Photogs re-buying Leicas (was RE: [Leica] decline in LUG membership)

[scott at adrenaline.com (Scott McLoughlin)]

I think digital is really cool except for all the things I
don't really like about it :-)

-1- I'm an amateur, and I've just joined this LUG list, and
after shooting with a Bessa R for 6 months, I'm getting my
first M body. New blood - yay!

-2- I sort of consider Leica's as P&S cameras. Just really good
ones and with manual controls. You know, "fast and small and
available light and handheld" - stuff like that. The super high
quality lenses are just needed to eek a decent image out of the
teeny tiny piece of film.  Versus the "real" MF and LF cameras -
the serious stuff my artist buddy up in NY shoots with.

-3- Re: digital, I just discovered the wonders of FP4+ souped
in HC-110. Now I'm really excited about souping it in Rodinal
for that certain look! I want alot of options and control.  For
now, I do scan and print digitally using MIS B&W inks, but
I'm taking a wet printing class soon because the scanner CCD's
limited dynamic range, weird grain sensitivity and all the
rest just kind of sucks.

-4- So having had a dose of the "digital darkroom," I'm
not that impressed. For me, it's a ton of frustrating work.
All sorts of weird tools. Remove the grain; whoops, add
some back; now the detail is lost; ok, unsharp mask; that
looks weird; adjust the curve; oh no, tons of ugly noise
in the shadows; add contrast in the highlights, whoops
just decimated the skin tones. Wait, those colors don't
look like Velvia 50. Oh, that's a "hard to scan" film.
Underdevelop all your B&W film for low contrast,
"thin" negatives. Regular density just shows up as golf
ball size grain. Ok, finally got it kinda right. But then
the print! Oh calibrate and profile and calibrate again.
Contrast, gamma, blah blah, blah. What a drag.

Same negs hand printed as 5x7 "proof prints" at a
good lab almost always look... better.

-5- Digital?  Oh, me first! I want an expensive APS
camera :-)  Why might I want to further shorten my
dynamic range, film grain options, film/ccd size and
so forth. Even more than the limited small 135 film
format? It's already a compromise! So compromise even
more with the purchase of a rather expensive, plastic
electronics-laden camera that will be "obsolete" in
3 years or less?

-6- Actually, I have an answer to this question. I AM
going to go snag a D70 to learn more about flash. I know
next to nothing about flash and lighting. I've already got
a bunch of Nikon AF primes and an SB-800, so I figure
the "quick turn around" of digital will make the D70
a good tool for screwing around with flash and lighting
and learning that stuff.  Once I get a handle on it, back
to film for the real product. We'll see.

-7- Also, I'm blessed/cursed to have made a career in high
technology, so my closets are just teeming with crazy
expensive electronic devices long rendered obsolete and
mostly useless. Monitors, printers, early SCSI cards,
expensive tape drives - I think I even have the first 10MB
 hard disk I bought back in the '80s somewhere.

So another short half-life expensive electronic gadget
doesn't really bother me all that much :-) 

-8- Ok, this is a little embarrassing for me to say, but my
amateur goal is to create something that is truly beautiful.
Something that combines craft and intellect, intention, feeling,
mastery of a medium and maybe a little luck of the moment. I
feel, or maybe fear, that there's a long road from here to there,
but it's what makes me go out and take photographs (and
practice jazz guitar, but that's for another mailing list).

-9- With that goal in mind, I want some good tools. I also
want tools that won't change much over time. After all,
I want to master a medium, not continually chase an
upgrade path.  My Gibson L4 guitar works pretty much the
way it did in the 1960's, and my new M body will work pretty
much the same as it did in the 1950's (but with a meter).
So long as someone keeps making a few decent black and
white emulsions, I can master the tools and focus on the
truly hard parts of reaching my creative goals.

-10- Thanks to the good Lord and kind fortune, good
tools are within my reach. I love their quality, the feel,
the results - and the continuity of the design.  I fully
understand that folks more talented than I can and do
produce works of beauty with all sorts of tools that
they find either near at hand or appropriate to their
mission (Baltimore's Visionary Art Museum is full
of intriguing examples). And I am always amazed by those
individuals who seem to master almost any new medium
at will.

But I am not made so. I happily chase new technology to
earn my daily bread and profit from the constant change
and churn. But for my more private, inner ambitions, I
seek a medium that will change little over time. 

Hell, maybe I should just take up painting :-)

Anyway, sorry for the long, long ramble, but the mood just
hit. This is a really great list. Thanks all!

Scott

Tim Atherton wrote:

>There certainly are a lot of photographers - pro and am -  finally flogging
>off their M's to get in on the digital rat race (though I'd be more likely
>to sell mine off to buy a Super Symmar XL 110mm...)
>
>That said, in the few days since HCB went to the darkroom in the sky, I've
>come across at least three photojournalists who had sold off their Ms in the
>last year ("they sat in a cupboard and never got used") to go digital but
>who, in various fits of photogrpahic nostalgia, watching all the HCB re-runs
>on Charlie Rose and digging out all their HCB books, are now selling off
>other camera gear to buy back their once beloved Ms and go shoot some Tri-X
>or HP5...
>
>
>tim
>
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