[Leica] a shot in the dark - life at iso 25600

[kcassidy at asc.upenn.edu (Kyle Cassidy)]

Richard sed:

>Why? No offense to Kyle as I am a BIG fan of his photography but when is the
>last time you see a ISO 100000 PRINT that you want to hang in your house?

I don't know what percentage of my photos have, from the outset, the final 
destination of a frame. There are surely what I consider "art" images that I 
strive for as much sharpness and clarity as possible, but a good deal of 
what I do from day to day is more "news" or "reportage" (or whatever), where 
proving that something happened is more important than technical perfection. 
I think a lot of Leica shooters want the ability to shoot in very low light 
without using a flash. Super high ISO's do increase the amount of available 
light which is useful available light. Leica shooters, I think, have often 
been on the forefront of fast film and slow shutter speeds, eeking out that 
last photon from the candle. 

In this instance though a Leica shooter could have used a noctilux and 
gotten three stops on my shot and done it at 1600, focus might have been a 
bit more wonky, but someone could do it. Leica's got it's own edge, but I 
suspect the iso speeds will catch up eventually.