Re: [Leica] Photos on the Web

[Alan Ball/LUNA<AlanBall@csi.com>]

I agree the monitor is not the main problem, except for colour calibration 
purposes. Just like a "bad" 10x loupe will show sharpness differences 
between slides, even though a "good" 10x loupe will show them better.

But the main obligation here is to publish a  (very) small portion of a 
(very) high res scan to allow discussions on optical performances of 
lenses. Hardly anyone goes through the pain of doing this (know a site ?). 
And it would be quite boring .

So, let us summarize: the Web can be a great medium to showcase one's 
ability to shoot relevant and/or interesting and/or moving and/or 
innovative and/or informative and/or saleable images; it is a disappoiting 
medium for those who want to showcase the 'superiority' of high end super 
expensive hardware. 

At the end of the line, the Web is much more cruel than other forms of 
image publication or projection towards the unimaginative or the plain 
boring pictures. Too many sites miss that point : it is perfectly OK to 
share happy snapper pictures with the rest of the world but it sure is 
risky to present them as a showcase for one's high end photographic 
equipment or one's 'artistic sensibility'...

Alan
Brussels-Belgium




"Patrick G. Sobalvarro" <pgs@sobalvarro.org> on 17/06/98 07:30:22
Please respond to leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
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Subject:        Re: [Leica] Photos on the Web

TEAShea@aol.com wrote:
> 
> <<  If one has two
>  exposures that show differences in lens quality, then one can show that
>  on the Web by showing small portions of the scan on a Web page >>
> 
> Patrick, you make a good point, but can a monitor ever show the subtle
> differences, even of a portion of a photo?

If you're talking about subtle differences in color on transparencies,
the scan introduces an extra level of interpretation that is imperfect. 
But if you're talking about acutance or distortion, I don't see why a
monitor would be unable to display this from one of these 10,000 dpi
scans.  We are just talking about magnifying a small portion of the
image so that very fine detail is visible.

Certainly even with 2700 dpi scans I can see that Royal Gold 400 has
larger dye clouds than Royal Gold 100.

- -Patrick