"A revolution is not a tea party...."

[adan]

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An analysis of the downfall of traditional photographic companies - even those who saw the digital revolution coming - includes Leica content

 

The Rise of Digital imaging and the Fall of the Old Camera industry

[joppepop]

Interesting study, and too true also in the digital world.

 

There seems to be a paradigm shifts in the technology being implemented in digital devices every five years or so. And every time an entire generation of technicians needs to get back to studies. You can currently see such a shift in the mobile phone industry, where it leaves propitiatory software in favour of using open software platforms such as Linux/Android and Apple OS. Suddenly, computer manufacturers becomes mobile phone manufacturers since they have the knowledge, and its clear that the traditional makers suffers since their soul are in the old technology.

[marknorton]

I agree, an interesting paper, one of the best I've seen on LL. I hadn't realised that Hasselblad came as close to the brink as Christian Sandstrom suggests.

 

You then have to look at Leica's efforts with the DMR and the M8 and say they did pretty well, considering, and these products - plus significant investment from Dr Kaufmann - have given them a real opportunity to make their mark with the S2 which, given their core optical competence, should produce the best imaging quality available.

 

No wonder Hasselblad are reducing their prices, I expect the S2 has them worried up in Gothenburg.

[Gentleman Villain]

Thanks for posting, That's an interesting article

 

I saw an interview with Alan Greenspan (the former Fed Chairman) where he asked a question about what he had learned during his time as Chairman. He said that he was no better at predicting the economy at the time he left the job than he was at the time he started the job since there was simply no way to effectively measure the psychology of the consumer.

 

Everybody saw the digital revolution coming. Everybody! This didn't catch anyone by surprise. However, it wasn't possible to understand beforehand how and where the camera purchasing public was going to embrace digital. For example, a lot of view camera shooters were forced to switch to DSLR type of platforms during the digital switch...But who would have known that beforehand? 100s and thousands of trendy looks based on PP have arisen....Who could have predicted those exact trends beforehand? The digital revolution came at a time when credit was readily available for a huge consumer market. This put consumers and hobbyists largely in control of the switch to digital. However, what would their impact have been if credit had been much harder to obtain. Would businesses and professional photographers have had more influence on the development of digital and could this have happened at a much slower pace? (possibly giving companies more time to plan) Just asking some questions.

 

Moore's law is one thing....but predicting the psychology of a crowd or the future actions of a mob is just not possible

 

Who knows? Maybe 5 years from now we'll see a massive return to film? WHy not? Digital photography has generated a "look"....it is trendy...the oversmoothened alien-like skintones...the emphasis on macro-contrast because of histograms. OVersharpening ala David Hill. It's very possible that the next generation of photographers will rebel against these looks and return to film. Who knows?

[lars_bergquist]

There are three considerations that militate against a return to film:

 

First consideration: Many years ago in a pro camera shop I overheard two people discussing the then-new Kodak T-Max films. They hated them. They had been raised on Tri-X overdeveloped and printed so that the images looked like painted on gravel. Now the grain was gone! The estetical rug had been pulled out from under their feet. --The same thing happened in the early years of photography, when the photographic look was regarded as 'vulgar', and the revulsion gave rise to the pictorialist movement, which was all about making photos look like engravings. The 1950's 'grain cult' was a second wave of pictorialism, when the traditional procedures of pictorialism (from bromoil printing to kicking the legs of the tripod) had been discredited. But gravel grain was entirely 'photographic', you see.

 

Still, straight photography won, and it became legitimate for a photograph to look like a photograph. Especially if Ansel or Ed had made it. Similarly, the attempts to make digital look like film (e.g. by adding sham 'grain' to the image) will in time be seen as ridiculous. But I suspect that there will eventually be a 'noise cult' ...

 

Second consideration: Convenience. It was an intriguing game to learn to make large exhibition quality silver prints. I did learn it, but today no-one will be able to chase me back to the wet darkroom again. Or for that matter, to the dark wetroom ...

 

Third consideration: Quality. Put the best high-resolution film you can find into your film M, and make a picture of a high-detail subject like a landscape with that camera, and simultaneously with a M8. The film image will still look like a 35mm shot. The digital image will look like 6x9cm roll film (and I have made a lot of images on 120 film, young man!) Do we really want to lose that? In that case, there is always the pinhole camera way ...

 

The hypo-stained old man from the Age of Wet Gelatine

[wattsy]

No wonder Hasselblad are reducing their prices, I expect the S2 has them worried up in Gothenburg.

 

Possibly, but like nobody gets sacked for buying IBM, serious professional photographers know that you can't really go wrong buying Hasselblad. I'm not sure Hasselblad will be too worried about the S2.

 

Incidentally, "Hasselblad are reducing their prices" is only true as far as their 'lower-end' digital kits go. As with Leica, Hasselblad prices for lenses and accessories are heading up into the stratosphere.

[stevelap]

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I read it on LL a while ago . Certainly interesting, but isn't there a hint of "stating the bleedin' obvious" about it? I don't know, perhaps I should read it again and concentrate this time.

[KM-25]

I read it on LL a while ago . Certainly interesting, but isn't there a hint of "stating the bleedin' obvious" about it? I don't know, perhaps I should read it again and concentrate this time.

 

I read it too, even twice. It is informative to a degree, but it does nothing for photography. And exactly as I predicted, the imagery made by the writer was below average.

[KM-25]

Third consideration: Quality. Put the best high-resolution film you can find into your film M, and make a picture of a high-detail subject like a landscape with that camera, and simultaneously with a M8. The film image will still look like a 35mm shot. The digital image will look like 6x9cm roll film (and I have made a lot of images on 120 film, young man!) Do we really want to lose that? In that case, there is always the pinhole camera way...

 

Quality is subjective, it is not an absolute. And what I found with the M8 is that the finest of details with aspheric lenses would often do strange blobbing or artifacting if in the right light. And the moire, lets not even go there...

 

I find that right now, certain film stocks still outdo the M8 or other digital images in the total package, full frame, full use of the full lens, incredible micro-contrast and fine detail where the M8 fails and blobs out detail, etc.

 

I am losing nothing by using film, if anything, I am gaining the right medium and right mindset for my future as a professional image maker.

[AlanG]

A couple of points. Hasselblad is now discounting one of their high end models. I received an email today from them offering the 50 megapixel camera with a zoom lens for $29,995.

 

H3DII-50 & 35-90 Zoom Bundle

 

As for film.... Last week I shot a series of ads where I overlayed the layouts in Capture One and shot tethered. We could see how the images would fit into the ads as we shot. The creative director, the client and the AE were all very excited to see that I could work that way. The client said it was great to really be able to see the completed ad as we shot. Something she always worried about before. And we made some variations on the spot as a result. She even asked me what software I was using. And even shooting a less than co-operative dog, I eventually got some that worked for the layout. And we could zoom in and make sure those were in focus. The creative director laughed when I said, "Can you imagine doing this shoot on film."

 

Immeidately after the shoot, we sat around the conference room and looked at various images in three different layouts. They made their selections and I burned a CD of proofs so the artist could get started that day. Everyone involved left with the certainty that the project came out the way they wanted it.

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[KM-25]

I find that right now, certain film stocks still outdo the M8 or other digital images in the total package, full frame, full use of the full lens, incredible micro-contrast and fine detail where the M8 fails and blobs out detail, etc.

 

I should clarify, the M8 did put out some stunning files at times. I often think I sold it because it was becoming a distraction from giving all my attention to the Kodachrome Project, which has now become nearly a full time pursuit for me.

 

I had the chance to play with the M8.2 in Kurland Photo a few weeks back. If Leica had put out the M8.2 instead of the M8, I might have kept it. The shutter and the frame lines were a big improvement.

[KM-25]

The creative director laughed when I said, "Can you imagine doing this shoot on film."

 

I totally agree, the workflow reasons you describe are why I love digital. But there is also work that can benefit from a slower, more contemplative approach. Film use is one of those things that I just feel different using. And like a musician, if something just "feels" right, it will likely have a positive effect on the total creative outcome.

 

That is why photographers in this age have it better than anyone, we have a vast array of options for living out life behind the camera.

[Gentleman Villain]

Alan, excellent examples! Thanks a lot for posting...That's a perfect example of how digital has really helped make a faster advertising workflow. The number one problem I had when working in advertising was trying to "read" the mind's of the clients. They often can't describe exactly what they want or are imagining in their heads...and I often felt like I had to be some kind of psychic or clairvoyant to figure out what the heck they wanted. IT made me really hate advertising :-) But your example would take all of the guess work away....and get right to the final ad so that everybody is happy during the shoot...instead of finding out that something was wrong after the shoot is over

[AlanG]

... IT made me really hate advertising :-) But your example would take all of the guess work away....and get right to the final ad so that everybody is happy during the shoot...instead of finding out that something was wrong after the shoot is over

 

Yes. I said to them, "If we can't get the photo and ad right with this technology we should all be fired."

 

And since I started shooting with digital cameras, most of the stress is gone. For me and for my clients. The capability to shoot tethered with an overlay is something my clients and I never knew we needed until last week. But now I wouldn't buy a digital camera that didn't have software that supported this feature. I wonder if the software for the S2 will do this.

[adan]

Alan: Well, of course, in the olden days when slrs were SLRs and had pop-off prisms, Playboy shooters used to put a slide of the magazine cover with nameplate between the screen and prism of their Nikons/Canons to aid composition - or tape a rough (upside down) to the screen of their 4x5s.

[marknorton]

Alan, is that ability to overlay images in C1 a standard feature or an add-in? I can't find it!!

[lars_bergquist]

Quality is subjective, it is not an absolute. And what I found with the M8 is that the finest of details with aspheric lenses would often do strange blobbing or artifacting if in the right light. And the moire, lets not even go there....

You mean a different thing by 'quality' than I do. To you, 'quality' means that you like the result. You are free to do so. To those two gents I mentioned before, 'quality' meant images printed on macadam. Similarily, some people like the 'quality' of old lenses with lots of residual chroma, coma, astigmatism and whatever--the (in)famous "Leica glow". In the SLR world, in a throwback to pictorialism, some people fit diffusers to their lenses. De gustibus etc.

 

To me, in this context, quality does not mean 'just any subjective property' but definition: Resolution, contrast, lack of aberrations--all capable of being quantified. And here I stand my ground. I have made enough photographs on 120 roll film, 6x6 and 6x9, and developed them and printed them large, and hung some of the results on walls that I see when I write this, to know what that kind of equipment and material could do. And believe me, 35mm could not touch this. I did long range backpacking above the Arctic Circle with medium format equipment in order to get that look.

 

The nearest I got was T-Max 100, 'pulled' to ISO 64 and with some arcane special development, just like seventy years ago. Even so, that 'zing' was not there--but that was possibly because at that time, I did not use a Leica, with Leica optics. Still, the difference was there, and it could be demonstrated.

 

But with the M8 I do get that quality. 6x9cm quality. Case closed.

 

The old man behind that Mamiya Six

[sandymc]

For those interested, the classic work in the area is Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma", subtitle "When New Technologies Cause Great Firms To Fail".

 

Although Christensen is a Harvard professor, the book is very readable - his main case study is the hard drive industry. Well worth the read for those interested in the area, and with the patience to read books(!)

 

Sandy

[KM-25]

I understand what you are saying, but what I am finding is in the here and now, not yesterday. So I am doing my thing and you are doing yours.

 

The very worst thing about the rise of the digital age is how it has pitted people against each other in terms of mediums. None is better than the other when it comes down to it and really all that matters is how good of a shooter you are, how much talent you have and what have you achieved in your imagery and career.

 

This is what makes me hate with a passion the digital age, people think that it is the greatest thing in the world and then you look at their work and it is still only so-so.

 

I am making a conscious choice in my mediums because I find that image quality is a very, very subjective thing.

 

It's G_d dam_ time I shut up and put up, none of this internet garbage does any real photographer any real good to begin with.

 

It's not like you actually see master photographers with legendary status chiming in on the stupid gear talk.

 

You mean a different thing by 'quality' than I do. To you, 'quality' means that you like the result. You are free to do so. To those two gents I mentioned before, 'quality' meant images printed on macadam. Similarily, some people like the 'quality' of old lenses with lots of residual chroma, coma, astigmatism and whatever--the (in)famous "Leica glow". In the SLR world, in a throwback to pictorialism, some people fit diffusers to their lenses. De gustibus etc.

 

To me, in this context, quality does not mean 'just any subjective property' but definition: Resolution, contrast, lack of aberrations--all capable of being quantified. And here I stand my ground. I have made enough photographs on 120 roll film, 6x6 and 6x9, and developed them and printed them large, and hung some of the results on walls that I see when I write this, to know what that kind of equipment and material could do. And believe me, 35mm could not touch this. I did long range backpacking above the Arctic Circle with medium format equipment in order to get that look.

 

The nearest I got was T-Max 100, 'pulled' to ISO 64 and with some arcane special development, just like seventy years ago. Even so, that 'zing' was not there--but that was possibly because at that time, I did not use a Leica, with Leica optics. Still, the difference was there, and it could be demonstrated.

 

But with the M8 I do get that quality. 6x9cm quality. Case closed.

 

The old man behind that Mamiya Six

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Hallo,

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[AlanG]

Alan, is that ability to overlay images in C1 a standard feature or an add-in? I can't find it!!

 

It is an included feature in the "pro" version. I don't know if it is available in the standard version. The standard version does not directly support tethered shooting anyway. (However you could use a hotfolder and some other camera tethering software.) Or just shoot to a card and then import the images.

 

In the old days we used to make wax pencil "layouts" that went over our ground glass or Polaroids. We also used to use those double right angle scaling tools to place over the Polaroid and then stretch over the larger layout. But this is obviously the ultimate way to go.

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