Re: [Leica] Is the Leica an endangered species?

[Harrison McClary <hmcclary@earthlink.net>]

Arturo,

While this may be true for wire services and newspapers it is far from 
true for the majority of publications. Just because he wires and news 
print go one way means nothing to the general consumer as far as films 
go.  Keep in mind most wire services used to shoot chrome exclusively, 
then one day saw the light and started to use color negs.  Now that 
digital has gotten "good enough" for newsprint they have switched to this 
for speeds sake.

In my line of work I shoot almost exclusively for various magazines the 
world over and I can not remember ANY of them saying color neg is ok on a 
shoot, all have requested slides (well I did shoot B&W for "Barrons" a 
time or two) even though on some of the shoots neg would have been the 
far better film to use.

Reasons for this are:
1) When you have the color correct in a slide it is there, in a negative 
it is up to the person doing the printing to determine correct color.  If 
I have gotten up at 4am to get the perfect light for a shot the last 
thing I want is some jerk in a lab deciding the light is too yellow/red 
and correcting my color out of the image.  I know this still happens at 
the separation stage in printing, but with a slide you can always take it 
to the printer and have an unargueable original that shows what the color 
should have been.  Also many times I use colored gels to create a certain 
effect.  It is hard enough getting these effects right on color slide 
film, much less having to worry about the loss in quality by going one 
more step of a print, or sending the negs off with out an accurate color 
proof having been done by a local lab (unthinkable IMHO).  Doing the 
color proof takes time and most of my clients want the film the day after 
the shoot.

2) Many of the people editing images are not photographers and have no 
idea what the heck they are looking at, and if you throw a bunch of 
negatives on a light table in front of them they are really lost (Heck 
most of them don't know what they are looking at if you slap them across 
the face with it). Contact sheets NEVER do negatives justice and to get 
proof prints pulled of every frame on a shoot is a lot more expensive 
than chromes are, plus take more time than chrome which at a decent lab 
can be done in 2 hours, and if done "in house" in about 45 minutes.  Also 
just think of someone trying to edit 1000 digital images.  With slides 
you can throw them on a light table compare them side to side and whittle 
it down until you have your edit.  With digital you have to put them on a 
monitor and it would be harder to randomly move the images around and see 
them side to side.  Plus you have to have a really good monitor to see 
the image and a small image does not show up as well on monitor as a 
slide does on a light table-IMHO

I personally think will be a long long time, if ever, that digital 
completely replaces films.  Many people have been forecasting the death 
of slides for years because the negs are so good now, but slides are very 
much alive and kicking.

And movies are still shot on film even though news-footage is on video.

As far as APS goes all of the images I have seen shot in this format are 
not to terribly sharp.  Maybe in 5-10 years it will have progressed to 
the point it can compete with 35 on a professional level, but think of 
all those out there who still insist that it MUST be 2 1/4 for a typical 
magazine cover when modern 35mm films record more than enough data to 
give a great looking cover.  Heck many times people have seen some of my 
work and asked if it was shot on 6x9 when all it is is Velvia 35mm.

AJSymi@aol.com wrote

>The days of emulsion film are numbered.  When you see an entire photo 
>dept. at
>a major newspaper or news agency go digital, look out, its here!  News 
>footage
>used to be done on film until video proved better. 


Harrison McClary
http://people.delphi.com/hmphoto