[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:14:51 -0800, Robert Peirce wrote
(in article ):

In article ,
Andrew Haley wrote:

I don't think that we have to come up with any magical explanations
for some people liking or preferring vinyl, just as some people prefer
film to digital photography. Vinyl is a pleasing little bit of
retro-technology, with attendant cleaning rituals and nice-looking
turntables; people like to use their beautiful old Pentaxes and Leicas
and Hasselblads too. And, just as vinyl has a certain sound, film has
a certain look, if you like that kind of thing.

When it gets serious, though, people are not so keen on the retro: if
you have a life-threatening infection you're not so likely to reject
antibiotics and insist on sulfonamides.

In addition to my love of audio, I have an equal love of photography.
While LPs are not uniformly better than CDs, or vice versa, large format
film remains superior to digital, by a long shot. OTOH, 35mm (or DX)
digital, to my eye, blows film away.

I think digital is getting closer. Phase One just released an 80
megapixel 645 back that, from what I have heard, is almost as good as
film, but not quite. It also costs about $22,000. You can buy a
complete 4x5 setup for not much more than a tenth of that.

I know a local photographer who uses a 4 X 5 sheet-film camera that is
fitted with a scanning digital back (from Leaf, I believe) connected directly
to a laptop to capture the gigapixels of raw data that the camera produces.
While his finished landscape photos are spectacular, they look "different"
from the same shot on sheet Ektachrome or Fujichrome (he always makes a film
exposure of the same shot - it's easy, just swap the digital back for a film
holder). The film has more contrast and richer, more saturated colors. Of
course, he can achieve the same effect with Photoshop and the digital
picture, but still, I like both renditions - sort of like the same scene
pained by two different, equally competent painters.