Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/12/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Yes, (I'll take the risk of repeating things that may have been said before) I think you are right. I have spent the last 1.5 decade in the digital world, being a graphics designer, a UNIX system administrator and database developer. I was sweating over repro cameras and light tables before DTP and Photoshop came, and I don't miss the ol' days there. I was producing radio with old Revox tape recorders and loved them, but when digital recording hit the scene I happily threw them out and never looked back. And now, in the days of digital photography I buy an old Leica M (which I used to consider the nerdiest of cameras)! Why? There is something with digital cameras that simply doesn't attract me. One characteristic of advanced technology is simplicity. Digital cameras are by nature complex, and will get more complex with more resolution. (Other types of digital information, like audio and computer imaging, is actually less complex since it requires simpler input devices.) Just imagine the cost of producing a chip with the size and resolution of a large format Linhof camera! And the memory required to store a bunch of such images. When things go toward infinite complexity like that I consider it "bad" technology. It gets expensive, error prone and simply troublesome. For the same reason I lost hope in Internet replacing traditional broadcasting of audio and video. In 1995 I thought it would happen in 2-3 years, and now the telcom companies are going bankrupt trying to provide even the present limited bandwidth. Now I just don't think it will happen. Per > > Film is still the best means of recording an image. The best scanners > do > not yet meet the richness of data that is available on film. > Inevitably, > that time will come, as will digital camera quality. > > I, for one, don't think that that time will ever come. Like most > areas of technology, what drives development is economy. If there is > little or no economic incentive of developing a digital sensor for > cameras, or a scanner, that matches or surpasses chemical film, then > it is unlikely that it will happen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V i s i M e d i a -- G r a p h i c s D e s i g n & W e b P r o d u c t i o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.visimedia.com Tel. +46-416-300 07, +46 70 99 22 55 9 Fax +46-416 300 03 - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html