Re: [Leica] M6 Shutter accuracy?

["Gareth Jolly" <garethjolly@bigpond.com>]

Don wrote:


>Someone posted a message advising that the great majority of Leica "prints"
>are "scanned" rather than enlarger printed.  Could some of those who are
>"scanning" their prints enlighten us in regard to the quality provided by
>"scanning" versus prints from Tech Pan or Kodachrome negatives enlarged
using
>Focomats, Durst L1200's or other really good enlargers with APO enlarging
>lenses.  It may be that "scanning" does not do justice to high quality
camera
>equipment so there is no need for Leica to provide equipment that so
awesome
>that prints and slides from Leica equipment is discernible with the eye
from
>the equipment of other manufacturers.

I have a Nikon LS 20 Coolscan and Epson Photo EX A3 printer.  I print in a
dark room using a Leitz Focomat II (don't quote me, I could be wrong -
unfortunately not mine).

I really only print black and white.

I am a reasonable darkroom printer and an average computer printer.

My personal experience is that a good darkroom print (on fibre based paper)
remains significantly better than a good print on my system for a range of
reasons.  The most obvious are:

1.   my scanner cannot capture the same detail on a negative yet as an
enlarger can print.  This becomes more obvious with cropping and significant
enlargements.

2.  my printer prints only has black ink - no grey ink.  It gets grey tones
by spacing black dots.  A Zone IX sky is a range of widely spaced dots.

3.  my scanner captures only 256 tones of grey (including black and white).
Others (Nikon LS 2000, for example) capture more.  I believe (can someone
confirm?) that my printer is only capable of producing 256 tones of grey.

4.  there seems to be something about the detail you can capture in a
darkroom print in subtle ways which does not seem to be present in my
computer prints.

5.  in a computer print, everything is resolved into square pixels.  This
becomes more obvious with diagonal lines.  I don't find that as
aesthetically pleasing.

6.  for me, scanned images don't capture the same sharpness.  But, I suspect
this is partly due to me not having a full handle on the technology
(especially, use of unsharp masks).

7.  computer prints are not archival.  Or anything like it.  Try, a year or
two in light.  Compare that to 50 + for an archivally washed fibre based
print toned in selenium.

Which is perhaps a way of saying, nothing beats holding a great fibre based
print in your hands.

But:

1.  Computers and scanners are getting better very rapidly, as shown by
progress over the last few years.  They'll get dramatically better again.
Companies are working on a number of the issues above - e.g resolution of
the scan, archivability of prints, development of printers / print
cartridges using grey inks etc

2.  Computers and scanners are very convenient.  I use mine to get an image
the way I want it (crop, rough idea of tones and details etc) before I head
into a darkroom

My conclusions need to be qualified because:

1.  I have a cheaper, although good, negative scanner.

2.  I'm not yet getting the best from computer set up - in particular, my
printer and monitor need proper calibration.

I also suspect that we also have a statistical skew on this list towards
scanners - we're all on email and PCs, after all.

Finally, you can definitely pick a Leica photo - even on the web.  They
stand out.  But I think there are aspects of Leica photography which can
best be appreciated on a darkroom print.


Regards
Gareth