Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/01/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I believe one of the basic premises of contemporary technology development is the concept of "planned obsolescence," with the deliberate goal of encouraging consumers to buy new tools on a regular basis, in lock-step with the constantly increasing profit motive of the manufacturers. Film-based Leica was a longstanding exemplar of the opposite philosophy. All that was required to keep pace with expectations of higher quality was quite simple: load a new type of film. In this regard, Leica was utterly out of step with the times, and therefore ceased to be profitable in the contemporary way of understanding that economic imperative. No matter how high the megapixel counts get, moving seemingly ever closer towards the goal of delivering higher quality big-sized enlargements, you can bet that the hardware and software manufacturers will conspire to make digital photography technology outmoded or incompatible with the rest of the workflow process in some way every several years. CDs will lose their current ubiquitousness in a few short years. Memory card technology will change in yet unknown ways. USB connections will be replaced by something completely different. Thirty megapixels wil not be enough to keep pace because some other link in the chain will require a new camera. The rat on the treadmill racing to reach an imaginary destination that permanently remains out of reach is the paradigm which drives this era. It is something like radioactive half-life and, in my view, equally dangerous. Emanuel ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca