Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/07/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I hope you don't pull an HCB on us with that pencil, Erwin! HCB not being the strength of pencil lead but as you know our official LUG role model mascot revered photographer here on the LUG: Henri Cartier-Bresson. But He gave up his Leica for a pencil. Not sure if it rotated though!? Erwin in a sense the LUG is like that Bill Murray Movie "Groundhog Day." We wake up in the morning and "I've got UV Filters Babe" is again playing on the radio by Sonny and Cher! And we run through it ever one more time but this time we try to put an even finer point on it! Jim Bricks list said it all. UV filters, Contax G verses Leica M and on down. A real list of red flags which turn us into lemmings. "How old are we all" almost crashed the internet. "I'd rather crack a filter than a lens" a close second! IN the Holiday season this year my wife and I were at a concert to see a baroque version of Handels "Messiah" and we're talking some LUG issues before it started and I'm bringing her up to date and the guy across from me says "Are you Mark Rabiner from the LUG?" It was Damian Dlugolecki!! and he made the gut strings for many of the players in the concert we were watching. Damians Not quite a lurker though athouh he leaves his computer for months at a time, I almost didn't' lurk during the concert they almost had to gag me as we had done that famous piece of music in my college choir and I knew it by heart. In another concert they have here "Sing your own Messiah" all the lurkers join in! Audience participation is the rule! Forever. And Ever! Johnny Deadman has started his Photoshop list this week so much of this venting is being done over there! I'm learning a lot from it and joining in and having fun! My darkroom is optimized for 20x24. I can do 16x20 fiber prints there quite easily. But for years unfortunately I standardized at 8x10. Slightly better than the standard even here on the LUG which is 4x6 but not much. Now I always not only mix up 11x14+ trays but standardize on that size prints! The difference I see in Delta 100 verses 400 in my 11x14 prints is one of grain not resolution when I use a magnifier! I know it's there though! I guess it's like when you listen to a 20 bit recorded CD on a player which only is going to pump out 16. It somehow sounds better anyway; down sampling?! I get VERY frustrated when my Leica friends trade one lens for another making disparaging comments about it when all they've seen from it was snapshots: 4x6's! How much better or worse is a "letter" sized inkjet print than a 4x6 C print I'd like to know! All I can say is this week i scanned my first large format neg; a 4x5 Tri X ortho neg i shot in the early 80's and ink jetted it with MIS quadtone inks on letter sized Epson Matte paper -Heavyweight and it knocked my socks off to the turn of me also all set to ebay away all my medium format and 35mm stuff. An inject may not be a silver print but it sure knows the difference between a neg coming from different formats! I bought that May "Leica Fotograhic" for your excellent article but disagreed with your assessment of Xtol as being a slightly improved D76. My direct experience is strongly otherwise and the formulas have nothing in common with each other. IMO and experience Xtol is a whole new ballgame! I'm feeling like I am getting "lens testing" results from Delta 400 without haveing to go to the 100. (at 1:3) there is always the opting of going out and getting a box of 16x20 or 20x24 fiber paper and reprinting some of those negs so we can really see why we spent all this damn money on these quirky Leica toys. (In 7 years neither of my 2 Leica M6 bodies, one a TTL the other not has been in the shop for more than five minutes) Your biggest Fan! Mark Rabiner