[Leica] 35 mm format is best?

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

Mark scribbles:

1x crop is what Barnack would be shooting if he was cruising the streets of

Wetzlar and Cologne (K?ln) right now.


If you guys were shooting film would you be out with a stupid Minox?!?!?!

 - - - - -

Give it up Mark. The differences in format sizes that you are obsessing
about are almost irrelevant. Next you will be arguing about how many angels
can dance on the point of a pin. But don't worry, Mark. Your position as the
LUGs "stone in the shoe" is secure.


There is no particular photographic or aesthetic merit in the standard 35 mm
frame size even though some of us fetishise it. Remember that Oskar Barnack
settled on the 24x36 mm frame size simply so he could use leftover lengths
of 35 mm movie film in a camera small enough for an asthmatic engineer to
carry on hikes. He considered the ur-Leica to be a personal camera small
enough to be carried in a coat pocket. In much the same way Walter Zapp
designed the Minox as a personal aide memoire camera small enough to be
carried in a watch pocket. Neither intended their cameras to be a great
pictorial instruments.


Extraordinary means have to be used with Leica sized film images to get
better than just adequate photographs. I'm  impressed by most Leica pictures
posted in the LUG Gallery but Lug members tend to be much better than
average photographers and are dedicated to achieving the best possible
technical results. When the present supply of Leica lenses has crumbled into
dust, photo historians will treat the 35 mm frame size as just one step in
the reduction of image sensing formats from full plate to the future
equivalent of miniature size.


No REAL photographer still using film would shoot important commercial work
or landscapes with anything smaller than medium or large format. Every type
of camera has it's nitch. Exceptional photographs have been taken with
cameras of all sizes, even Minoxes. If you don't believe that, check out the
results of a photo contest just posted on today's Submini-L group at
YahooGroups.com.


http://godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com


But cameras of whatever size are just tools, photographic enablers which
realize images already in the mind of the photographer. Just as you wouldn't
use a sledge hammer to drive a tack, you wouldn't use a tack hammer to drive
a railroad spike.


If you don't believe the vitriol aimed at the 35 mm format, just read the
Medium Format and Large Format web sites. They read exactly like your
comments about the toy like 4/3 format. Even for digital, if the 24x36
format was big enough, why would Leica have developed the S2?


I'm sure that by now I have irritated most members of the LUG. It helps to
remember that the Leica is just a camera, not a religious icon.


Larry Z