Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/05/27

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Subject: [Leica] Lens Quality in the Digital Age
From: bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen)
Date: Sat May 27 09:49:56 2006

And who does look at prints with a 20x loupe, other than the printer? I am
constantly amazed by the nonsense of people talking about what they can or
can't see when the examine images with loupes - loupes are for checking
focusing, or the presence or absence of critical detail - not for image
viewing. Oh, you can see "dots" when you look at a digital print with a 20x
loupe? Well, guess what? You can see grain - jagged dots - in a silver print
with a 20x loupe - or your naked eye for that matter if you're close enough
and the print is big enough.

Want to judge the quality of any kind of print? Then put down the damn loupe
and stand back from it at least the distance of the diagonal of the print -
no print is meant to be viewed from closer than that.

Again, are digital prints the same as silver prints, particular fiber
prints? No, despite what some say, they still have a different look and
feel. But that doesn't make the fiber prints "better," at least not any
better than oils are 'better' than water colors, or wood sculpture is better
than, or inferior to, bronze sculpture. They're DIFFERENT.

B. D.
Frustrated in Vancouver, Wash, where it's gray and rainy, my body clock
insisted I get up at 5:30 a.m. and I'd rather be home than wasting Memorial
Day weekend on another one of these mind-numbing epilepsy shoots ;-)


On 5/27/06 11:10 AM, "Tina Manley" <images@InfoAve.Net> wrote:

> At 10:42 PM 5/26/2006, you wrote:
>> Moreover, no inkjet system (and I suspect no lightjet system, about
>> this I am unsure) has the resolution of silver-gelatin or even color
>> printing paper. You look with a 20x magnifier and you see the dots.
>> Nothing wrong with this, except if you are curious about some detail
>> twenty years from now and have only the print.
>> 
>> Have I missed the revolution?
>> 
>> MK
> 
> You haven't seen good inkjet prints ;-)  But then again I don't
> usually look at my prints with a 20x loupe. I hold them at arm's
> length or stand across the room and look at the content not the ink dots.
> 
> I totally disagree about the quality of digital.  Digital surpasses
> almost all film.  And I'm using the same lenses with digital that I
> did with film.
> 
> Tina
> 
> Tina Manley, ASMP, NPPA
> http://www.tinamanley.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
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In reply to: Message from images at InfoAve.Net (Tina Manley) ([Leica] Lens Quality in the Digital Age)