Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.dcameras,rec.photo.digital,rec.photo.equipment.35mm,rec.photo.film+labs,rec.photo.darkroom (
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William Graham wrote:
> "John" <use_net@puresilver.org> wrote in message
> news:d7bao0hm3qomoil91i6apo3642jg3q51ns@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 23:17:31 GMT, "William Graham" <weg9@comcast.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The rods and cones of the retina constitute a digital sensing plane
>>
>> Unfortunately I don't really believe this is the case. Can you
>> show me something stating that the retina operates in a digital
>> fashion ? Particularly binary, trinary or whatever ?
>>
> All I meant by that is the fact that each "rod" or "cone" senses the
> light that strikes it, and the light that falls in between them is
> lost, in a manner similar to any digital sensing plane. Exactly how
> the electro-chemical process that enables the rods and/or cones to
> stimulate the nerve endings is something I don't know. It is similar
> to a digital plane in that the amount of detail that you can see
> depends on the density of the rods and cones on the retina......The
> greater the density, the better the detail.
Absolutely, not that it matters much, but digital photography is agruably
more similar to eyesight than the rather awkward process of squirting a
mixture of silver compounds and cow hooves (cheeks actually) onto acetate,
exposing same, and then spending hour in the dark destroying your eyesight
and posture, and inhaling chemicals.
I would add that the Bayer pattern used in digicams is very similar in
operation to the RGB cones of the retina. Some ducks have 5 different types
of cones. As for how the signal gets to the nerves, cones are modified
nerve cells, and their synapsis connect directly to the next layer of
retinal nerve cells At that level, there is a sharpening effect, called
lateral inhibition, that occurs in the nerve cells of the retina.
I think some of the old guys would have been all over digital. Weston hated
retouching the portraits that were his livlihood for most of his life, and
he would sunbathe specifically to get himself ready for another stint in the
darkroom, which he loathed.
Weston, probably, and very likely Adams would have jumped at the chance to
use digital, and by the same token their work and methods are at our
disposal as digital photographers. Some of us, myself included, see great
benefit in transferring Adams's ideas about tonality and contrast to the
digital realm. Go through "The Negative", and "The Print", and there are
countless techniques that are an uphill battle in chemical photography that
are much easier and more effective in digital.
> There are individuals
> that are born with significantly greater density than average. Ted
> Williams (a baseball player for the Boston Red Sox) comes to mind.
Yay Sox!
> I also knew an individual in the Navy who could see the mast of a ship
> poking up over the horizon at sea. They kept him on the bridge
> virtually all the time. He would point to a perfectly clean horizon
> line and say, "There's a ship over there, sir!" You would take the
> ship's binoculars (mounted on the rail) and look in the direction he
> said, and sure enough, you would see the mast of some vessel bobbing
> up and down over the horizon.......He was better than the surface
> search radar during the daytime.......
LOL. No doubt the radar at that time was analog, so digital "wins" again.
🙂
All that said, I derive no satisfaction from watching film based photography
shrivel away, any more than I take pleasure in the fact that artists like
Ingres and David were the last painters to make great money in portraiture
after photography came on the scene.
If a photographer is talented and well trained, and takes more or less
exquisite care of how his or her images are made, I'm ready to see an
appreciate what they've done. I don't care whether the images were done
with bits or atoms, or indeed whether they themselves think its important or
not - I'm here to see the pictures.
--
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net
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