Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/09/29

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: RE: [Leica] Thoughts on digital and the impact on Leica
From: Henning Wulff <henningw@archiphoto.com>
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 14:10:41 -0700
References: <NABBLIJOIFAICKBIEPJJKEGDCCAB.darkroom@ix.netcom.com>

At 3:22 PM -0400 9/29/02, Austin Franklin wrote:
>  > .....I suppose which side of the fence you are on means you are going to
>>  promote your team.
>
>Steve,
>
>You're certainly correct, but badly done testing (or biased, intentional or
>not, reading of the results) is simply unacceptable.
>
>I don't mean to sound arrogant at all, but I'm not on any fence with respect
>to this issue.  I have been designing digital imaging equipment for over 20
>years, and I have done VERY extensive testing in this area, and I know the
>facts first hand.  I KNOW that claim is simply wrong.  I've done hundreds
>and hundreds of tests, and the conclusions drawn by this "article" are
>simply flawed, or misleading at the least.

So, in your hundreds and hundreds of tests of Canon 1Ds 11Mp cameras, 
this is the conclusion you've come to? :-) What we're seeing here 
with this camera is a new level of performance, and in spite of 
preconceptions and 'knowing' the right answer, we'll just have to 
wait until we get a chance to try it ourselves or have someone we 
trust do a test.

>A VERY poorly exposed, developed and scanned, 10 year outdated high speed
>film that was sitting on the dashboard of one's south facing car, in
>Florida, for a week, before being developed, would probably be inferior to
>an 11M pixel Bayer patterned camera.  Is that "fair" to use images from that
>as the poster child for film?  Of course not.

These assumptions, or rather implied assumptions are of the worst 
sort. Michael Reichman definitely seems to be on the digital side of 
the fence, but he has used enough different cameras over a long 
enough period, from Leica through Hasselblad and Sinar, many in a 
professional capacity to know how to handle film. He scans on an 
Imacon, which may not be up there competing with $50,000 drum 
scanners, but is as good or better than what most of us will have 
access to.

I think that before we say that his 'tests' are flawed or misleading 
we need a lot more information. I would tend on first impressions to 
say that Michael Reichman is possibly onto something, in spite of my 
own experience and analysis of the digital vs. film situation at the 
present stage of development.

As others have stated, I also find the Canon and Kodak cameras ugly, 
and of course they need their respective humungous lenses so that 
compactness and discretion are left well behind, and they seem to 
suffer from terminal featuritis, but they possibly do deliver the 
goods for a lot of people. We'll just have to wait and see.

>Also, sharpness has nothing to do with resolution, as I stated in another
>post.  It's something that is commonly misperceived.

Most of us know that quite well, Austin.

>Regards,
>
>Austin


- -- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
  /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
  |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html

In reply to: Message from "Austin Franklin" <darkroom@ix.netcom.com> (RE: [Leica] Thoughts on digital and the impact on Leica)