I'm not sure what the emoticon for a tongue-in-cheek or ironic statement
might be, so try to imagine I've used such as preface to this.
Why is it:
That when I was active in live theatre and was dead-solid certain I was a
better director than most - I did nothing to prove it.
That my daughter's musician friends feel free to grouse about the no-talent
bands out there making big bucks and getting radio play - but do nothing to
grab their own piece of the pie.
That I believe I'm a better playwright than most - but have only completed
two plays and none within the last several years.
That I *know* with certainty I was a better journalist than the vast
majority - but spent less time practicing journalism as a profession than I
had studying it in college.
That many of us believe we are as talented as some well-known photographers
- but nobody's heard of us.
The fact is that we can safely potshot from our anonymous foxholes at those
who have taken the risk of making themselves accessible targets by putting
their work before the public where it succeeds or fails on its merits, or
lack thereof.
I can't defend every alleged mistake in the books written by Roger and
Frances - I haven't read them all. Those I have seen are faultlessly
illustrated. The text is blessedly free of the major flaw that plagues
virtually every book of the "how-to" or "here's how I do" variety - they are
not *boring*. They're also fairly free of superficiality and condescension
- other pockmarks upon the genre.
I am fairly certain of what I said and didn't say during the course of this
thread - despite the fact that my conversation for the most part during the
past week has consisted of "What does the lion say? Rowrrr!" and "What does
the cow say? Mooo!" with my 18 m/o grandson - and I'm fairly certain I
never alleged that Roger's books contained tabular data of irrefutable tests
or that he stated one could expect the glass equivalent of vaseline to have
no detrimental effect on resolution.
What I did say is that Roger simply stated on CompuServe that in his tests
he found no significant difference in resolution between filters of fairly
equivalent quality, including Cokin's, or photos taken without any filters.
He didn't reprint his methodology or numbers, and I didn't care to ask. I
simply do not care. Roger has forgotten more about photography than I'll
ever know. His wife, Frances, a late starter in photographer, has well
surpassed me in her knowledge of the craft.
When someone requests an 8 *foot* by 10 *foot* copy of one of my images,
I'll begin to worry about ultimate resolution. And promptly switch to large
format.
Anyone who is persuaded that decent quality filters significantly impair
resolution to the extent that years from now you'll be tearing at your
breast in agony for having ruined countless images, please, feel free to
mail me your useless filters. Those that I don't keep I'll dole out to
unsuspecting photography students to hinder any potential competition for as
long as possible. But, frankly, I doubt they'll be hindered for long if at
all since some of the most imaginative work I've seen coming from young
photographers indicates that they could give a rat's patootie about
achieving absolute resolution.
And thank goodness for that.
Lex
===
From: Frank Ernens <fgernens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [OM] Hoya lens?
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2000 19:18:41 +1000
Lex wrote
> I've only paged through some of the books Roger and Frances Schultz have
> co-written. For the most part they appear to lean toward ease of
digestion
and Simon E. wrote
> No offence Lex, but Roger Hicks is not my idea of the most
> fastidious of testers. I've read his material, and while I can't fault
his
> enthusiasm, technical accuracy isn't always uppermost in his agenda.
I second that. Their film book is wrong about contrast (and the photos
are pretty poor, IMO.) From memory, they had colour temperature wrong
way around too, but that might have been some other writer. If 199
people express an opinion - and the Great Filter Question is like
that - I'll believe the 1 in 199 who has scientific proof. Here,
that's Gary Reese. Thanks, Gary, for your efforts!
P.S. I have a cheap 100mm filter that came with a 500m mirror
lens, and it is almost impossible to focus through. I don't think
there is any dispute that cheap filters are a disaster - the debate
is, or should be, about Hoya, B+W, camera brands etc.
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