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[OM] analog and digital

Subject: [OM] analog and digital
From: "William Sommerwerck" <williams@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 05:22:38 -0700
Cc: "J. Gordon Holt" <gordholt@xxxxxxxxxx>, "J. Gregory Lefebvre" <jgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> I was talking to my friend, the one that got me into photography in the
> first place, he's an aerospace engineer. We talked about the irony of
> the digital age.

> "The ultimate goal of digital, is to replicate analog." Isn't that ironic?
> CD's goals are to sound like an analog signal, and digital picture's
> goals are to look like an analog picture. So if I have analog already,
> why do I want digital?


Your friend is wrong. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

I reviewed hi-fi equipment for over a decade. One of the stupidest remarks I
ever heard (and continue to hear) was the statement that good digital
devices "sound [more] like analog." As far as sound reproduction is
concerned, an amplifier or recorder isn't supposed to "sound like"
anything -- it's supposed to sound like nothing at all. That is, it should
have no identifiable character of its own. The proper reference is not
analog or digital, but live sound.

Photography is different, because the exact reproduction of what's in front
of the camera has never been an important goal. Digital photography is,
shall we say, more "literal," without the subjective "distancing" of
silver-based photography. Digital is more mundanely "real" and less
"artistic."

In any case, digital photography * has many obvious advantages over "analog"
photography, such as immediate availability and reduced material costs.

* There's some confusion because what we really mean is "electronic
photography." Sony's original Mavica was analog, not digital.


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