Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/03/20

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Subject: [Leica] GOOD things about the i950
From: Martin Howard <mvhoward@mac.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 00:26:51 -0800

OK, it occurred to me that I've mostly been moaning about this thing.  
While finding a working configuration took a while (and inability to 
use custom sized paper), there are a number of things that just worked 
fine out of the box and I've never had to worry about.  These include:

	* No hint of microbanding
	* Even tones in even toned areas
	* Smooth tonal transitions
	* No "dots" in highlights

I have one shot, a 35mm Ilford Delta 100 neg, shot on a sunny Swedish 
summer's day, with a yellow filter, on the 7-element, pre-ASPH 35mm 
Summilux at about f/5.6 or f/8.  The sky is almost a perfect even tone, 
at about 4% black (0% would be paper white), with very, very faint 
clouds visible.  Printed at 7x10" on 8.5x11" paper it looks absolutely 
even, is wonderfully detailed, has a beautiful tonal range, and no hint 
of microbanding, dots, or any other printer artifacts.  7x10" prints of 
35mm Tri-X negs preserves that wonderful grain structure.  And 7x10" 
prints of 35 year old, out of date, underexposed purple-cannister 
Plus-X negs look pretty much the way you'd expect them to.

While I'm hoping that the relative newness of both the printer and the 
operating system (OS X 10.2) means that in the issues I have with it 
will be resolved, in all other respects as a photo printer, I'm happy 
with it and don't regret the purchase.

M.

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