Leica DMR vs. Canon 1Ds Mark II

[terry_rory]

Assuming your tutor is not so digi-phobic as to eschew the use of a computer, maybe he would like to present his evidence of where all of us DSLR users and Canon/Nikon/Leica etc are all going wrong?

 

I am reminded of certain people who held that the railway locomotive would be an impossible venture because such implausible speeds would make breathing impossible for the passengers! Or those early owners of Edison phonographs who would shock guests by hiding one behind a curtain. Some people could not believe there wasn't a string quartet playing and despite the evidence could not bring themselves to accept the technology.

 

Even now there are still people who maintain that any frequencies reproduced above or below the accepted audible range of the human ear play no part in faithful reproduction of music.

[terry_rory]

I seem to remember the Leitz 180mm f/3.4 APO Telyt R (developed by Walter Mandler in the 1970s for the US Navy) had phenomenal resolution.

[doris_chan]

Trevor, my guess is that "Anthony Brookes" is a spoof character. Here are the titles of

some of his previous threads:

 

"Collapse of digital camera sales"

 

"Digital sucks"

 

"What to do after digital"

 

"Digital imaging leads to impotence"

 

"All digital cameras are just point and shoots"

 

"F**K DIGITAL!"

 

My favorite though is "Digital no good for wildlife". That's right, it's not just Anthony and

his tutor, the world's monkeys,

weasels, and wombats have given a resounding no to digital......

[anthony_brookes5]

Doris. I am trying to decide whether to go completely digital and have been looking at the Digilux2. What triggered this question is that I asked the tutor why Leica have limited their pixels to 5mp wheras Canon go to 8-10. He said Canon's was probably a marketing ploy.

p.s. I have just looked for any Erwin Puts comments and he seems to suggest my tutor is on the right lines - that lens size limits the use of the sensor. You guys sure get upset when a digital question is raised. I didn't mean to be provocative. I just wanted a bit of science.

[doris_chan]

"I asked the tutor why Leica have limited their pixels to 5mp"

 

But they haven't have they?

 

"wheras Canon go to 8-10. He said Canon's was probably a marketing ploy"

 

Anthony, on the off chance that you're for real, why not share with us the identity of the

college in question. Then we can all avoid this college and it's mightily strange and

ignorant tutors.

[terry_rory]

"the world's monkeys, weasels, and wombats have given a resounding no to digital."

 

LOL! Wonderful.

 

Anthony, I really would like it if this tutor could be introduced to us here personally so he can speak directly to the forum about film vs digital and all these other wonderful nuggets of wisdom you have relayed to us over the time you have attended his course.

 

I did a couple of years worth of weekly evening classes for my 'City & Guilds' in photography 6-7 years ago at a local college when digital photography was (relatively) a lot more expensive and much less widespread and far more primitive than today. My tutor was passionate about all forms of photography including digital but he was a professional photographer AND an artist and very excited about anything which expanded peoples interest in the visual world (whatever technology was used to achieve it). I think the fact that he was not just primarily a college teacher made the course far more interesting and he was able to inspire us beyond the C&G syllabus (which at that time was very dry and totally B&W/film/darkroom oriented.)

 

I get the feeling your tutor is of the 'old school' and may be passing on the wrong message about photography in all its forms.

 

Photography is a fantastic pass-time/craft/art/subject however it is done and whatever it is done with. We are privileged to do photography in an age when all the very best technology of the past and the present are available giving us such a wonderfully varied means of expressing ourselves in pictures.

 

I think if all the 'greats' of photography history were able to glimpse what can be done today, they would be excitedly telling your tutor to shut up and stop limiting his student's ideas with his nonsensical anti-digital ravings (and at the same time they would be fighting each other to get on the iMac and have a go on photoshop and playing tug o war over who gets to use the D2X next!)

[anthony_brookes5]

Trevor - the description of your tutor sounds just like mine. Mine is about 35 I would guess and a professional photogrpaher as well. He uses Mamiya mainly but sometimes a Pentax medium format, but he has used Leicas and Hassys. I think of him more as an artist than a photographer. He doesn't like digital - yet. He says it still has some way to go to match film and top class lenses. I will not give you his name or the college out of courtesy and without his permission but I will ask him. He does seem to have a very wide knowledge of the digital process. He said there is alot of rubbish talked about digital photography from people who should know better. But his parting shot is always Canon and Nikon are interested only in profit and anything to sell their products is acceptable so don't be fooled by their latest toys.

[terry_rory]

I recommend to your tutor that he takes the next possible opportunity to watch the repeats of the BBC 4 series.. "A DIGITAL PICTURE OF BRITAIN" by Tom Ang.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/features/digital-picture-britain.shtml

[terry_rory]

A total of 18 top photographers (who had never used digital) were given either a top DSLR or a digital P&S or a cellphone-camera to record Urban, Rural & Industrial themes. All of these traditional photographers (even the unlucky ones who got phonecams!) enjoyed the experience and learnt what could be achieved with the different levels of digital technology.

 

A true professional does not just learn about the limitations of a technology, they learn how best to exploit those 'limitations' to artistic effect. Even those who got the 'Lemons' (phonecams) got Lemonade. I think the most your tutor would get from a phonecam would be pips.

[anthony_brookes5]

Trevor - I saw that programme - two of them. Nice pictures but my telly could not give me any grasp of quality. p.s. Is Erwin Puts wrong about lens size ? If he isn't then the Canon and Nikon umpteen mega pixels are a waste of money.

[terry_rory]

I give up. I tried. I am going out to take photos now. I am taking two film cameras with me and lots of this 'new' 400UC stuff (5 rolls arrived today) I have been on a long night shift and drunk lots of coffee and my handheld shots are not going to come anywhere near testing the resolution of my Zeiss SLR lenses and I dont care because there is more to it than that.

 

Tomorrow I may go out with my Contax/Zeiss/film AND my Nikon DSLR with Sigma lens (gasp of horror) and I am not going to worry what was taken on which.

 

I am NOT going to photograph resolution charts or brick walls (unless the walls belong on something photogenic) and I say go hang the measurebators and digital naysayers and resolution freaks.

 

I may even play the Fuji Frontier (1 hour) jpeg CD film scans on TV via my DVD player. I will try to forget your tutor. I think you should also.

[socke]

Ah! Now i understand. Your tutor is talking about digital P&S cameras. Thats different to what most of us where talking about.

[ben z]

"Trevor Hare Photo.net Patron, sep 01, 2005; 12:55 a.m.

"They are two very different tools geared toward two different types of photographers."

 

How so Todd? We are presumably (on this Leica Forum) talking about photographers with Leica R lenses who want to use digital as well as film.

 

... my interpretation of "two different types of photographers" is simply...

 

1) Rich photographer who simply MUST have the Leica solution even if it is compromised and overpriced."

 

What I don't get is why any discussion about Leica vs another brand on this forum almost invariably ends up with one side saying if you don't use a Leica your priorities are skewed and the other side saying if you do use a Leica your priorities are skewed. Why does it always have to get personal? "only a caffiene addict uses Image Stabilizer","if you use a Canon 20D it's like using cheap grocery store film","if you don't beat up your equipment you're not a real photographer","if you use a UV filter you mustn't know good image quality from bad", "if you can't see Leica lenses are better than C/N you're blind". I follow several net forums including a couple of other Leica forums, there are plenty of disagreements, occasionally heated, but not the steady stream of trolling and taking personal potshots as there are here. It's not like I see offensive posts and threads being deleted on those other forums either so it seems that people just know it won't be tolerated and don't do it. Sorry for the rant but in light of what's happening from Katrina the sniping from grown, intelligent men on this forum seems even pettier than usual.

[anthony_brookes5]

Trevor - You win. I'm going to print out this whole list of contributions and give it to my tutor. I hope his response is printable.

[socke]

Anthony, sending him a link is no option?

[._._z]

Ignorant assertions and bullheadedness in the Leica Forum? When did that start?

[._._z]

<i><blockquote> When you run out of batteries in a war zone - you can switch backs

and shoot TRIX!

</blockquote> </i><p>

 

Thank goodness you can shoot fim in an R9 without batteries! <p>

[g_guhan_gunaratnam2]

Stay in school, even after reading Erwin's articles it seems you still have no idea what he's saying. Erwin himself (in more than one article) is awaiting a digital back which is capable of out-resolving his Leica lenses.

 

You haven't mentioned the name of the institution you are attending. I'd love to know!

[anthony_brookes5]

Guhan. _ why are you not reading Erwin Puts?

 

I quote

 

"This result has been widely published and became a rule of thumb. We see this rule of thumb emerging again and again when persons declare that image sensors of 20 Mp or more are eagerly awaited, as they seem to promise to surpass the resolution watershed of silver halide emulsions. My personal testing (to be published soon) shows that a 5MP sensor with dedicated optics can match the performance of a 35mm negative of superb quality coupled to a lens of equally superb quality.

 

The dilemma is this: a 22 Mp sensor on a large format chip will require lenses that cover a wide area and that is only possible with huge sized lenses. A 22Mp sensor on a small area (and therefore with individual pixels that are extremely small) will require lenses that resolve impossibly fine detail and these lenses will be huge too! The idea that a larger image area will support intrinsically better image quality and that current lenses designed for this larger size are in a better position to deliver the goods is part of the wrong mindset.

 

A lens designed for solid-state recording must be bulky in relation to sensor area.

 

 

A large sensor size in solid-state technology allows for a bigger print size, but not for better image quality"

 

 

QED

[terry_rory]

From Ben Z...

 

"Sorry for the rant but in light of what's happening from Katrina the sniping from grown, intelligent men on this forum seems even pettier than usual."

 

Ben, tragic things are happening all the time somewhere in the world. Yesterday a crowd of pilgrims in Baghdad were panicked (whilst under fire from mortars and RPG and beleiving rumours of suicide bombers amongst them) and as a result 900 people were forced off a bridge and fell to their deaths. The Leica forum did not miss a beat.

 

I think it is a very low tactic to bring tragic events into discussions about camera equipment for the sole purpose of trying to humble people into shutting up because YOU are fed up with the discussion's direction or don't agree with what they are saying.

 

There are more appropriate posts (of concern and sympathy for the suffering in New Orleans) that are going on right now in the Leica forum. This is a discussion about the DMR and comparisons with other digital cameras that accept Leica R lenses not about New Orleans.

 

There is no connection and it does not matter how much you dis-approve or approve of what is said here or how petty we get. I am not going to hang my head in shame for discussing cameras whilst there is a tragic event going on somewhere. As I said, there is ALWAYS a tragic event somewhere so what should we do? Stop discussing our interests completely until the world is totally right and nothing bad is happening anywhere?

[mark_chappell]

<I>But his parting shot is always Canon and Nikon are interested only in profit ...</i><P>

 

As opposed to which camera maker that is in the business out of pure altruism?

[._._z]

Leica, of course. That's why they price their gear so low.

[Spearhead]

<i>Anthony, on the off chance that you're for real, why not share with us the identity of the college in question. Then we can all avoid this college and it's mightily strange and ignorant tutors.</i><p>

 

I've asked for this before. You won't get an answer. He's a fraud.

[ben z]

"it does not matter how much you dis-approve or approve of what is said here or how petty we get."

 

Ok, nobody matters to you but you. Point taken. But having read what you've written previously I know you are too thoughtful to really think that the bit about Katrina was the main thrust of my comments, or that "1) Rich photographer who simply MUST have the Leica solution even if it is compromised and overpriced." is 'discussing cameras' rather than a cheap shot made in the heat of the moment.

[ruben_osuna_guerrero]

Please, read this:

 

http://www.macuarium.com/cms/macu/guias/sobre-la-resolucion-de-las-camaras-

digitales.html

 

In that paper you have all the theory needed to understand "resolution" in digital cameras.