Cameras that are more expensive than a Leica

Sirius Glass said:

Alan it is quite simple. The digital people cannot be understood. Do not bother to try. Just concentrate on film.

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Yeah, I think you are right, Sirius.

I do like the little digital Fuji for what I use it for, mostly family and Ebay pics. For artistic work I shoot film with my Wehman.

I just put my nose up up to Weston's most famous pepper---it wasn't that sharp.

Alan Gales said:

John, you and I are on the same page.

I understand film formats but at one time I was trying to understand digital and kept getting the same silly answers from the digital crowd. They say you can print as large as you want as long as you look at it from the proper viewing distance. I guess they think that if you blow up images from a digital medium format camera and a cell phone both to 16x20 and stand the same distance from each image the sharpness in the prints will be the same. I just wanted a small digital camera to carry around that I could blow up photographs to 11x14 and the sharpness would be equal to my old 35mm Contax 139 and 167 MT's. I ended up buying a Fujifilm X100s and am real happy with the sharpness of the prints.

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hi alan
yup same page alright
but i must admit i have seen some extremely large cellphone photos
and some of them look pretty nice .... but those photographs were taken
by someone who knows what they are doing, ... and unfortunately
a lot of people who dispense advice about d-gtal stuff have no idea
what they are doing or what they are talking about.


oh well ...can't fight progress

jnanian and Nuff...

Every photographic "process" has a certain look with it's own special advantages etc. That's sort of the Group f/64 manifesto.

Some kinds of photography have high resolution as a marked trait. Aerial photography for example, uses cameras with incredible lenses to focus at infinity. Though you can argue that a map produced by one of these cameras has no artistic merit... The process that this camera enables might be used to organize a beautiful composition which takes advantage of the clarity of this process, and make an incredible photograph.

Likewise you could take a box camera up in the same plane and shoot same composition. Yours may also be beautiful. Exhibited together the two photographs could answer the question, is resolution relevant?

Either way it is the idea of the photographer who chooses the "process" that matters, and that creativity makes the compelling photograph. Use different kinds of photography. Choose them for their capability - to realize a creative goal. That's sort of Andreas Feininger's observation.

Lomography rules!

Nuff said:

I agree with PKM-25, what if my vision of a photo I envision doesn't involve nice tonality or sharp detail? What if I don't want you to stuff your nose in the photo? And if you stuff the nose in the photo all I want you to see is smear/grain/no detail?

I think everyone assumes here that everyone seeks the same out of photos. I could be one of the few people here who finds Ansel Adams' photos nice, but not spectacular. And yes, I did see the original prints at gallery in Sydney to make sure I'm not missing something. I do find pictorialist photos a lot more appealing.

I think it's about time some people here realised that not everyone shares the their goals in photography...

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I agree, if we all did the same thing photography would be incredibly boring. I like getting all the detail I can into a negative, but I also like to let loose and have fun.

Nuff said:

..what if my vision of a photo I envision doesn't involve nice tonality or sharp detail? What if I don't want you to stuff your nose in the photo? And if you stuff the nose in the photo all I want you to see is smear/grain/no detail?....

...I do find pictorialist photos a lot more appealing....

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Its fine if you wanna use silver halides to imitate painting or other “art forms” - if you don't wanna photograph reality, can't stand it, then you simply massage / Photoshop® reality to match your artsy style, I get it.

From semioticians point of view, Pictorialism carry a bag, full with secondary meanings.

Pictorialism carry the moods of a certain crowd, their “artistic” styles (based on other art forms), ideological conventions and the agreement to praise them.
Photography, in its pure form, is not based on other art forms.

So, have fun if your vision of a photo you envision doesn't involve nice tonality or sharp detail.
You might also wanna avoid condenser enlargers, fixed grade papers, certain lenses, chemistry, distilled water etc.

georg16nik said:

Photography, in its pure form, is not based on other art forms.
.

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Let's just see how much sense that statement makes if we replace the word "Photography" with - say - "Painting", "Sculpture", "Writing" ... and so on.

"pure photography" ... by implication the contrast is with "impure" photography, which is generally to be interpreted as "What other people do, unlike me, the morally superior Pure Photographer"

It's well over 100 years since this Emerson vs. Everyone Else, and the argument was as vacuous then as it is now ...

pdeeh said:

Let's just see how much sense that statement makes if we replace the word "Photography" with - say - "Painting", "Sculpture", "Writing" ... and so on...

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Replacing the word changes the Semiosis.

Oh please ... I've got a degree in philosophy too (actually, two) but really this is just playing silly arses.

But I expect you're being "playful" and I'm grumpy this morning, so I'll leave you to your semiosis ... or do you mean semiotics?

pdeeh said:

Oh please ... I've got a degree in philosophy too (actually, two) but really this is just playing silly arses.

But I expect you're being "playful" and I'm grumpy this morning, so I'll leave you to your semiosis ... or do you mean semiotics?

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You've at least heard about semiotics but you are apparently clueless about semiosis.
Good.

hmm someone referred to your good-humouredness earlier in the thread, but you really seem to be quite rude.

never mind ...

pdeeh said:

hmm someone referred to your good-humouredness earlier in the thread, but you really seem to be quite rude.

never mind ...

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You got 2 degrees in philosophy and still get confused about semiotics, semiosis.
Replacing the word "Photography" with - say - "Painting", "Sculpture", "Writing" while keeping the context is easy as peanuts, for you.
I am impressed not rude.

We started from “cameras more expensive than a Leica” (Leica is cheap for what it is), went tru bleaching latent images before dev (I confess my guilt). Now guilty again as charged, I expressed my opinion about Photography being different from Pictorialism, as a sign system, process etc.

This is poetry!

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

The most semiotic song I know of.

There's a new flower hybrid called "Mighty Leica Rose".

This post isn't aimed at anyone... just trying to lighten the mood.

Old-N-Feeble said:

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

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+1
Brilliant!

georg16nik said:

Its fine if you wanna use silver halides to imitate painting or other “art forms” - if you don't wanna photograph reality, can't stand it, then you simply massage / Photoshop[emoji768] reality to match your artsy style, I get it.

From semioticians point of view, Pictorialism carry a bag, full with secondary meanings.

Pictorialism carry the moods of a certain crowd, their “artistic” styles (based on other art forms), ideological conventions and the agreement to praise them.
Photography, in its pure form, is not based on other art forms.

So, have fun if your vision of a photo you envision doesn't involve nice tonality or sharp detail.
You might also wanna avoid condenser enlargers, fixed grade papers, certain lenses, chemistry, distilled water etc.

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By your definition, pictorialists didn't take photographs. In that case the period predating modernism isn't photography, it's photoshop. All I can say is wow. Total ignorance of history of photography and not to mention art.

...

Nuff said:

By your definition, pictorialists didn't take photographs....

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Pictorialists imitate painting, graphic arts etc. in intentionally staged, manipulated way. Pictorialism aim at not just capturing the moment as Photography does in its straight / pure form.

The “definition” is not mine.

jnanian earlier asked “f64 sort of thing?” - yeah, you could say its a Group f/64 sort of thing.

Nuff said:

...All I can say is wow. Total ignorance of history of photography and not to mention art.

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Pictorialism not being pure enough for the “history of photography”? How dare I..
You mean, every man should spend some time in San Francisco, in order to grasp Pictorialism and art?

Leica, Rolleiflex, Linhof etc. are indeed cheap cameras

Hi friends,

just some input from me I am convinced it is worth to be thought about:

1. Back to topic:
Leica, Rolleiflex, Linhof Technika, Nikon F6 etc. are indeed very cheap cameras, because they offer excellent long-term value.
And the value you get is the most important point!
A new Leica M7, MP or M-A is about 4000€ here in Germany.
For that money you get a camera you can use 50, 60 or even more years. If you handle it with a little bit care even your children can use it after you have passed away.
4000€ for a using time span of 50 and more years: That is extremely cheap!

If you buy a car for 4000€ you will probably tell us how cheap this car was and that you have made a bargain.
How long can / will you use this car?
4,5 or 6 years? Probably, that is realistic.
But 50 or more years? Most probably not.

So lots of us are burning the money for a Leica, Rolleiflex etc. quite regularly for other things with a much, much shorter lifespan.
Of course, most of us probably have to save money to buy a new Leica, Nikon, Rolleiflex.
But I think it is worth it.
I've bought a brand new Nikon F6 with MB-40 and MV-1 about five years ago.
The best camera purchase I've ever made. It is absolutely a dream camera.
And worth every single cent I've paid.
And if I would be into rangefinders (well I am not, SLRs work better for me), a brand new Leica would be indeed an option for me.

2. Agfa Copex Rapid and Adox CMS 20 II:
I am using these films for years, both as negative and BW reversal films.
They belong to the best things which have happened to us BW photographers in the last years.
Because they give us both more creative and technical options.

The main advantage of both films is:
You can "leapfrog" one to two formats, and can lower your per shot cost.
Agfa Copex Rapid (developed in the dedicated Spur Modular UR New developer and in the Scala reversal process) in 35mm delivers a bit better results than RPX 100, Fomapan and FP4+ in 6x6 120 format (we've done these direct comparison tests several times in our optical test lab).
And at the same time my cost per shot in 35mm is about 40% lower compared to the per shot cost of 120 FP4+.
With Agfa Copex Rapid in 120 you get 4x5" quality, again at significantly lower cost per shot compared to 4x5".

With Adox CMS 20 II the "leapfrog" is even much bigger:
With 35mm CMS 20 II we've surpassed Adox CHS 100 (old version) in 4x5". Higher resolution, better sharpness and finer grain with 35mm Adox CMS 20 II.
You can enlarge this film as big as you want, even in 35mm.
I've projected CMS 20 II slides on a width of about 5 meters. And even then I can see the most finest details on the projection screen "putting my nose on it".

Here just two crappy handheld snapshots with Adox CMS 20 II as BW transparency, developed by Photo Studio 13, scanned at only 4000ppi (that is much, much less than the film can resolve)
by www.high-end-scans.de (click on the picture to make it big):

http://www.high-end-scans.de/img/bilder/web/Serger_OT_ACMS20II_28_4000ppi.jpg

http://www.high-end-scans.de/img/bilder/web/Serger_OT_ACMS20II_57_4000ppi.jpg

With this film it was no problem to reach the diffraction limit at f5,6 with both my 50mm Nikkor, and my 50mm Zeiss ZF: 240 - 260 Lp/mm at an object contrast of only two stops (1:4).
You would need a 183 MP FF sensor to get the same resolution under identical test conditions.
The performance of this film is absolutely outstanding.

So now I can enjoy all the outstanding advantages of my Nikon F6, and get medium format quality with the Agfa Copex Rapid.
And get even significantly better image quality matching some films in 4x5" with the Adox CMS 20 II.
And I can use both films in my Mamiya 645 Pro TL getting large format quality. Again using all the advantages of the smaller format camera.
And all that at much lower costs per shot compared to the bigger formats.

That is the charme of these films.
And as someone who uses these films in daily photography (of course in addition to other films) I can say: It is very charming .

Best regards,
Henning

P.S.: I've used Technical Pan in the past as well. I prefer the current options, get better results with them.

Thanks Henning! Excellent contribution, as always.

I now stand corrected regarding 35mm with such an exceptional film. Those posts have made me care more for my 35mm gear, which was previously left unused. I will someday try such a film with my PC-Nikkor 35mm f2.8 AI lens, which I think is the highest performing Nikkor i own.

Nice video about art, painting, photographing, sharpens ... but no Leica:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3sEyHtg0yc

The one thing that amazes me is that there are *MORE* Ferraris sold in one year, than Leica Ms in 5 years!
Leica isn't marketing well enough!

darkosaric said:

Nice video about art, painting, photographing, sharpens ... but no Leica:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3sEyHtg0yc

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thank you darko !
i never get tired of that, because THAT is what art is ...

...art is an idea...

Henning Serger said:

So now I can enjoy all the outstanding advantages of my Nikon F6, and get medium format quality with the Agfa Copex Rapid.
And get even significantly better image quality matching some films in 4x5" with the Adox CMS 20 II.
And I can use both films in my Mamiya 645 Pro TL getting large format quality. Again using all the advantages of the smaller format camera.
And all that at much lower costs per shot compared to the bigger formats.

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Your argument is exactly the same as some dude with a 20+MP digital camera makes, "my 24MP full frame digital camera gets me more resolution and sharpness than large format film, no tripod, no big cameras, no hassle, no cost". You just replaced the 20MP camera with some funky slow film.