[Leica] Leica or not to Leica

[lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)]

 Tina,


The LUG has over 2000 members. I suspect that fewer than 10% make their 
living by photography and even fewer sell to stock agencies. Any of a score 
of professional quality cameras will meet the criterion set by stock 
agencies. Also, by definition, photos posted in the LUG Gallery ARE on the 
web. You are speaking for a tiny minority of LUGGERs, Owning a Leica, and I 
have several, is like owning a Rolex watch. It is nice to handle, provides 
pride in ownershio, implies a certain degree of affluence, allies you with 
James Bond, but is functionally equivalent to a $50 Timex.?


Lsrry Z


But we are not all photographing just for the web.? Try and get your
digital photos accepted by a stock agency.? Or printed as a large print.
Resolution matters.


Tina




On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 8:31 PM, <lrzeitlin at aol.com> wrote:


?Enough of this praise of Leica superiority. It is tiresome even on the
LUG. For most practical purposes Leicas are not superior to other cameras.




The limit to image quality, especially for images presented on the
internet, is set by the viewing device. In the case of an HD TV, a 35 mm
full frame image need only have 45 lines/mm to appear perfectly sharp. Even
if the image is viewed on the top quality 27" Mac monitor it need only have
60 l/mm to appear sharp. These image resolution standards are only slightly
greater than those that the old Modern Photography magazine rated as
minimally acceptable. Every camera I own, no matter how cheap or how old
can meet the resolution standard required by modern image viewing systems.
Every Leica lens ever made, except possibly the old Thambar portrait lens,
will exceed the minimum resolution criteria. By actual test my widely
disparaged 75 year old Elmar 35 mm f3.5, Leica's first wide angle, resolved
68 l/mm.?




Some zealots on the LUG seem to obsess over the latest and greatest Leica
lenses and the imaging characteristics and the size of electronic sensors.
While these may be interesting topics in themselves, they have almost
nothing to do with the pictures posted on the LUG and viewed on a computer
screen. The best is the enemy of "good enough." Get out there and take
meaningful pictures. Don't blather endlessly about technical perfection.




Larry Z