jaapv Posted May 26, 2012 Share #181 Â Posted May 26, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Just a bit quicker than I was Gentlemen,, please start talking Leica again or I have to split the thread and move this part to the bar. Which is work and I dislike work... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted May 26, 2012 Posted May 26, 2012 Hi jaapv, Take a look here Is it time to stop regarding film as the benchmark for B&W?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Guest Ming Rider Posted May 26, 2012 Share #182 Â Posted May 26, 2012 Just a bit quicker than I was Gentlemen,, please start talking Leica again or I have to split the thread and move this part to the bar. Which is work and I dislike work... I love work. I could sit and watch it for hours. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest malland Posted May 26, 2012 Share #183  Posted May 26, 2012 Guess you must be a photographer.  —Mitch/Pak Nam Pran Pak Nam Pran Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
espresso Posted May 30, 2012 Share #184  Posted May 30, 2012 excuse me, it´s my fault the thread run off the track. my very egocentric leica-related opinion: as long as there is film in your fridge and you have chemicals to develop the film with, film can be your benchmark, whatever "benchmark" may be for you. it all boils down to personal preferencies, the "rest" is just pressure from your peer group or from the public hungry for progress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
erl Posted May 30, 2012 Share #185 Â Posted May 30, 2012 Maybe I am misguided, but I understood a 'benchmark' was a 'standard' against which everything related was compared. If so, the decision must be whether we consider film and digital to be related, or not. Â That will result in either one or two benchmarks. Simplistic? Why not? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted May 30, 2012 Share #186  Posted May 30, 2012 Do we need a benchmark? For anything?  Is it not better to judge everything – every thing – on its own merits?  The result may surprise us. Which is of course a valid objection, in the eyes of some people.  The old man from the Kodachrome Age Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
erl Posted May 31, 2012 Share #187 Â Posted May 31, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Lars, if I may quote Einstein, he said, "everything is relative." I read that as meaning we intrinsically 'compare' everything. Of course I am not attempting to disagree with you but simply questioning how we naturally approach things. No, we do not need to compare everything, but it seems that we are mostly comfortable if we do. Sometimes it can also go wrong, perhaps when we compare the 'wrong' things expecting a result we want. Â The old man who is ageless. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted May 31, 2012 Share #188  Posted May 31, 2012 Do we need a benchmark? For anything? Is it not better to judge everything – every thing – on its own merits?   Perhaps two different issues here. If one defines benchmark as the standard upon which other things (in a category of things) are judged, then that's a somewhat different notion than comparison in general.  In this day and age, choices abound...for most products and services, for our time and for much more. And once someone decides to allocate (usually) limited funds or time, comparisons are necessary to make decisions. Opportunity costs are real.  Of course one looks at the merits of each item or decision, but ultimately, and often, one then needs to consider if that's the best option, which invites comparison. Even when dealing with hypotheticals, as routinely is the case in forum discussions, evaluating alternatives follows a similar process.  The problem arises when one person's decision, or decision process, is assumed to apply to someone else. Or when one attempts to compare apples and oranges...and that's often more complicated since one person's apple is another person's orange...or maybe not even a fruit. Film and digital is like that.  Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted May 31, 2012 Share #189 Â Posted May 31, 2012 Fate put me by birth into a family of inventors, writers, activists, scholars, and artists. An accomplished uncle once suggested (talking 'around' the subject) that a benchmark is the point in time one stops questioning his own judgement, becomes stuck and it is not necessarily a bad thing: it is just a manner of coping. He never became stuck. I learned from him what later was called a Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. Â In my limited experience, when digital can equal the outcome of 8x10" film I will be ready to pass away. That's one way of putting the benchmark way the hell out there. Coping as I said, and perhaps wishful thinking. Â There ain't no benchmark. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
erl Posted May 31, 2012 Share #190  Posted May 31, 2012 ...... There ain't no benchmark.  There mostly is a benchmark for anything that needs/must come up to a 'standard'. They abound. Nothing forces compliance of course, but the standard for most things in life is always there. It is the only way any decision can be made about 'right', wrong', 'good', bad', etc. Total freedom from such 'benchmarks' would make life bland and worthless and ..........  P.S. Pico, I envy you your birthright, although mine is pretty interesting anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted May 31, 2012 Share #191 Â Posted May 31, 2012 There mostly is a benchmark for anything that needs/must come up to a 'standard'. They abound. Nothing forces compliance of course, but the standard for most things in life is always there. It is the only way any decision can be made about 'right', wrong', 'good', bad', etc. Total freedom from such 'benchmarks' would make life bland and worthless and .......... Â P.S. Pico, I envy you your birthright, although mine is pretty interesting anyway. Â Please don't misunderstand my poorly expressed post. I am not a relativist. Not by any means. Benchmarks exist for certain things, but they are strict cases and I find no meaningful metric in our general case of digital and film. Â Birthright - well, that's just fate and I am certainly not among the mildly renowned family members. I claim nothing, but am happy for the others. PM me about yours. We are all only how many degrees separated? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted May 31, 2012 Share #192 Â Posted May 31, 2012 Lars, if I may quote Einstein, he said, "everything is relative." [ ... ]Â The old man who is ageless. Â Well, no. He didn't say that. He didn't even mean that. Â On the contrary! Before Einstein, time and space were two absolute and unchangeable 'containers' for everything. But they were thought to exist independently of one another. Einstein in his Theory of Relativity did show them to be dependent on one another, i.e. there exists a distinct and quantifiable relation between them. One of the results is the famous time dilatation, which has been experimentally verified. Â So Einstein didn't say "everything is relative". He said that "everything (or at least some very fundamental dimensions of everything) is related in a precise way to everything else." And the sense of that is exactly the opposite of what the lazy vulgarization contends. Â He also said that "everything has to be made as simply as possibly, but not simpler". Â The old man from the Kodachrome Age Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reading Posted May 31, 2012 Share #193 Â Posted May 31, 2012 Realistically the answer is it depends upon your use. If you are trying to make an accurate record of a scene, I thin that Digital now has the edge even though large format can probably still out resolve it. Â If you are trying to create ART then I doubt that digital will ever be able to produce an image that is superior to film. The irregular nature if the silver in the film produces an effect that digital can never re-produce. Some of the best photo's we love are not pin sharp at all, even those taken with Leica film cameras, the limitations of films of the 50's-80's was such that no matter how good the lens the film limited the ultimate resolution of the images. Those images are no less worthy because of it. Â Digital has tons of benefits, the number one being convenience. Â With Digital you get: Â Instant gratification Easy distribution via digital media Reliable results (It is almost impossible to wrongly expose a digital camera). Â With film... Â Expensive Inconvenient Time consuming Easy to ruin shots Difficult to digitise and distribute via social media Dust, scratches and fingerprints are a hazard. but... You get a better looking result. And you can still make prints from negs which are over 100 years old. Â It is the CD V LP question all over again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
erl Posted May 31, 2012 Share #194  Posted May 31, 2012 Well, no. He didn't say that. He didn't even mean that. On the contrary! Before Einstein, time and space were two absolute and unchangeable 'containers' for everything. But they were thought to exist independently of one another. Einstein in his Theory of Relativity did show them to be dependent on one another, i.e. there exists a distinct and quantifiable relation between them. One of the results is the famous time dilatation, which has been experimentally verified.  So Einstein didn't say "everything is relative". He said that "everything (or at least some very fundamental dimensions of everything) is related in a precise way to everything else." And the sense of that is exactly the opposite of what the lazy vulgarization contends.  He also said that "everything has to be made as simply as possibly, but not simpler".  The old man from the Kodachrome Age  Lars, I will bow to your superior knowledge on that quote. However, even if Einstein didn't say it, that does not mean it is wrong per se. I have always found it a pretty good mantra to remember in many life situations, just to put my own POV into perspective. So now maybe I can quote myself as saying it!  Afterthought: On reading what you quote Einstein as saying, I don't see that it is opposite at all to the 'lazy vugarization', as you describe it. I think the 'quote' I used says much the same thing, only more economically. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted May 31, 2012 Share #195 Â Posted May 31, 2012 Paul, there are quantifiable technical differences between film and digital. Some of them have to do with grain and noise. Some with the different characteristic curves of film and a digital sensor. None of these differences do mark the difference between ART and NON-ART. Â In the old days, which I distinctly remember, we were told by people who should have known better that REAL ART had to be done with oils and brushes, preferably on canvas (you were excused from the last requirement if you lived in the fifteenth century). So pictures made by photography were by definition NON-ART. Now you are telling us that photographic images captured on film can be REAL ART but those that are digital must be inferior. Â Please Mr van Gogh, do you prepare your own paints or do you buy them from a supplier? Oh what a pity. Then your paintings are not ART. Â The old man from the Kodachrome Age Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted May 31, 2012 Share #196  Posted May 31, 2012 Erl, you are not a lazy vulgarizer. Rather, you (and I) are into what the French call haute vulgarisation which is a very respectable art. Few of us do manufacture our lazy vulgarizations ourselves. We just pick them up, because who can scrutinize every piece of received wisdom? They are thick on the ground. We have to concentrate on those that are pertinent for the moment.  It is a good thing to understand the other guy's point of view. But sooner or later, you will have to decide who of you are most in the wrong, or you will lapse into total inanity. "Having my head bashed in or not having my head bashed in – well everyting is relative."  The old man from the Kodachrome Age Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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