[Leica] Summilux vs. Summicron

[pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)]

B. D. wrote:

> I think that those of you for whom money is less of a concern than it is
> for most people greatly underestimate the importance of cost in this
> film-digital equation.
 <snip>

> Yes, Seth, film will be around as long as we will - but with every
> passing year it will become more and more exotic and, I suspect, more
> expensive. Just as the price of digital storage and printing is
> dropping, and will continue to drop up to a certain point, so the cost
> of film and processing it will continue to rise.

> If you like film, shoot it. Enjoy it. Revel in it.  But don't allow your
> personal enjoyment to keep you from seeing the reality that we are
> living through one of those major moments in the technical history of
> photography in which the medium of photography moves from one form of
> image capture and storage to another.

Well, B. D. you have a point. Even though you seem to be making it with
all the triumphalism of a fundamentalist on November 3.  :-)

But I wonder if the P&S user will truly get as much of a cost benefit as
they think.  They have to buy a camera, printer, paper, and expensive ink
that dries out if not used regularly.  And unless they learn at least some
photo editing, they will still be plagued with red-eye, pictures with
excessive contrast, washed-out highlights (including those precious flash
pictures of Grandma and Junior), etc.

Will they care?  I suspect some will, and might still use film for
important occasions. Enough to matter?  Who knows?  People's taste seems
very moldable by the marketeers.  The word "digital" has been made into a
synonym for "better."   If perception is reality, we're in trouble.

Now, how about the reasonbly knowledgeable amateur who owns a working film
SLR?  They already have the camera.  A P&S digital won't give them the
same image quality that their SLR did.  To buy a DSLR or even a high-end
digicam is expensive.  Film may still make sense if they only shoot a few
rolls a year.

Even for a amateur with semi-pro-level knowledge, the cost issue is
complex.  I worked out that at the rate I shoot film (2-3 dozen rolls a
year), it would take me about 3 years for my new E-1 to pay for itself
(yes, folks, I just took the plunge and bought an Olympus E-1).  I will
probably shoot more with digital, since it "doesn't cost anything." And as
you say, I will learn more.  But the cost savings will be in pictures I
wouldn't have shot if I hadn't gotten a DSLR.

I didn't buy a DSLR to save money. I bought it because I want to eliminate
the time and hassle of scanning from pictures where digital will be just
as good for the intended purpose.  I have many pictures that I think are
good, but I've never scanned.  I ran out of time, I got tired.  Then I
shot another roll, the previous one went into the storage box, and who
knows if I'll ever get to it again?  With digital, there's less "stuff"
between me and a finished picture.

But I don't doubt for a minute that I will continue to shoot film.  Even
the E-1 feels big and clunky compared to a Leica M.  I can't take it
everywhere, all the time.  The "look" is not the same as film.  The
dynamic range is a lot less than negative film, and if you err on the side
of overexposure, bye-bye shot.

There are a lot of places in the world where film is still viable as a
mass market (Anywhere in the Third World, for example).  And there may be
enough diehards to keep it alive even here, once the digital sales
curve peaks.

The question is whether the "death of film" will be a self-fulfulling
prophecy, brought on by marketeer's hype and American business'
ostrich-like obsession with the quarterly profit at the expensse ofthe
long view.  Or whether Kodak will keep selling film as long as we will buy
it. I suspect Fuji will.  As will some enterprising souls in Eastern
Europe and elsewhere.

I agree that the market will shake out, and there will be less film and
processing available.  The question is how fast will it happen, and how
much.  Those of us in or near major cities will probably be OK.  Those
elsewhere may not be.  So far it's happened faster than most of us would
have believed.  But there might be a plateau rather than a continued
acceleration to zero.

--Peter