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Guest bwcolor

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Having (also) an G10 makes one the aim of rudeness in this forum?

 

I have two M8 (and dream of having twice the time for photo instead) mainly because I was afraid of problems that never happened. But I accept, that a world class photographer with a casual G10 in his hands could easily outperform (not only) me ON MOST SUBJECTS.

 

We have to live with the latter, (finding time, energy and top class equipment and helping each other how to use it) but why... Anyway, it's Christmas time folks! I think it works to be argumentative in a seasonal way, too.

 

I was referring to the difficulty of getting really good B&W prints from any digital camera, the G10 and M8 included, compared to expertly done chemical B&W prints. I do not see what is rude in that.

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From what little I know about digital printing, it's generally difficult to create a B&W print without a color cast. Even the black inks used in most digital printers have color mixed in.

 

But I might be mistaken.

 

I have a Canon ipf6100 and it has 4 kinds of gray and black inks. (2 shades of gray, black photo, black matte.) It prints beautiful b/w without mixing color into it. Other printers can do this also. Some color printers have the option of using monochrome ink sets for extremely good b/w.

 

I once considered myself to be an expert b/w printer and I have to say that the b/w prints that I get from the Canon look comparable to my best chemical prints. (I have only just started doing some b/w on this printer and haven't made a scientific comparison between it and chemical prints.)

 

With my Canon printer, I can choose to mix in some color if I want a tint to the monochrome. The driver let's me choose any color shade that I want

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I saw the article on the G1 but I had one for a while and tested it against the Nikon D90. In lower ISO ranges you would be hard pressed to see the difference without extensive pixel peeping, if then. The biggest problem was the use of Silkypix as the raw processor. It is nowhere near as good as either Lightroom or NX2 so that made comparing raw files more difficult. Once LR has the ability to process the G1 it will be easier to get a fair comparison.

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I have a Canon ipf6100 and it has 4 kinds of gray and black inks. (2 shades of gray, black photo, black matte.) It prints beautiful b/w without mixing color into it. Other printers can do this also. Some color printers have the option of using monochrome ink sets for extremely good b/w.

 

I once considered myself to be an expert b/w printer and I have to say that the b/w prints that I get from the Canon look comparable to my best chemical prints. (I have only just started doing some b/w on this printer and haven't made a scientific comparison between it and chemical prints.)

 

With my Canon printer, I can choose to mix in some color if I want a tint to the monochrome. The driver let's me choose any color shade that I want

i stand corrected

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Guest malland
From what little I know about digital printing, it's generally difficult to create a B&W print without a color cast. Even the black inks used in most digital printers have color mixed in.

 

But I might be mistaken.

You are mistaken. The colour cast problem that you refer to was common around 1994-1996, when it was very difficult to print B&W without any colour cast unless one used the ImagePrint RIP, which is still very good. At the time, one could also use only black and gray inks (Jon Cone's Piezography), but that limited one to matte paper and less deep and rich blacks, but some people fell in love with the textures of some of these "art papers". Today, printing neutral B&W is not an issue, and some printers, like those using the latest inks, have as great as or greater than the DMax than lab prints.

 

A few weeks ago I went to a James Nachtwey exhibition here in Bangkok. The prints were B&W, made from scanned negatives, and printed on the Epson 9800 printer. They were certainly as good or better than fine lab prints. Again, colour cast is bviously not an issue. But whether you use a digital or film camera is a religious issue that I don't feel like tackling.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Flickr: Mitch Alland's Photostream

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I don't see what all the fuss is about here. The original poster is happy with his G10 and can't tell the difference between it's output to that of an M8/Leica glass. Fine.

 

Keep the G10, shoot with it and enjoy it as it's obviously fit for purpose for you. In the meantime the Leica M digital world will get along fine ...

:rolleyes:

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I don't see what all the fuss is about here. The original poster is happy with his G10 and can't tell the difference between it's output to that of an M8/Leica glass. Fine.

 

Keep the G10, shoot with it and enjoy it as it's obviously fit for purpose for you. In the meantime the Leica M digital world will get along fine ...

:rolleyes:

 

Exactly. One of the reasons you see so many M's on the used market (both film and digital) is because they are dang hard cameras to use, even for most pros. I've been using one as a pro for over 15 years and I still find it difficult - a challenge I relish but many don't. I still turn to dslrs for most client apps. But the Leica M is considered the holy grail amongst gearheads, and so most feel the need to own one at least once in their lives. But how many user grade cameras does one see in the used market? Not many, it's usually mint in the box. My point is that many monied amateurs would be better off with a G10, D90, or what have you as their pics are probably going to be better than with an M8 as they don't have to struggle through rf focusing, f-stops and shutter speeds, and heavy post. Their cat, baby, beach vacation, etc are going to be just as dynamic (if not more so) with 1/20th the price and a lot less hassle. Of course this is a generalization but is based on first hand experience.

 

Personally, I find most of these p&s digitals to be worthless (beyond pocketability) image and response wise and that Leica have totally missed the market. Leica should have sat a designer down with a Contax T2/3, a Leica CM, a Nikon 35/28ti, a Hexar AF, and a CL and said okay take the best of each of these and integrate modern advances and lets make the best fixed lens digital p&s on the market that harkens back to the day of the classic film p&s. I would buy a Contax T2/Hexar AF digital hybrid in a second (I'm currently shooting both of those and loving it). But the manufacturers have become so obsessed with size (meaning the idea that smaller is better), pixel count, and features that this may not ever happen. Too bad.

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The photo business has always been like this: you pay 5 fold just for 'one' aparture stop or 'one' little improvement in resolution. The difference in picture quality between using a $ 250 Praktika camera compared to a Leica MP with a $ 3,000 lense was also marginal. Possibly even more marginal than the M8 v G10 comparison. Here's nothing new.

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