Re: [Leica] Thoughts on digital and the impact on Leica

[SthRosner@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/29/02 6:38:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
darkroom@ix.netcom.com writes:

> A LOT of people are drawn to digital
>  because of what they perceive to be sharper, cleaner, images...but they are
>  lacking in detail compared to film.  It's just a fact of the medium.
  
>  > >Also, sharpness has nothing to do with resolution, as I stated in 
another
>  > >post.  It's something that is commonly misperceived.
>  >
>  > Most of us know that quite well, Austin.
>  
>  Well, no, Henning...most people actually don't.  They confuse the two, and
>  believe because an image is sharper, it has better resolution.

Austin, this is beginning to read like differences I have had with Mr. Puts. 
I believe that you are quite right. Sharpness, as Geoffrey Crawley wrote me 
thirty years ago, is a perception. It is not measurable. It is the impression 
that, for example, an 8X10 print gives from a normal viewing distance. It has 
very little to do with the actual visual information that is on the film and 
on the print. That information, great or small, is the resolution that a lens 
can transmit to the medium - film or sensor - and that the medium can capture 
and replicate. As you indicate, resolution is measurable, sharpness is not.

The perception of sharpness may be enhanced or diminished by the contrast 
transmitted by the lens and captured by the medium. Contrast is another 
measurable characteristic of both lenses and medium, thus the famous MTF 
graphs (does anyone remember that this means modulation transfer function?).

The differences that I have had with Erwin lies with his insistence that 
contrast is all-important, that resolution is at best secondary and - his 
real belief, I think - that it really is not very important at all.

As friends of mine who know more about this stuff than I do have remonstrated 
with Erwin, one can deal with contrast in the lab and in the printing process 
or on a software program. On the contrary, concerning resolution, you either 
got it on the film (or sensor) or you ain't.

If the visual information, read: detail, ain't there, it ain't there.

I know zero about computers, pixels etc.(I'm lucky I can spell it) and the IT 
stuff you're writing about but I know in my gut that the physical laws that 
are the predicate of your posts on this subject are correct.

Seth         LaK 9

P.S. My last post till after the LHSA meeting in Portland. I'm unsubscribed 
as of this evening. Ciao all.
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html