[Leica] Re: Is the camera important?

[bquinn at sgi.com (Barney Quinn)]

B. D. makes a good point. I used to give myself a quota of shooting a 36
exposure roll a week. I more or less met this goal. When I go out and shoot
digital I usually shoot between seventy five and a hundred shots. To some
extent photography for me is a numbers game and the more I shoot the more I
keepers I get. This is a good thing.

But, digital has also caused a resource shift. When I do film I just put the
film in a sandwich bag and put it through the night delivery slot at the 
lab. I
come back in a day of two, and viola! Pictures. Dave, Fran, Robin, and Martha
have done all the work. Now I have to come home and upload the pictures and 
do
most of my own lab work. That's a good thing, too, because it has taught me a
lot. I have learned a lot about color balance and digital technology I never
would have known if I let the people at United Photo do all the work. But, it
sure is time consuming. It can take hours and hours.

Barney




"B. D. Colen" wrote:

> Sorry, Don, but horse hooey. The more one shoots, the more chance one has
> of actually improving. And if digital provides anything, it is freedom from
> the economic and time constraints imposed by having to pay for, and wait
> for, each frame of film. I am doing infinitely more personal work than I
> used to do, and could never have afforded to do my subway project with 
> film.
> ___
> Sent with SnapperMail
> www.snappermail.com
>
> ...... Original Message .......
> On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 22:19:13 -0500 "Don Dory" <don.dory@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Larry,
> "In an ideal world you are correct.  But in a Zen like way, sometimes it is
> "better for it to be hard.  With a digital work flow, a beginner can shoot
> "two thousand images and then not have the ability to edit that to 
> something
> "that is good or even interesting.  Back in the bad old days, when you got
> to
> "frame 20 on your last roll, you started to think about what you were 
> taking
> "and you concentrated on what you wanted to finish with.  In a digital work
> "flow you just delete some images based on a itty-bitty screen and move on,
> "no thought involved.
> "
> "Especially when you are learning something, there should be some 
> discipline
> "involved.   There should be some conscious choices about what you are 
> doing
> "and why.  It can be done in the digital work flow, but you have to be a 
> lot
> "more mature and work against some of the true benefits of the digital work
> "flow.
> "
> "Don
> "don.dory@gmail.com
> "
> "
> "On 3/21/06, lrzeitlin@optonline.net <lrzeitlin@optonline.net> wrote:
> ">
> ">
> "> B. D, Colen wrote:
> ">
> "> << Give a beginning photographer a cheap camera
> "> with inferior optics, and you may get different results than if you give
> "> that same person an easy to use, well designed camera with superior
> optics
> "> -
> "> and I don't mean a Leica M because many beginning photographers really
> "> struggle with rangefinders. :-)>>
> ">
> "> ------
> ">
> "> There is much truth in this. I am one of those mossbacks who learned
> "> photography in the Jurassic age of total manual control. As a stringer
> for
> "> the Boston Globe in the early 50s I was handed a scruffy well used 4x5
> Speed
> "> Graphic, six film holders and a Heiland flash gun and I was sent out on
> "> assignments to sink or swim.
> ">
> "> Over the years I learned how to estimate focusing
> "> distances with reasonable accuracy, how to judge the light, the shutter
> "> speeds that were necessary for stopping various kinds of action, what
> "> filters to use to get the effects I wanted, etc. In due time I gained
> "> sufficient experience in the technology of photographny that it became
> ">
> "> second nature and I could concentrate on the esthetics of the picture.
> ">
> "> Then the manufacturers encapsulated all my hard won knowledge in a
> "> silicon chip the size of my little fingernail and made cameras
> "> automatic. Now any boob could possess what I had learned by plunking
> "> down a few bucks at the camera store counter. Like most phiotographers 
> of
> "> that era, I resisted the change. It negated my years of experience and
> "> forced me into direct competition with newcomers who would be totally
> lost
> "> if their batteries died.
> ">
> "> And, of course I was wrong. Photography isn't about technology. It is
> "> about creating images that others want to see. The neophyte with a
> mistake
> "> proof camera is free to concentrate on the scene on front of the lens,
> not
> "> the camera settings. Artistic interpretatikon is something totally apart
> "> from technical proficiency. Fortunately for the real artists amongst us,
> a
> "> very good quality camera encapsulating all I learned in 20 years is
> "> available for less than the 1954 pric
> "> e of a Leica IIIf. And I venture to say that in the hands of an average
>
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--
Barney Quinn, Jr.
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