Leica in the clag

The problem with most digicams I have tried is the enormous shutter lag between when you intended to take the photo and when the image ends up being captured. The subject could have blinked or yawned in the time lag. I thought my partner's autofocus Olympus mju film camera was bad, but some of these digital offerings are terrible. I remember trying to photograph a horse circling its owner on a rope in Dublin's horse market and it was almost entirely random where in the circle it would end up relative to where it was when I released the shutter.

35mm film will be around for the foreseeable future thanks to the movie industry. The occasional digital video projection at our local arthouse cinema is but a crude facsimile of the analogue original. So I shall continue to use my Leica with confidence and pleasure (it is a hobby after all).

Nick

Like our Mat, I'm afraid I just can't agree, simply for the sake of it.


Fritz Von Space filler

http://www.leica-camera.com/imperia/md/content/pdf/rsystem/31.pdf

Martin - that was a good link - first time I have gone to a PDF file then a web page and the another PDF file all in one sequence.

I hope Leica succeed with this device.

so do I, they do seem to be having some probs though. I hope this product is successful, it’s a kind of crossover item they and they’re followers need right now.
Martin

It would be a mistake to believe that Leica's troubles signal the end for film photography, or even 35mm film photography. There is still a large gap between the picture quality available from a 35mm film camera and a digital camera, assuming the same lens. This applies point&shoot and top SLRs, yet the P&S film market is shrinking fastest. This is because the P&S customer is more concerned with convenience than picture quality.
I believe the situation is similar to the introduction of CDs in the 80s. Unrealistic (untrue) claims are made for the results from the new medium, but the masses buy into it for convenience (and pure consumerism). A few enthusisats with eye/ears try to point out the advantages of the old medium to the few who will listen. Eventually the new medium develops and approaches the old, but this takes a surprisingly long time (CD vs. vinyl). Sales of the old medium bottom out, and begin to slowly recover due to an ethusiast fan base.

Very few people would choose now to go into designing/making/selling turntables and vinyl, but enough do to keep it available to those who appreciate its advantages. Not many people make dedicated 45rpm 7inch record players though.

35mm was always a compromised format for the convenience of portability. Medium and large format film is still so far ahead of digital as to be in a different world for quality. You'd need something like an 80 megapixel sensor to come close, and it would still be "digital". The 80 megapix sensors (and the computers to cope) will come in time (probably in PDA cellphones), but there will still be those who will always prefer a wet bromide mono print from a decent size negative. They will keep film going, but it will be a niche (expensive) market. Anyone who runs a decent turntable into a Naim system should understand.

Rockindoc,

With all due respect, your views are too general.

My Nikon D2x will produce better quality images than my Nikon F5, no matter what film I use. The lens's are now the limiting factors and they are still improving now.

For me personally, the D2x has finished off film for the 35mm format.

I accept your view on 35mm. Do you think larger film formats still have any place?

At the moment larger formats definitly have a place. The quality from a scanned Hasselblad transparency is far higher than the D2x can produce. However, this is comparing quality of a small format to a larger one.

One can get digital backs for medium and large formats, but they are ridiculously expensive.

In a few years I can see film being pretty much obsolete, much more so than the way vinyl has gone in the music industry.

I won't sell my Mamiya 7II yet then, although there are a lot appearing on e-bay, so some are getting nervous.

I sold my Mamiya 7II kit last year and haven't regretted it. Much as I loved the pictures I could make with it, I didn't use it often enough to justify keeping it. I wasn't nervous, just used my head.

John

You know things must be bad when the Guardian has a couple of links about the subject.

Don't worry. Leica will be solvent as soon as the Sultan of Brunei's cheque clears.

Joe

Press Release:

Agfa-Gevaert on the insolvency filing of AgfaPhoto GmbH
Mortsel/Belgium, May 27, 2005 – Agfa-Gevaert announced today that it was informed of the insolvency filing by AgfaPhoto GmbH. Agfa-Gevaert is fully prepared to co-operate with the insolvency receiver once appointed and all parties concerned.

Effective November 2, 2004, Agfa-Gevaert sold its consumer imaging business to a group of investors in a management buy out/in. Since then the consumer imaging business has been operated through a group of companies under the name of AgfaPhoto. The AgfaPhoto group is a private group of companies owned by management, NannO Beteiligungsholding and a small number of financial investors.

Agfa-Gevaert provides AgfaPhoto group companies with distribution, order fulfillment, after sales and other services until the end of 2005.

In addition, at the time of the management buy out/in on November 2, 2004, Agfa-Gevaert granted a secured vendor loan for the full purchase price. Based on Agfa Gevaert's audited financial statement, the purchase price was set at 112 million Euros, which is still subject to an audit of the closing financials by the purchaser. The vendor loan is fully secured by a lease portfolio held by AgfaPhoto Holding GmbH, the parent company of the AgfaPhoto group. AgfaPhoto Holding GmbH is not implicated in the insolvency filing of AgfaPhoto GmbH. Agfa-Gevaert therefore does not expect the insolvency filing by AgfaPhoto to have a material effect on Agfa-Gevaert.

Agfa-Gevaert regrets this development for AgfaPhoto GmbH but is hopeful, that in the interest of preserving the employment and the business operations of AgfaPhoto group, the current difficulties can be overcome and that AgfaPhoto GmbH recovers quickly.

quote:

Originally posted by graham55:
I agree that it's very sad, but it is surely the way the world is going.

I'm a keen photographer (owning two Nikon F3P cameras with motor-drives and seven primary lenses picked up over the last 20 years). Recently, I was on the verge of persuading myself to go for an M7, to use when not using my motor-driven F3s, but it was going to cost some £2,000 to get the camera, before I could start to think about lenses. So I bought a lovely F3T off eBay for around £350. It's actually a better camera than the Leica, in my view, and also hand-made, and it will cost about £150 to be cleaned and brought up to spec in a specialist camera workshop. So I can't feel, much as I'd like to support Leica, that I've made a wrong decision.

G

A Leica camera (I have M6 and R6.2) is NOT a Nikon camera. The joy of using a Leica camera cannot be reproduced with other cameras. The Leica way of taking picture (especially with the M- series needs to experience to understand). It is a joy to hold and use a Leica camera.....

quote:

A Leica camera (I have M6 and R6.2) is NOT a Nikon camera. The joy of using a Leica camera cannot be reproduced with other cameras. The Leica way of taking picture (especially with the M- series needs to experience to understand). It is a joy to hold and use a Leica camera.....

Agreed

Thirded.

But the convenience of my Canon 10D (and the comfort of being able to verify immediately that you have got that important photo in the "can") is such that my ratio of M6 photos to Canon photos is something like 1:600 these days. I still can't bring myself to sell the M6 though.

Andrew

quote:

I still can't bring myself to sell the M6 though.

I feel the same about my Contax G2 outfit having just bought a Nikon D70s.

I took some pictures the other day with the Contax and it felt a little flat by comparison. I suppose it's not having the facility to view the shots immediately afterwards.

George.

quote:

my ratio of M6 photos to Canon photos is something like 1:600 these days. I still can't bring myself to sell the M6 though

...but how many duff shots per roll with the M6? Two things really, I use my M-series in a different way to my D-SLR. It is quiet and unobtrusive and great for street photography. Plus, I like having to think - aperture, exposure, filter, etc.

Then there is the whole low light aspect - but a Summilux, IS0 800+ and I can shoot a whole lot more hand-held than with any D-SLR I have used to-date.

Huw

Christ!

When the Naim End of Year Forum Awards get presented, you can always be sure that the photography threads always come out top on talking bollocks.

What crap.

Leica Ms are jewelry for men.

And the winner of this year's Prince Albert award for the person who in the judge's view combined knowledge of photography and male jewelry is . . . . . . ?

quote:

Originally posted by count.d:
Christ!

When the Naim End of Year Forum Awards get presented, you can always be sure that the photography threads always come out top on talking bollocks.

What crap.

Munich seems quite good at producing it of late, innit