[Leica] Re: "the dynamic range of digital"

[drodgers at casefarms.com (David Rodgers)]

George,

I guess what brought this to mind was that for a long time while
scanning I tried to pull as much detail as I could from reversal film.
One day, feeling lazy, I had Walmart make a CD when I took in the film
for developing.  The Frontier scans looked a lot better than my scans.
Yet the Frontier files were 8-bit and mine were 16-bit. The Frontier had
narrow histograms. Mine ran coast to coast.  

Sometimes I get carried away with what I can do -- as in attempt to pull
out every shred of detail -- and not what I should do -- as in block up
the detail because it distracts from the image. 

Kodachrome didn't have much dynamic range. But it had black blacks, red
reds and white whites; vast wastelands of bold uniform tones that
grabbed the eye, coupled with Summicron carved transitions that were
razor sharp. The result....snappy snaps....Casals' Cello versus John
Cage's noise!  

daveR
   

-----Original Message-----
From: Lottermoser George [mailto:imagist3@mac.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 1:26 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: "the dynamic range of digital"

Hi David - I don't think dynamic range is a holy grail in and of itself.
However, within any medium of expression, control of the variables to  
achieve desired effects does the artist or craftsperson make.
Musicians practice scales and work on tonal quality. We, as  
photographers, also have a scale of values, tones, hues, saturations  
with which to communicate.

Regards,
George Lottermoser
george@imagist.com



On Sep 22, 2006, at 11:40 AM, David Rodgers wrote:

> If dynamic range was the Holy Grail why didn't chrome film die a long
> time ago and only reversal film survive?