Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/18

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Subject: [Leica] LUG: automation vs. the brain
From: "Chris Quinn" <cquinn@mail.sjcsf.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 12:55:05 -0600

A roommate of mine, who was a complete tech-head, was fascinated by an
journal article which contained the following information (which I am
recalling from a conversation held maybe 7 years ago?):

Companies which always upgrade their software operate at a lower level of
efficiency that those which skip upgrade generations. The reason, as it
turned out, was that the learning curve on new software was such that the
new generation of software hit the street before the users were proficient
at the old one. Skip a generation of software, and you'll be quite adept and
working efficiently for a longer period of time; when it's time to learn the
new version of the software, you won't be that far behind those who didn't
skip that generation.

Which makes me think about Barney Quinn's message (no relation), about
picking up the M6 with some dread, and finding that all of those old skills
came right back. Also seems to relate to Simon Lamb and his wizz-bang
(sorry: 'whiz-bang'?) cameras and using them like his M6: focus & meter once
& leave it until things change significantly. I've tried shooting a friend's
Nikon F100, my father's F5, a Contax N1 in the shop, and all I could think
about was what my hands were doing. With my M6, all the energy that I put
into thinking about the whiz-bang camera goes into thinking about the image.
It's easy to get caught up thinking how cool it would be to have the hottest
Nikon/Canon/Contax Auto-Everything, but our Leicas, old-technology and all,
are still capable of giving us spectacular images. They are simple, the
learning curve is short, and rather than spend days and weeks reading the
instruction manual, we get to hang out on the LUG.

Christopher "Luddite" Quinn

Replies: Reply from "Simon Lamb" <simon@sclamb.com> (Re: [Leica] LUG: automation vs. the brain)
Reply from "SonC (Sonny Carter)" <SonC@sonc.com> (Re: [Leica] LUG: automation vs. the brain)
Reply from Tom Christiansen <tomchr@softhome.net> (Re: [Leica] LUG: automation vs. the brain)