audio and photography parallels??

I am a photographer, but not a great one--very amateur actually. However, my father and many colleges including Carl Zapp--on this site and a client of Rives are great photogaphers. (I hope Carl responds to this thread--it's right up his alley)

I think the parallel is right on. I take digital photographs only now. I just recently got a higher resolution camera (could it be SACD?) It's got great optics but is still amateur based--not for a pro at all. My purpose is for documenting rooms we've done and taking pictures of the kids. Digital is so convenient--just like CDs compared to vinyl. My father has a very high end digital camera--way beyond mine. But for serious work he shoots 4 x 6 plates, i.e. large format film.

Carl Zapp did some photography for Rives Audio. He did a few snap shots with digital to show us what the setup was like, but when it was time to get serious--film only.

What I do find very interesting is in these cases where film is used to capture the image it's then scanned in at high resolution and manipulated digitally before it goes to print. That is the part where the analogy falls down somewhat I think. That would be like doing an A/D conversion and then equalizing and then going back D/A. Just doesn't make sense--oh yeah, that's why we made the Rives Audio PARC analog:) (sorry--I just couldn't resist)

i'm into photography as a hobby and lately turned to all digital. i own a nice pentax sf1 autofocus 35mm film camera with multiple lenses and it is a very nice camera. the only drawback to film is that you have to get the film developed before you know you have a decent picture. i took 2 rolls of film on a trip and didn't know that the camera focused on the rain drops instead of the subject until i got them developed.

i also own a point and shot digital which is great to have to take pictures of audio gear and cars or take on hikes (small and light).

i recently purchased a professional digital camera that is fantastic. 1/16,000 shutter speed, 5 frames a second, and one of the fastest autofocusing speeds of any camera i have read about. i recently took 500+ pictures at a american lemans race and i could literally stop the action of a car at 150mph and see the cars spoked wheels like they were standing still. the only drawback is the price, over $5000 for the camera body alone.

I was actually refering to the palpability of the audio and photographic image .......i.e. conveying the true intent of the sound and vision.

It is somewhat similar Tubino, and there are certainly some parralells in the two. In simplistic and basic terms it is a matter of resolving detail, nuance and accuracy in reproduction. The digital imaging technology is moving and changing at a faster rate than music I'd say. The film vs. digital debate is similar to the analogue vs. digital debate in music, in some ways. Film is still capable of more subtle nuance and a more 'fluid' tonal flow, much like a good analogue setup can do with music. With digital imaging the technology has been getting better and better at a very rapid pace to the point where with some of the better professional digital cameras and digital backs the average person and even many professionals would have a hard time telling the difference between a film image and a hi-end digital image. For professionals digital offers speed and convenience and the end of the latent image anxiety (there are other anxieties that go with digital though).

With digital, it's all a matter of zero's and ones, but not only the amount of information recorded in (megapixels or khz), but the actual technology implemented to interpret and translate that information in something the eye see's or the ear hears. In the same way just because two cameras each create a 5mp image does not mean those images will appear the same, nor will one oversampling CD player sound the same as another. In turn there are 4mp camers that create better looking images than other 8mp cameras, just as there are standard redbook players that reproduce music better than some oversampling players.

To respond to Rives question regarding film scanning; Given that film is capable of greater subtleties and nuance - the scanning technology at the high end is capable of resolving the subleties in the film image that the direct to digital professional cameras and backs cannot yield. This is not your typical $300 desktop scanner I'm referring to here but instead far more expensive scanners. These scanners may be translating an image into the same zeros and ones that the digital camera might create, but the scanning technology (at the high end) is capable of doing justice to and recording all those nuances that film has to offer that makes in marginally superior to direct-tp-digital cameras. Why the difference? Again, in simplistic terms, with the digital camera the sensitive light recording device in the camera (ccd) is fixed and limited in its size. The scanning device moves across the surface of the film or print rather slowly recorting information as it moves along and is not limited to the size of a receptor, but rather the size of the scanner bed or drum itself and the technology of the scanner. It's kind of like if a person were to step back twenty feet to view a mural there is only so much information you'd take in from that distance with finer details and nuances getting lost or interpretted by that persons wee brain. But if the same person comes close to the same mural and moves across it slowly bit by bit taking in all the finer details and nuances (the scanner) that may have been missed or interpretted differently from a distance.

Hope that made some sense!

Best,

Marco

I don't think the parallel is as close to audio. A digital picture is not recreated by a "sample" of the image - it captures it whole, similar to film. Whereas the film image is created by a chemical reaction stimulated by light onto a finite number of crystals, a digital image is formed by the wavelength of light acting on a finite number of pixels. And, the final product for digital is a color printer - which is where the parallel to film processing ends. Or maybe not - the 10 grand printers do a great job imitating film prints but the off the shelf 200 dollar ones do not. But it may just be a matter of time - after all, photography has a bigger mass market than high end audio.

I, too, consider myself an avid amateur. I could spend hours in a B&H looking at the Canon L Series lenses the way I look at gear in an audio store.