Re: [Leica] Leica vs. Digital: Our divided loyalties

[Seth Rosner <sethrosner@direcway.com>]

Peter, thank you. I've tucked your little gem of thoughts on film vs.
digital away on my hard drive and printed a hard copy for my Leica file in
case of a crash. I've just taken my very first digital photos with a SONY
something or other to illustrate my first sale on the site that may not be
named. Quick, easy and certainly enough detail for the web images.

But you have articulated perfectly why it is extremely unlikely that I shall
get into serious (and expensive) digital.

Seth          LaK 9

- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Klein" <pklein@2alpha.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 11:07 PM
Subject: [Leica] Leica vs. Digital: Our divided loyalties


> I've been thinking a lot about the whole issue of film vs. digital.  And
> how it plays in our special little niche (or is it backwater?) in the
> photographic world.  Here are some of my thoughts--I invite others to
chime in.
>
> Let's leave the marketplace out of it for a moment.  The Defense
stipulates
> that most pros have to shoot digital.  No choice.  Digital is good enough
> for the clients, they want it yesterday, and film doesn't happen fast
> enough.  Either digital or film is  good enough for the snapshooting
> consumers.  They will go the way of most convenience and least cost, and
> wherever the cleverest marketeer leads them.
>
> But. . . Those of us who have bought into the whole Leica subculture have
> different desires than the masses, or the pros.  A lot of Leica people are
> into getting the best quality possible.  "Good enough" isn't good
> enough.  Some of us want transparencies we can blow up to gargantuan
> proportions and still see detail.  Some of us want to probe the fleeting
> dance of human interaction with a fleet-footed camera, and plumb the
> dimmest locales with a bright, clear eye.  Some of us feel a connection to
> the golden age of photoreportage, where film grain, shallow depth of field
> and the optical defects of wide-open lenses are part of the asthetic, and
> we are one with the basic controls of camera.  Leica cameras and lenses
are
> beautifully suited to these tasks.
>
> Digital is a funny beast.  It is *very* different from Leica M
> photography.  All those old jokes about programming a VCR apply.  Instead
> of three controls right under your fingers, you've got hundreds of
> parameters arranged into menus.  Instead of controlling the camera based
on
> experience, you are programming a computer to (hopefully) make the camera
> do what you would do yourself if you were in control.
>
> If you set things up correctly beforehand, you can shoot much faster than
> you could with the manual Leica.  But the dance of humanity is often more
> complex than the parameters you set up.  By the time you re-select the
> active focusing zone or change the metering from matrix to spot, the
moment
> is gone.
>
> Then there is the fact that silver halide molecules are smaller than
> man-made sensors.  Their "grid" is random, not fixed, and more
> forgiving.  It takes a lot of sensors and processing power, memory and
disk
> space to equal what those molecules can do.  You can change film much more
> easily than change your sensor.  That Bayer pattern sensor is feeding
> software that guesstimates detail that may or may not be there.  But
within
> the bounds of those fixed sensors, parameter tweaking can give you
> flexibility not dreamed of a few years ago.
>
> Digital is a great learning tool.  Instant results, instant feedback,
> instant gratification.  It's also a trap--the lure of yet another software
> tool, yet another set of parameter tweaks, and you spend more time messing
> with bits and bytes than seeing and taking photographs.
>
> Digital *looks* very different than film.  Film shooters are used to
images
> that have a toe and a shoulder.  Digital hits zero or 255 and
> splat!  That's it.  You can't dodge it out or burn it in because it just
> isn't there.   Then there's the Megapixel madness.  Not all megapixels are
> created equal.  The shots Phong took of his family with the 3-megapixel
D30
> run rings around my little Coolpix 990, with the same 3
> megapixels.   Noise, dynamic range, sensor interpolation, sharpening,
> compression.  All that stuff is part of the black box.  You think you've
> got it down, then you tweak one little parameter and everything changes.
>
> Sometimes the results are exquisite.  But sometimes the results look like
> crap, and they get published anyway because digital is new, and new is
> supposedly better.  See the Lake County article in the June 2003 National
> Geographic for side-by-side examples of the best and worst of digital.
>
> Digital is now in an exciting explosion of growth.  In a way it's like the
> 1920s and 30s, with software and sensor alchemy substituting for
> chemistry.  But to get the most out of it, you have to buy a new camera
> every year.  Expensive.
>
> The bottom line for me is that digital is something I want to know about
> and play with.  But right now it's more about the process than it is about
> seeing and taking pictures.  And there is something about it that seems at
> odds with the whole "decisive moment" philosophy of photography.  There's
> too much "stuff" between me and those fast-moving people.
>
> And then again, this past weekend I took and posted more pictures in a day
> with the Coolpix than I ever did with film.  A few shots were decent, and
> they were fun to take.  Then I looked closely and saw the noise and the
> looming limits of 3 megapixel resolution.  And I found myself in the
throes
> of megapixel envy and technological turpitude.
>
> Hmm, I thought, the Olympus C-5050 prices are dropping.  There might be an
> improved Lumix Lika Leica out soon.  B.D. gets great results with his
> E-20.  I've seen superb pictures from that funny-shaped Sony F-717.  Used
> D30s are getting really cheap, and people ditching D60s for the 10D.  I've
> got a little angel on one shoulder telling me to shoot with the Leica, and
> a little devil on my other shoulder urging me to get deeper into
> digital.  I'm being seduced.  I sort of like it, and I sort of don't.
>
> --Peter Klein
> Seattle, WA
>
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