RE: [Leica] OT: The endless nonsense about film vs. digital (long rant)

["Phong" <phong@doan-ltd.com>]

Hello Rafael,

I have a few comments regarding the web page you
quoted:   http://www.photo.net/digital/cameras/choosing

1. The article is quite old (from 1998 ?) and the information
on the state of the art and prices is outdated.  Nonetheless,
I agree with the order film, scanned film, digital.

2.  In terms of image quality, I suspect many, if not most,
people who choose digital do it because it is "good enough",
not because it is as good as, or better than film.

3.  Scanning would have been the best solution for me,
except  it is still too time consuming (or too expensive,
if done by a lab).  I keep watching for improvement in this area.

Regards,

- - Phong


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Rafael
> Alday
> Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 3:24 AM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: The endless nonsense about film vs. digital
> (long rant)
>
>
> Take a look at this article on photo.net
>
> http://www.photo.net/digital/cameras/choosing
>
> They expain why the quality of film is the highest,
> followed by scanned film (3 CCD one for each color)
> and the last one digital cameras (only 1 CCD with
> mixtuted colors) and 8 bits.
> Very intesresting article.
> Rafael
>
>  --- Martin Howard <mvhoward@mac.com> escribió: >
> > I subscribe to Photo Techniques, the US magazine
> > primarily for LF
> > weenies, but also a great bogroom read for wannabees
> > like myself
> > (actually my real reason for subscribing to it is
> > David Vestal's
> > column).  While seated upon the aforementioned
> > facility this evening, I
> > came across an article by Paul Schranz in the latest
> > issue (Nov/Dec
> > 02).  He writes about "conventional" and digital
> > photography, a sort of
> > personal odyssey through technology and back.  In
> > this, we can find the
> > following sentences:
> >
> > 	Film is still the best means of recording an image.
> > The best scanners
> > do
> > 	not yet meet the richness of data that is available
> > on film.
> > Inevitably,
> > 	that time will come, as will digital camera
> > quality.
> >
> > I, for one, don't think that that time will ever
> > come.  Like most areas
> > of technology, what drives development is economy.
> > If there is little
> > or no economic incentive of developing a digital
> > sensor for cameras, or
> > a scanner, that matches or surpasses chemical film,
> > then it is unlikely
> > that it will happen.
> >
> > Fine art photographers seem to be split in two
> > communities: those who
> > vow to continue with film, printing on fibre paper
> > to archival
> > standards, and those who dabble with digital images
> > at some point in
> > the process.  (An interesting aside is a group who
> > belong to the
> > former, but still use computers to produce masks
> > which are subsequently
> > sandwiched with the original negative for [contact]
> > printing.)  The
> > most fervent arguments about quality seem to be
> > raged in this
> > community.  Is digital good enough?  Can you tell
> > the difference
> > between a chemical print and an inkjet print?
> >
> > In reality, fine art photographers don't count worth
> > a toss.  They're
> > about as important to the those that fund the
> > digital photography
> > development as the super-heavy-weight vinyl LP
> > weenies are to the music
> > industry.
> >
> > What matters are large volume, commercial
> > photographers and the general
> > public.  I'd guess that the commercial photographers
> > that count are (a)
> > advertizing, (b) press.  Both of these are
> > characterized by a degree of
> > ephemerality where convenience and "good enough" are
> > more important
> > than whether something is qualitatively the same as
> > a archival,
> > selenium toned, fibre print at 20x24" from an 8x10"
> > T-MAX 100 negative
> > observed through a 5x Schneider loupe.  The same
> > goes for the general
> > public: good enough is good enough.
> >
> > What will happen is that digital (camera) technology
> > will improve to
> > the point where three things coincide: (a) tiered
> > quality and pricing
> > ("consumer", "prosumer", "professional");  (b)
> > quality improvements
> > until "good enough" (given the application area) has
> > been reached;  (c)
> > ease-of-use issues, convenience, and infra-structure
> > break above the
> > cost-of-entry for new consumers.
> >
> > Once this happens, improvements will not be in the
> > direction of the
> > information capacity of the digital technology and
> > this will probably
> > happen well before digital devices come even close
> > to (i.e., several
> > orders-of-magnitude away from) capturing the amount
> > of information that
> > film does.
> >
> > And, just as you can still buy tube amps, and play
> > new LPs on recently
> > manufactured turntables, I suspect that film will be
> > around for a long
> > while yet.  Existing in a somewhat marginal role,
> > but still existing in
> > parallel with digital imaging.
> >
> > M.

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