Leica M8 "Not a real camera"!!!

[beewee]

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One can argue that even "digital" cameras are still analogue devices. After all, the sensor doesn't record numbers. It detects electrical charges caused by photons which are analogue signals that are amplified, quantized, digitized and stored. Conceptually, there's no difference between film scanning where you convert an analogue signal - the density of pigment on film - to the digital domain by quantizing and digitizing, and taking a "digital" photo where a CCD/CMOS sensor converts an analogue signal - the amount of free electrons - to the domain by quanitzation and digitization.

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[giordano]

Ah, but those photons are discrete, countable units. Deep down, film is just as digital as digital.

[trs]

In purist's thought, digital is not real camera because most people can cheat while in film camera only the master printers could cheat, say Mr. Adams.

When I did film, I was stuck with what lab could do for me (as far as print goes) and I could not afford extra cost of special treatment.

Today, anybody doing digital has way too much control over the image. Image that is totally throwaway in film days, most photographers can save them (if it was important enough to them).

 

So, if you were not master printer, film camera was the real camera because you had to get it right in the camera.

 

But, I would not give away my M8.

[peterm1_Leica]

I think I still get that attitude from people on some forums as well. There are plenty of Leica-philes around who still think that digital and Leica are two words that must never be used in the same breath. They frankly annoy me as my approach is live and let live. What suits them suits them. What suits me suits me. Besides when I have seen their photos mostly they are nothing very special (especially some who adopt the attitude that digital post processing is a sin. a crime and an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. (Lord Leica Barnack that is :^) )

[jsrockit]

In purist's thought, digital is not real camera because most people can cheat while in film camera only the master printers could cheat, say Mr. Adams.

When I did film, I was stuck with what lab could do for me (as far as print goes) and I could not afford extra cost of special treatment.

 

Today, anybody doing digital has way too much control over the image. Image that is totally throwaway in film days, most photographers can save them (if it was important enough to them).

 

So, if you were not master printer, film camera was the real camera because you had to get it right in the camera.

 

But, I would not give away my M8.

 

Huh? So photography is less real because the tools are more ubiquitous? Having worked in wet darkrooms doing C-prints, Cibachromes, and B&W of all formats, I would say digital isn't any less of a skill.

[farnz]

Ah, but those photons are discrete, countable units. Deep down, film is just as digital as digital.

Doesn't it depend on which state the photons take ... ? Photons have wave-particle duality so they can exist as discrete particles (digital) or as continuous waves (analogue).

 

If you ask me, photons suffer from an identity crisis.

 

Pete.

[pklein]

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Doesn't it depend on which state the photons take ... ? Photons have wave-particle duality so they can exist as discrete particles (digital) or as continuous waves (analogue).

 

If you ask me, photons suffer from an identity crisis.

 

Pete.

 

Uh-oh. Now we're going to get into discussions of whether the cat died or not.

 

Peter

[Nicoleica]

Uh-oh. Now we're going to get into discussions of whether the cat died or not.

 

Peter

 

Not yet. But it had a very nasty surprise when it discovered that Mr Occam had carelessly left a razor lying around in the box.

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[ramosa]

urgg. nothing like a self-consumed person. i'm happy that your interaction with her is in the past. now, like me, you can try to enjoy your non-film camera.

 

 

 

 

I took the opportunity yesterday of having a leisurely stroll through our local castle grounds woodland park with my trusty M8 slung around my neck, nestled in it's gorgeous Luigi's leather half-case. The summicron 50mm was poking unobtrusively out between the flaps of my unzipped jacket. "Oh!" exclaimed a middle-aged lady as she came up to me on my stroll, "is that a real camera I see there?". I proudly showed off my 'real' camera to her, noticing the 'run-of-the-mill auto everything' SLR which she was sporting around her neck. As I was explaining the finer points of manual focussing and exposure without all of the scene programme modes to which we are all too accustomed I unpopped the press studs on the back of the Luigi case to show the LCD screen. "Oh!" she exclaimed again, "it's not a real camera then. It's a digital." And she then swiftly walked off with a look of disgust on her face. WOW! if a Leica aint a real camera then what is!!!

[MikeMyers]

Hmm, you wrote:

"As I was explaining the finer points of manual focussing and exposure without all of the scene programme modes to which we are all too accustomed..."

 

And after noticing the LCD, she said:

"it's not a real camera then. It's a digital."

 

 

Maybe to her, a "real" camera is any of the old film cameras with manual everything. You were telling her that your camera didn't have any of those new-fangled electronic things that apparently she dislikes, and then you show her that it's electronic images, not film. I don't agree with her, but I can understand why she felt that way. You'd have made her much happier had you been using an M3 or M2.

[J_Thompson]

Digital photography is to film what acrylic paint is to oil paint. Use what you prefer and don't sweat the details or pay any mind to the detractors. It's only a medium, after all. Does anyone on this forum actually regret the demise of the Daguerreotype?

[trs]

Huh? So photography is less real because the tools are more ubiquitous? Having worked in wet darkrooms doing C-prints, Cibachromes, and B&W of all formats, I would say digital isn't any less of a skill.

 

What I am saying is that things you did (wet darkroom work) was not easily accessible to mass while photo editing software today are.

 

Just look at how one had to do the multiple exposure in old days, today anybody can do it few mouse clicks. Average photographer in film days could not afford to miss exposure say 2+ stops. Today, anybody could miss that much and still able to recover the image themselves.

 

In other word, not real camera comment to me is just respect to the film days how one really needed to be pretty good at it to make reasonable photograph.

 

At least that how I take it.

[pop]

...Does anyone on this forum actually regret the demise of the Daguerreotype?

 

I do, ever since seeing one.

 

This does, however, not mean that I reject other photographic or non-photographic media.

[Nicoleica]

I do, ever since seeing one.

 

This does, however, not mean that I reject other photographic or non-photographic media.

 

+1 (A very large +1 if that's allowed.)

[StenSture]

I had fun for several years creating images with silverbased photography. Now I am having fun creating siliconbased images. The first, taking the picture, is quite the same. Se second part doesn't smell as mouch nowdays... The last part, enjoying the result is pretty mouch the same. Istn't that what matters? Having fun?

[jaapv]

What I am saying is that things you did (wet darkroom work) was not easily accessible to mass while photo editing software today are.

 

Just look at how one had to do the multiple exposure in old days, today anybody can do it few mouse clicks. Average photographer in film days could not afford to miss exposure say 2+ stops. Today, anybody could miss that much and still able to recover the image themselves.

 

In other word, not real camera comment to me is just respect to the film days how one really needed to be pretty good at it to make reasonable photograph.

 

At least that how I take it.

I don't see that much expertise in digital darkroom work, many images are badly exposed, " recovered", badly processed and completely spoilt by " sharpening"

I disagree totally by the idea that " anybody can by a few clicks" That is equivalent to the wet darkroom: " anybody can with a few splashes"

[farnz]

What I am saying is that things you did (wet darkroom work) was not easily accessible to mass while photo editing software today are.

 

Just look at how one had to do the multiple exposure in old days, today anybody can do it few mouse clicks. ...

But that's just the point - not "anybody" can do it expertly with a 'few mouse clicks' anymore than "anybody" could produce a Rembrandt with a few 'swishes of a brush'. It's the knowledge of what to click and when that makes all the difference.

 

It's easy to undervalue the skills required for the digital darkroom and it's easy to produce a mess in the digital darkroom if someone doesn't know what they're doing.

 

Pete.

[lct]

One can be a very bad chemist and not too bad a photoshopper fortunately.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[pop]

George Eastman is particularly remembered for introducing flexible film in 1884. Four years later he introduced the box camera, and photography could now reach a much greater number of people.

Needless to say, practically none of those people actually could "photograph"; they just could snap away with their boxes and things. Real photographers used real cameras.

 

Citation taken from BEGINNINGS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, The: A History of Photography, by Robert Leggat:; Emphasis is mine

[Clive Murray-White]

I think there is a completely different explanation and the woman reminds me very much of my own mother, and many British people. I was born in the UK but have lived in Australia for over 40 years. I would visit my mother every 2-3 years.

 

I remember an almost identical situation, but with a different product, my Mother who always liked me to "dress properly", a similar expression to the "real" we've been talking about, "properly" actually meant "looking British", so when I turned up in a very nicely made suede sports coat she was very happy and asked "Did you get that at "The Famous" ?(a store for proper British men's clothes in Cheltenham) "No" I said "I bought it on-line from Texas" her answer "Oh".(with a very disapproving tone) end of conversation. If I'd said yes she would have said, "Jolly Good" and the conversation, if it could called that, would have ended there just the same.

 

It wouldn't have mattered what you said to the woman, the conversation was going to end at that point because she had reached the point where any more talk could imply too much familiarity.