Re: [Leica] Reasons to use film

[Mark Kronquist <mak@teleport.com>]

Because my wife (she will be Mary Poppins) and I (Indiana Jones) are going
to a movie themed fund raiser for our children s school tonight and a Leica
IIIc is much more period approiate than a digital camera...so on goes the
Cosina 35mm 1.7 in goes Neopan 1600 and off we go! Film lives

> I'm tired of contemplating "digital -- film, which is best". The debate has
> darkened the farthest reaches of my cranium. The nice midtone gray matter
> therein has been so overexposed it's now black (although not Gallerie black
> because if you zoom in you'll see artifacts). I give up. Film is dead.
> Digital wins. But while it's being embalmed, here are some reasons to still
> use film..
> 
> 1) Film is underhyped. At this point it's absolutely devoid of hype. I hate
> hype with a passion. It's the carrot in front of the cart. Digital is the
> mother-of-all-hype at the moment. If you want to know what's behind the
> hype, follow the money trail. It says follow me, again and again. Ask any
> leming where that'll get ya. Reminds me of the days when autofocus arrived
> on the scene. I jumped on board early. Not Nikon AF3 early, but not long
> after that. After buying 4 new bodies in 4 years I gave up and returned to
> my trusty Leica. Took me a couple of rolls to get back into the focusing
> swing of things. Hey, this manual stuff works!!!. I never looked back. I was
> too busy looking into the viewfinder making sure I was in focus. In the back
> of my mind I thought, "someday when the technology matures I'll buy AF."
> Well, that day came around last year. I bought an AF Nikon body because, as
> everyone knows, film cameras are cheap these days. Just like an aging, well
> you know, the worlds oldest profession....mature means inexpensive. I
> quickly discovered that I wasn't disillusioned because the technology wasn't
> mature. I was disillusioned because I don't like AF. I've come to realize
> that moments spent autofocusing are moments wasted.
> 
> 2) Film is bigger. And when it comes to the surface area of capture, size
> matters. It matters even in those little unimportant areas like rendering
> backgrounds out of focus. Affordable chip size isn't going to get any bigger
> until there's a huge technological advancement. So the hypesters have
> convinced us that smaller is better. They refer to the chip as a 1.5 or a
> 1.6 to 1. Oh, that's the lens-focal-length-improvement-ration. And to think
> all these years I could have been using Minox film with my 600mm Nikkor
> making it into a Saturn Rocket. What everyone tries to avoid is saying that
> the actual surface area is s-m-a-l-l-e-r. They finally got serious
> professionals to accept APS as a viable surface size.
> 
> 3) Film works. Finally, a totally rational reason. I know all the marketing
> people (a few of whom I'm certain reside on the LUG in disguise) would have
> us believe overwise, but film really does work for taking pictures. And it
> works pretty darn well. It's so mature it's boring. Digital isn't film. It's
> an alternative to film for some things. For instance, you can never make a
> fully analog image if digital is anywhere in the workflow. At somewhere
> along the way you've incrementalize the sine wave. You've lost information.
> You can drawn a line in the sand with film. With digital you draw points
> along a line. Which is better? Ooops, that's not what this is about.
> 
> DaveR
> 
> 
> 
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