[Leica] Hardware vs. software

[LRZeitlin@aol.com]

JB writes:

<<Visual image quality is a result of firmware/software fix-ups both in the 

camera and in the host computer. This is true for all digital cameras. What 

you see in a digital camera photograph is 25% hardware technology (there 

are only a few suppliers of sensors and sensor image processing chips) and 

75% software, which works on the pixels after they are captured.>>

This is also true of human vision. The image received on the retina is 
processed numerous times before rising to the level of consious perception. If you 
think perception is a one to one reproduction of the photon pattern on the 
retina, you are mistaken. Corrections are made for color (automatic white 
balance), distortion. size, apparent motion, visual disparity, and image pattern. 
Perceptions are influenced by prior learning, metabolic state, expectation, and 
desire. Even our visualization of photographs as a representation of reality 
must be learned. While what we see is our personal reality, my reality is not the 
same as yours because of our different backgrounds, physical state, and 
expectations. There is enough correlation so that we tend to agree on most things, 
but all of us perceive subtle differences in our common world. Don't believe 
me? Open any textbook on visual perception or cognitive psychology and learn 
about the cerebral processing that occurs between sensation and perception. JBs 
rough relationship of 25% hardware and 75% software is true for what goes on 
in your head as well as in your digital camera.

So enough of this blather about film being "true" and digital being 
"artificial". Both are abstract representations of what is out there. Neither is 
"correct".

Larry Z 
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