprehensible chatter around someone, who has no discernable photographic background, has offered nothing to the industry, yet promising to "get to the bottom of the filter debacle" to satisfy that someone's own incapability to understand the simplicity of the answer. As the AD said... "where's the beef?" No testing need be done. Just use very simple everyday logic. What everyone should actually do is very very simple. Listen to the experts. The people who have been doing this (photographing) for decades, for a living. When do/did the following people use filters when taking photographs: Ted Grant, Mark Rabiner, Harrison McClary, Galen Rowell, Pat O'Hara, Mark & David Muench, Ernst Wildi, Ansel Adams, the Westons, HCB, all of the students coming out of Brooks Institute of Photography, all of the students coming out of the RIT photography program, anyone with two brain cells to rub together? Answer: When the filter will ENHANCE the photograph. Actually make it BETTER. BETTER! Yes, BETTER. If a filter cannot make the photograph BETTER, why in hell would someone use one? This makes absolutely no sense. Absolutely NO SENSE. Yes, absolutely no sense what-so-ever! Sort of like using flash when taking a vast landscape, or aerial photographs. Why? Oh, because it can help in some situations, so I just left it on! I see, so that's why those rocks in front of the camera are totally burned out. You see, the filter protects my lens from damage, when I use my camera as a hammer, and the flash keeps my hot shoe from getting dirty. Aaah... got it! As Ted says, "KISS." Keep It Simple Stupid. If something is not going to help your photograph, leave it off. Don't use it. Abstain! Therefore, Austin, you can take test photographs until the mad cows come home. It will not do anyone, including yourself, any good, what-so-ever! The answer to the filter question is as simple as the answer was to the "drag the film back and forth through the felt cassette lips yet once again" question. For the filter, don't use one unless you KNOW FOR SURE that it will ENHANCE your photograph. About the fuzzy lips... listen to the same people quoted above, and simply refrain. Jim NO FUZZY LIPS! NO UV! NO JUNK SCIENCE THREADS! At 06:35 PM 2/25/01 -0500, Austin Franklin wrote: > >Yes, but you can visually tell the difference, and they do both taste >different. With the filters, if I show you two images, one with, and one >without, unless you can tell me which one is which, most every time, then >it's all in your mind. > >After his first round of testing is done, I am game to do a second round of >double blind perception tests. I'll cross that bridge when I get there... >