[Leica] Violins, lenses and cameras

[jshulman at judgecrater.com (Jim Shulman)]

All this reminds me of a favorite Jackie Mason story:

Two old men are talking one afternoon.  One asks his friend,
"Sam, what's with the new Mercedes?  Why not another Cadillac?"
Sam replied, "There's a reason I wanted the Mercedes: it's the
engineering."
Sam's friend thought a minute and said, "So, how much engineering do you
need for driving 15mph to the early bird special?"

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+jshulman=judgecrater.com at leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+jshulman=judgecrater.com at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Peter Klein
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2014 6:27 PM
To: lug; olympus at thomasclausen.net
Subject: [Leica] Violins, lenses and cameras

A number of my friends are symphony musicians.  Today, one of them posted
on Facebook that she had found a great online deal on a set of high-end
violin strings, and wondered if they were OK.  This led to a discussion of
the fine points of shelf life, variants of the brand, and whether a
platinum-coated E-string is better than a plain tin one.

And I wished that the "your camera (or lens) doesn't matter" crowd were
listening in.  Yes, musicians argue over instruments, strings, reeds and
mouthpieces, just as artists *do* argue over paintbrushes, and
photographers argue about cameras and lenses.  Does anyone seriously
believe that  a cheap school-orchestra fiddle should sound as good as a
Stradivarius or Guarneri violin?  Yes, the best players might be able to
make the bad fiddle sound reasonably good, but no way would it sound as
good as the Strad.

So why do some of us constantly down people who prefer Lens A over Lens
B, or Camera 1 over Camera 2?   The lens "resonates" the light,
emphasizing some aspects while diminishing others, just as the instrument
resonates the sound.  The camera's ergonomics and design are optimum for
one type of picture over another.  And a camera that you have to fight to
get the shot is just as hampering as the violin with a bad "wolf" tone in
an exposed passage.

Yes, of course musicians can get cultlike about this brand over that, just
as photographers do about cameras and lenses.  Yes, a good photographer my
be able to take a decent picture with any camera or lens, just as the
musician may be able to turn in a decent performance with any instrument.
But if my friend is going to play a big solo, she wants the best violin
and strings she can afford. If you handed her a cheap school fiddle and
told her that "instruments don't matter, it's the musician that makes the
music," she would probably think you were an ignoramus (to be charitable).
And she'd be right.

The hard truth is:  Tools do matter.  Maybe not so much with Web-sized
JPGs, and maybe not to rank beginners.  But once you're doing things "for
real," they do matter. A lot.

--Peter



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