Re: [Leica] Re: Was Copyright questions, in defense of the R8.

["Mark E Davison" <dmark8@qwest.net>]

Anthony A writes:

> Perhaps, but the majority of photography--even great photography--never
pushes
> any technical limits.  Virtually all of the most famous photographs in
history
> required no special considerations from a technical standpoint at all.

I politely disagree.

Almost any photography with slide film and large scene brightness range
(greater than 6 stops) pushes the technical limits of auto-exposure cameras.
This is because the scene brightness range exceeds the exposure range of the
film. Someone needs to decide whether to let the highlights bleach out, or
the shadows go black, or both. This decision is best made by the
photographer.

I have a Nikon 35Ti with 6 segment matrix metering, widely praised by camera
reviewers, and it makes the wrong choice with unerring precision, time and
time again.

With color negative film (which can have an exposure range of 10 or 11
stops) this is never a problem.

Incidentally, this is one of the areas where digital cameras can shine, as
it is technically possible to let you preview the parts of the scene where
the dynamic range of the CCD will be exceeded.


Mark Davison

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Mxsmanic" <mxsmanic@hotmail.com>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Was Copyright questions, in defense of the R8.


> Doug Herr writes:
>
> > I also believe that the technophobe's vision will
> > eventually be limited by reliance on automated
> > camera features.
>
> I don't think there's any connection between the two.  That's like saying
that
> da Vinci's visions of flying machines would not have been possible if he
had had
> ball-point pens and plain copy paper, or Adobe Illustrator.  I'm sure that
da
> Vinci and other persons with talent can have all sorts of vision no matter
what
> medium they use to express themselves.  And for those who have talent but
> dislike the technical side of a medium such as photography, the equivalent
of a
> "point-and-shoot" may be just what they need.
>
> > The automatic features can do a good job of handling
> > the situations that the camera designers expected to
> > occur but where the photographer is pushing the envelope
> > to where the camera's programmers hadn't anticipated,
> > a lack of technical knowledge or an inability to override
> > a camera's automation will become a stumbling block.
>
> Perhaps, but the majority of photography--even great photography--never
pushes
> any technical limits.  Virtually all of the most famous photographs in
history
> required no special considerations from a technical standpoint at all.
>