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Is the M8 for you?


andym911

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I can understand and agree with many thoughts and ideas shared in this thread. My own line of thoughts goes something like this:

 

If you like what you get using film - shoot film.

If you like what you get using digital - shoot digital.

 

Now, while this may sound silly or banal at best, I can really see no purpose in trying to imitate analogue results with a digital camera. Why should anyone do that? Even if completely successful, it would still be just an imitation. How strange that would be becomes clear at once if you turn it the other way round: would anyone try to imitate the digital look with film? Would anyone use ultra fine grain film stock, scan the negative and try to eliminate every trace that could betray its analogue origins? Then what would you have gained?

 

Instead, for me the interesting challenge is to use the digital workflow to produce an image that comes close to my original vision. If it doesn't I have to keep trying until I will have gained enough experience to achieve my goal. If you can achieve what you want with your M6 you can consider yourself very lucky and very happy, indeed. I find the image you posted quite excellent! No need to try and reproduce that with another medium - don't you think?

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Rembrant and Picasso worked from completely different conceptual frameworks and they were pretty much immersed within their cultural and social eras and those issues are central to their work......not the material appearance.

 

Exactamundo! Just like HCB and Winnograd and all those guys were "immersed within their cultural and social eras"---meaning, when film was the only photographic medium. To say that photography, and "Leica Photography" (if that dumb term even has any meaning other than to guys who own Leica's) has to look like it was shot with film is like I said, bogus.

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The M8 is for me, so is the M7 and an upcoming MP :D

 

I will post some of my new work later on and I'd love to see who can distinguish images from the M7 versus those from the M8... IMHO, they are that close and I am definitely not talking about digital grain thrown all over a B&W image...

 

Cheers,

 

Riccis

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I'd love to see who can distinguish images from the M7 versus those from the M8...

 

hello Riccis, with your skill, no one would care if they look like digital or film, they are just dame good. I am looking forward to seeing your new works. may be I get 50/50 to guess them right.

 

with that said, all the comments and images posted here are great samples as well. good inspiration for me to shoot more with the Leica.

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Now, while this may sound silly or banal at best, I can really see no purpose in trying to imitate analogue results with a digital camera. Why should anyone do that? Even if completely successful, it would still be just an imitation. How strange that would be becomes clear at once if you turn it the other way round: would anyone try to imitate the digital look with film? Would anyone use ultra fine grain film stock, scan the negative and try to eliminate every trace that could betray its analogue origins? Then what would you have gained?

 

Instead, for me the interesting challenge is to use the digital workflow to produce an image that comes close to my original vision. If it doesn't I have to keep trying until I will have gained enough experience to achieve my goal. If you can achieve what you want with your M6 you can consider yourself very lucky and very happy, indeed. I find the image you posted quite excellent! No need to try and reproduce that with another medium - don't you think?

 

Manfred

 

I am not in disagreement at all with what you say..indeed as I mentioned in OP, I am not getting what I want with the M8 in B&W and was looking to see if there were others who felt the same.

I would love to combine the benefits of the M8 and Digital workflow and get what I want in the final print, but so far I can't seem to get it.

I do also agree that trying to emulate one medium whilst using another, is a waste of time and effort, and somehow defeats the original purpose of choosing one or the other.

 

So in a nutshell maybe film is the way for me at the moment for the B&W stuff.....only time will tell, but a little more experimenting is still on the cards;)

 

thanks also for your comment on my snap....

 

regards

 

Andy

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I can really see no purpose in trying to imitate analogue results with a digital camera. Why should anyone do that? Even if completely successful, it would still be just an imitation.

 

Manfred, I can only speak for myself, but I think it's more about getting a look to digital b&w that I like.

 

I wouldn't claim for a second that a digital image run though Alien Skin and then printed on an ink jet printer looks like a wet b&w print from a film negative, but I prefer the look of the images that I get by using Alien Skin to those produced using other digital methods. I sometimes thing it's a bit like digital sound recordings where a little noise makes the end result sound better. Alien Skin is just a means to an end. That end is a print or an image displayed on the web.

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hello Riccis, with your skill, no one would care if they look like digital or film, they are just dame good. I am looking forward to seeing your new works. may be I get 50/50 to guess them right.

 

with that said, all the comments and images posted here are great samples as well. good inspiration for me to shoot more with the Leica.

 

Albert:

 

You comments are too kind and I thank you for that... I'll post some stuff later, it will be fun... I just hope we don't get into a film vs. digital dilemma, they are just tools after all.

 

Cheers,

 

Riccis

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Film is obviously the most direct path to a "film look," if that's what you want.

 

In terms of B&W, I think if you're set up to do film and have the darkroom chops to do it well (and a decent scanner) it's a lot faster and more efficient to just shoot film. For example, developing and scanning two rolls of film in an afternoon is not a big deal. That's 36 + 36 = 72 images that already have a "film look" (ignoring for a moment the fact that the likelihood that every one of those images will be a keeper is nil :rolleyes: ). How long would it take to effectively convert and PP the same number of digital images?

 

Personally I do digital and B&W film, and thoroughly enjoy both. :)

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I'd love to see who can distinguish images from the M7 versus those from the M8...

....................... the net isn't a level playing field for for film v's digital differences or even pitting one camera against another as we all know, monitors vary, limited resolution and a variety of techniques ....and most of all .................. film images are digitised in order to be viewed, so what you present is all digital:)

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In terms of B&W, I think if you're set up to do film and have the darkroom chops to do it well (and a decent scanner) it's a lot faster and more efficient to just shoot film. For example, developing and scanning two rolls of film in an afternoon is not a big deal. That's 36 + 36 = 72 images that already have a "film look" (ignoring for a moment the fact that the likelihood that every one of those images will be a keeper is nil :rolleyes: ). How long would it take to effectively convert and PP the same number of digital images?

 

But surely the point is that if you shoot digital you don't process or convert every image to b&w. For every 50 shots that I take I probably use 5 on average. My personal experience has been that digital is a huge time saver over film from a processing point of view. To develop the b&w is about 30-40 mins including loading the tank, then two hours or more for them to dry and maybe 2-3 hours to scan the those two films. Digital on the other hand takes a few minutes to copy to the hard drive and then perhaps 2-3 minutes for each image I decide to use.

 

Let's not let this descend into a film v digital thread, but the idea that somehow film is faster (disregarding image quality considerations) than digital is wrong in my experience.

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But surely the point is that if you shoot digital you don't process or convert every image to b&w. For every 50 shots that I take I probably use 5 on average. My personal experience has been that digital is a huge time saver over film from a processing point of view. To develop the b&w is about 30-40 mins including loading the tank, then two hours or more for them to dry and maybe 2-3 hours to scan the those two films. Digital on the other hand takes a few minutes to copy to the hard drive and then perhaps 2-3 minutes for each image I decide to use.

 

Let's not let this descend into a film v digital thread, but the idea that somehow film is faster (disregarding image quality considerations) than digital is wrong in my experience.

 

Hi Steve,

 

Two hours or more to dry?! You need a film drier. My film is dry in 10 minutes in my cool little homemade drier. It's ready to be cut and sleeved by the time I've put the chemicals away and cleaned up. No dust or scratches either.

 

I admit that the actual number of images you'll want to convert and PP for B&W is significantly less than what you shoot, but my point is that if you're going for a film B&W look right from the beginning, and not just choosing a few images from a digital batch that might look good in B&W, then you're already more than halfway there if you just shoot film.

 

I know this is not a "professional" approach (and I'm not a pro), but when I'm in a "B&W mood" that's all I shoot. I will take the M6 and leave the M8 at home. My mind is strictly in B&W mode and I simply cannot switch back and forth. Conversely when I'm out with the M8 and am thinking and shooting color it is very rare that I come home with any images that look better in B&W. I'm making an assumption here, but I'm guessing I'm not entirely alone on this.

 

Of course it is a very personal thing, and what I'm saying might only apply to a minority, but there it is. For me, film is the fastest path to a film look. :)

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As a subjective opinion that's fine, but stated as a factual argument it's totally bogus. It supposes that the "look" of film is what we should aspire to forever. What if I happen to dislike the grain of film and like the so-called plastic look of digital better? That's my opinion but I'm not saying the digital look is better. What if to me Picasso's paintings score poorly"when measured on the charm scale" compared to Rembrandt? WTF does that mean, that Picasso should've tried to paint like Rembrandt? Of course not, nobody would be that much of an idiot to assert that in public, yet that's exactly what a lot of people are trying to assert wrt film and digital. This notion that the goal of digital is to look like film is fine if that's what your artistic feeling is, but it shouldn't be something people force down everyone's throats as if it were the status quo.

 

I think you have trouble reading, mate. Try again. The bit you're taking objection to starts 'There's no doubt in my mind..." And that, I'm afraid, is all I'm saying. It's not a 'bogus' fact. You can put whatever assertions you like in your own mind, but have the courtesy to leave mine alone, thanks. :)

 

Yes - of course this is a subjective statement. It's very clearly phrased as one. So why on earth would you think someone is 'forcing opinions down your throat'?

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....................... the net isn't a level playing field for for film v's digital differences or even pitting one camera against another as we all know, monitors vary, limited resolution and a variety of techniques ....and most of all .................. film images are digitised in order to be viewed, so what you present is all digital:)

 

You are right, and please don't hesitate to contact me if you are ever in town and I'll be more than happy to show you some of my 30"x40"s (either film or digital)...

 

Here is some of my latest work, and, once again neither I nor my clients could care less whether I used a Leica or a Holga, but rather the content of the image.

 

Cheers,

 

Riccis

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the m8 with the new awb jiggery pokery (read: update) is most certainly the camera for me... it really is knockin my socks off shot in raw and the B+W prints off my epson 2200 are really the best i've ever produced.

now as long as it doesn't need any forseeable trips to jersey it will remain the camera for me!

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1. The M8 is definitely the camera for me.

 

2. One of the worst creative traps to fall into is the "learned" image. Whether in seeing, or in the details of processing, trying to replicate some past ideal. Pushing the shutter because something "looks" like a Cartier-Bresson, or a Winogrand, or a Uelsman, or a Liebowitz, or a Goldin. Fiddling with a digital image to make it "look" like Tri-X.

 

It is pure poison, both to one's personal development, and to the overall growth and movement of the medium. Move on, as the saying goes.

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1. The M8 is definitely the camera for me.

 

2. One of the worst creative traps to fall into is the "learned" image. Whether in seeing, or in the details of processing, trying to replicate some past ideal. Pushing the shutter because something "looks" like a Cartier-Bresson, or a Winogrand, or a Uelsman, or a Liebowitz, or a Goldin. Fiddling with a digital image to make it "look" like Tri-X.

 

It is pure poison, both to one's personal development, and to the overall growth and movement of the medium. Move on, as the saying goes.

 

Plenty of people would argue the opposite. One of the interesting things about personal development is it's often by working in one particular framework that one discovers the value of another.

 

I went to an interesting exhibition about Picasso in Barcelona. The museum has examples of his entire body of work. As a younger artist his work was formulaic - obeying the principles of strict formalism. At this point in his development he was emulating the work of his predecessors, but it was by doing this that he developed the necessary artistic intent and ability to produce work on his own terms. But be aware that frameworks are everywhere, and there are few examples of artists who are absolutely unique. For example, Picasso's work is often confused with Miro's.

 

Interpret this observation any way you wish, but what it says to me is that no one works in a vacuum, and any body of work owes its roots to what came before. And emulating what came before is often a very good idea, and frequently a catalyst to one's own development. Not least because it equips a person with the necessary skills to go further.

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At this point in his development he was emulating the work of his predecessors, but it was by doing this that he developed the necessary artistic intent and ability to produce work on his own terms.

 

Very few of us have the talent to create our own photographic vision - I know I don't have <grin>. So even when we find our own voice it's probably going to be derivative and lack originality.

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