[Leica] Violins, lenses and cameras

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

Peter,
Tools do matter. It is in choosing the best tool for a purpose that
personal prejudices seep in, and we frequently end up with something
sub optimal for that particular purpose.

In answer to Luis, I beg to differ. Music, like all arts, should be
performed for the benefit of the audience, otherwise it is all a
waste...(-:

Cheers
Jayanand


On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 3:57 AM, Peter Klein <pklein at threshinc.com> wrote:
> A number of my friends are symphony musicians.  Today, one of them posted 
> on
> Facebook that she had found a great online deal on a set of high-end violin
> strings, and wondered if they were OK.  This led to a discussion of the 
> fine
> points of shelf life, variants of the brand, and whether a platinum-coated
> E-string is better than a plain tin one.
>
> And I wished that the "your camera (or lens) doesn't matter" crowd were
> listening in.  Yes, musicians argue over instruments, strings, reeds and
> mouthpieces, just as artists *do* argue over paintbrushes, and 
> photographers
> argue about cameras and lenses.  Does anyone seriously believe that  a 
> cheap
> school-orchestra fiddle should sound as good as a Stradivarius or Guarneri
> violin?  Yes, the best players might be able to make the bad fiddle sound
> reasonably good, but no way would it sound as good as the Strad.
>
> So why do some of us constantly down people who prefer Lens A over Lens B,
> or Camera 1 over Camera 2?   The lens "resonates" the light, emphasizing
> some aspects while diminishing others, just as the instrument resonates the
> sound.  The camera's ergonomics and design are optimum for one type of
> picture over another.  And a camera that you have to fight to get the shot
> is just as hampering as the violin with a bad "wolf" tone in an exposed
> passage.
>
> Yes, of course musicians can get cultlike about this brand over that, just
> as photographers do about cameras and lenses.  Yes, a good photographer my
> be able to take a decent picture with any camera or lens, just as the
> musician may be able to turn in a decent performance with any instrument.
> But if my friend is going to play a big solo, she wants the best violin and
> strings she can afford. If you handed her a cheap school fiddle and told 
> her
> that "instruments don't matter, it's the musician that makes the music," 
> she
> would probably think you were an ignoramus (to be charitable). And she'd be
> right.
>
> The hard truth is:  Tools do matter.  Maybe not so much with Web-sized 
> JPGs,
> and maybe not to rank beginners.  But once you're doing things "for real,"
> they do matter. A lot.
>
> --Peter
>
>
>
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