20th Century History of Photography

[fuwen 0]

Long time no see!

film definitely still has a different kind of feel/look to it!

Please share more pics with us fuwen

 

Hi Blues, what digital system are u into now, still Nikon? D700?

 

With Zeiss now releasing ZF lenses for Nikon ZE lenses for Canon, very tempting to buy the full frame DSLR, but price still too high for me to jump into a new system.

 

 

[iggyting 0]

An interesting personal site you have there, fuwen!

 

The jury still out on whether digital will triumph over analogue commercially as the sole format for photography and hifi. I say 'commercially' because it concerns us, the consumers or hobbyists directly.

 

Two observations, though debatable, are forwarded here. First, the convenience and 'value-added' usefulness of the digital format. The impact of the digital format in photography hits me when my elder-photographic friends 'abandoned' their SLRs for DSLRs. Their reason is not that digital is superior but it is more convenient. These long-dedicated film users say they can 'live' with the minor downside of digital photography. What is lacking in digital is more than made up by the subsequent digital 'paint-over', which value-adds to the final photograpic product. However, the same may not be true for hifi in that the LP sound remains unique and unproducible in the digital format. It is like comparing a tube and a transistor sound, both are unique and different. There will alway be 'tube' and 'transistor' sound lovers, the former group will not only be stable but also grow with time.

 

The above differences by themselves may not see the demise of the analogue format because there will always be a select group of users. Yes old things are not trash! However, this brings us to the second observation. How 'big' is the group of photographic users of the analogue format to be commercially viable for production set-ups (factories, companies) to stay in it? Kodah and Fuji are scaling down their film productions; Konica and Agfa are long gone. It is all a question of dollar and cent - it requires big money to invest in small return. Not so with hifi in that it takes a relatively low investment to form a set-up (sound crew, musicians, etc) for a still sizeable steady-growth market of analogue (LP) users. So digital photography will replace analogue definately this 21st century. On the other hand, we may see a steady growth in analogue sound reproduction.

 

Just my 2-cent worth..regards

[fuwen 0]

Oh yes, Kodak and Fuji is definitely scaling down their film production, but the China brand Lucky film is up and coming (what I said as big boys reduction in profits and small player new business opportunity).

 

http://www.chiifcameras.com/site2/index.ph...id=51&Itemid=43

 

 

 

 

[Blues 0]

Hi Blues, what digital system are u into now, still Nikon? D700?

 

With Zeiss now releasing ZF lenses for Nikon ZE lenses for Canon, very tempting to buy the full frame DSLR, but price still too high for me to jump into a new system.

Hi fuwen,

Still Nikon system, but Fujifilm innard - S5pro ...

don't quite have the financial mean to purchase a D700, thought hopefully i could move on to Full Frame in the future. Nothing beats the 'real' view of what 35mm supposed to be, the DOF. The crop is just a compromise.

 

Oh yes, Zeiss is definitely offering a lot of options for people who are still into Manual Focus with their recent Canon EF mount announcement!

Equally surprising to me is the announcement of the new Leica S2 system, shows that the German companies might not have lost it completely in the digital arena?

Edited October 2, 2008 by Blues

[fuwen 0]

Well, S5Pro a good choice for nice colour reproduction. Do u know are firefox and av98m still into photography?

 

As for Leica, I am not so sure about their strategy. I feel that Zeiss's approach is more sensible, at least their products are more reachable to those who do not have lots of cash to burn.

 

As for Leica, the S2 to me is neither here nor there (but the 'neither' could also be a market opportunity and a good compromise between image quality and price but then Leica price is always......)

 

As for the M system, the M8 does not seems to make good sense without the IR filter, and while Zeiss is going small in their lens design like 35/2.8, 21/4.5 and 85/4, Leica is go against their own philosophy of compact M photography and producing very expensive and huge 21/1.4, 24/1.4 and 50/0.95.

 

We will see then.

 

Digital CCD/CMOS data management needs lots of fine tuning, and I dun think the German can catch up with the Japanese who have spent so many manhours into it. Anyway Leica is using Kodak sensors.

Edited October 2, 2008 by fuwen

[Blues 0]

True though, about the Kodak CCD sensor.

 

Haha not too sure about av98m and firefox. perhaps if they are still reading this thread they would come and say hello ?

 

[iggyting 0]

Oh yes, Kodak and Fuji is definitely scaling down their film production, but the China brand Lucky film is up and coming (what I said as big boys reduction in profits and small player new business opportunity).

 

http://www.chiifcameras.com/site2/index.ph...id=51&Itemid=43

 

The enterprising Chinese, with a billion-people market, will find it profitable even in a sunset industry. Wonder where will "Lucky" be a decade from now?

 

The speedy penetration of the digital format can also be attributed to it's versatibilty in bringing the processing right into the home, under the control of the consumer. Would the analogue format be more successful if the industry players (Kodak, Fuji, etc) had done so with better R&D? The best was Kodak's effort in instant processing in it's polaroid cameras range. Yet it failed eventually. So there were limitations to the photo-chemical medium. The industry knows better that the digital age has unequivocably arrived.

[heady 0]

When film was B&W, it was possible to do your own processing at home. I did this in my secondary school photo club darkroom. With colour, only the rich could do their own processing.

 

And so I agree with your assessment iggyting.

[iggyting 0]

Yes Heady, developing B&W in a madeshift darkroom was an exciting time for the young and creative. This again highlights the question why the film-format industry failed to seize on this opportunity to promote home processing with increased R&D. Was it an idea too early for it's time?

 

Whatever, one feels a sense of loss of aesthetic. Especially in B&W, film reproduces in print a greater range of black and white. I do not know how far digital can go in narrowing the gap. However, I doubt the discrete matrix in digital can ever fill up the continuous spread of film. An additional limitation is in the digital print matrix. Can a discrete mix ever match that of a continuous spectrum?

 

Sorry I am not technical enough to stress my points further but hope you catch my slant. So the convenience of the digital age has arrived but with it a compromise.

 

Ending in apprehension of a ....

Edited October 4, 2008 by iggyting

[Blues 0]

like u said, the discrete digital can never truly reach the continuous analogue spread. The best it can do is to try fill those gap and emulate, to the point that it is 'good enough' for most users. Personally, the full control of post processing is the winning factor for me in digital. If it were film, I would have to do really alot of work in dark room, which I could now in front of my laptop with a few clicks

Edited October 5, 2008 by Blues

[fuwen 0]

Some good news for film lovers:

 

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum172/54564-...-news-film.html

[Blues 0]

Btw, just a head up for those who don't know..

 

the Singapore International Photography Festival is here till the end of the month. Yesterday went to see the exhibition at Old School, Mt Sophia Rd. Very nice work.. esp impressed by the work of the GMB Akash on Child Labor, Vee Spears on Birthday Party, and Ko Yamada's on speciment on goodbyes.

 

If you guys have time can go down and take a look

[fuwen 0]

My latest new toy, a Voigtlander R4M rangefinder with 21mm frame lines. Its fun!

 

http://www.fuwen.net/index.php?option=com_...d=86&Itemid=151

[fromjava 0]

wow, so many gears. the world change so fast

[viscy 0]

some DSLRS now are quite comparable to the film ones.. can't wait for the technology to be so good that they're indistinguishable.