Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/04/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Adam and Ted, Thank you very much for giving such a good explanation in great patience and tolerance, especially for non-techies. Does it mean that we need to be SMART techie guy (knowing and understanding all variety of techie craps...) before we take the full power, advantages and beauties of digital camera and lens.... It seems to me that if I were SMART techie craps, my pictures will go better, brighter and brilliant .... We are going and moving into digital world, leaving the CLASSIC film behind, even though FILM has been working with us for so long. To be frank, I still love FILM as it teaches and motivates me to think more and innovate more before I press my valuable shutter button in precise and artistic ways.... Cheers, Jacky On 9 April 2014 08:52, Adam Bridge <abridge at mac.com> wrote: > Hi Ted, > > With our M8's it's not so much of an issue because the sensor is smaller. > The weird things happen out at the edges where the light comes in at a > steeper angle. > > When you think of a sensor on a digital camera you need to think of the > light-sensitive part living down in a pit. Sort of like you're standing at > the bottom of a well looking up at the sky. Light from the back of the lens > spreads across the sensor. If you're in the middle then you get all the > light. But out the edges the light hits the side of the pit and doesn't > make it to the bottom. > > The answer is to put a small lens (they call them "micro-lenses" at the > top of the pit which gathers the light and directs it down to the bottom. > But the design of that lens would have to be different for each lens you > mount on your camera. What to do? Well, every camera has a small computer > in it to handle taking the electronic information from each little sensor > location and using that in some rather complex ways to organize it into a > "picture" that makes sense. If the computer knows that you've got a 24mm f2 > lens on it can adjust for both how the light from the lens reaches the > sensor at the bottom of each pit AND it can even adjust for known problems > in the design of that particular lens! > > Of course with film this isn't a problem. With black and white film the > layer of light-sensitive particles is very thin while for color the > different layers are still very thin - no pits! > > I hope this helps. I could probably do a neat little illustration if it > would help you. > > It IS very complicated. We're still at that awkward phase of technology > where exactly how to do the engineering is being worked out in an almost > minute by minute advance. Film, however, has been a mature technology for > decades. Now, if you had started out in photography in the 19th century > you'd have done much the same except you'd be worried about wet plates, or > dry plates, or film, or different formats. That all settled down with a few > formats and lots of well-understood chemistry to make it all happen. Just > think about the different developers used on something like Tri-X and all > the discussions on this list about which was best and how to get the > optimum result. > > That's happening all over again but its even more complex now. But, I > think, it'll start to get simpler again. When my grandson (now 6 months > old) is our age.... > > Happy snaps! As always I read all of your posts and am deeply grateful for > them, even when you're feeling cantankerous. <grin> > > Adam > > On 2014 Apr 7, at 6:56 PM, tedgrant at shaw.ca wrote: > > > I shoot with my M8 and whatever lens it maybe, my images look just super > fine while printing 13X19 size prints. So is there some kind of situation? > Lighting effect? Whatever? A situation where I can shoot a scene and see a > diffeence. I'll rent a coded lens or maybe someone living near by has one > I'll ask a loan for a few hours or so. And shoot with both non-coded and > coded. > > > > Maybe that'll make me see the errors of my anti-coding rants! > > thank you. > > cheers, > > ted > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >