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Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

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Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#31

Post by Robin_Message »

luscious wrote: post #5

because your time is worth less than your money. we are fully descended into the first level of mediocrity. I think I must be getting time-trolled. People come up with ideas to deliver me 5 minutes of hate on a Monday morning. Let's put together cheap things to waste massive amounts of time in the pursuit of crap, disposable techno-folk-art. Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear.

> Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear.

Is this a film reference? It seemed like a total non-sequiter, except I think I watched the referenced film just yesterday.

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#32

Post by DigitalJack »

bigdubs wrote: post #19

Not commenting on the article, just want to comment on the title for a sec. "The King is dead, long live the king!" is a special phrase used only when a ruler is dead and there is an immediate and available heir to assume the throne. It implies uninterrupted line of accession. "Analog photography is dead, long live analog photography" is not a correct usage of this phrase. A better way to phrase it would be : "Photog…

I'd rather be "wrong" and have people understand me.

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#33

Post by omegaham »

crististm wrote: post #26
JonnieCache wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do sound warmer. This is undisputed. Same applies (even more) to magnetic recording tape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion#Harmonic_distortion As the word "distortion" in that link implies, where audiophiles go wrong is confusing "nicer" with "better." 70s dub-reggae records and the like would undoubtably sound worse if they were recorded straight to digital and pressed to CD. Similarly, lots of 21st cen…

21st century music is beyond loud. Is as loud as the medium allows it. You can't imagine how loud it is. There is no silence in this music. Every microsecond of it is recorded as if there are no bits in the quiet end of the loudness range. This is one important reason why the music on vinyl sounds nicer. Not because of the harmonics, but because of the mastering. The medium does not allow very high dynamics and you n…

This confuses the hell out of me. Why would you make a CD loud and distort the sound when there's a volume knob? It takes just as much (or little) effort to turn the volume to 30 as it does to turn it to 10.

Albums like Death Magnetic are particularly egregious examples of this, but I think that every CD suffers somewhat from this obsession with making the CD itself so damn loud. We have amplifiers for a reason.

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#34

Post by luscious »

ctdonath wrote: post #6
luscious wrote: post #5

because your time is worth less than your money. we are fully descended into the first level of mediocrity. I think I must be getting time-trolled. People come up with ideas to deliver me 5 minutes of hate on a Monday morning. Let's put together cheap things to waste massive amounts of time in the pursuit of crap, disposable techno-folk-art. Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear.

"Strange how much human progress & accomplishment comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim

"Online quotes are vacant appeals to authority. I wish they would stop doing it to me." - Scott Kim

Such a quote is not a talisman. Focusing on the good coming from irrelevant pursuits is confirmation bias and applying such a quote broadly is a slacker's crutch. Let's look at all the semi-self-serious stoners, punks, drunks, libertarians, etc. contemplating the irrelevant... accomplishments? Only if we want to say "do no harm" is better than what they'd do with a bit more ambition.

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#35

Post by ferongr »

JonnieCache wrote: post #18
nwh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the obsession with vinyl records "sounding warmer".

They do sound warmer. This is undisputed. Same applies (even more) to magnetic recording tape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion#Harmonic_distortion As the word "distortion" in that link implies, where audiophiles go wrong is confusing "nicer" with "better." 70s dub-reggae records and the like would undoubtably sound worse if they were recorded straight to digital and pressed to CD. Similarly, lots of 21st cen…

>70s dub-reggae records and the like would undoubtably sound worse if they were recorded straight to digital and pressed to CD. Similarly, lots of 21st century music would lose its edge if it were printed to tape and pressed to vinyl.

There's nothing preventing audio engineers from introducing harmonic distortion, wow, flutter, pops and ticks, reduced channel separation or equalizing a CD master differently.

There's nothing magical about vinyls and they are inferior to CDs in all possible ways.

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#36

Post by JonnieCache »

ferongr wrote: post #35
JonnieCache wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do sound warmer. This is undisputed. Same applies (even more) to magnetic recording tape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion#Harmonic_distortion As the word "distortion" in that link implies, where audiophiles go wrong is confusing "nicer" with "better." 70s dub-reggae records and the like would undoubtably sound worse if they were recorded straight to digital and pressed to CD. Similarly, lots of 21st cen…

>70s dub-reggae records and the like would undoubtably sound worse if they were recorded straight to digital and pressed to CD. Similarly, lots of 21st century music would lose its edge if it were printed to tape and pressed to vinyl. There's nothing preventing audio engineers from introducing harmonic distortion, wow, flutter, pops and ticks, reduced channel separation or equalizing a CD master differently. There's…

>There's nothing preventing audio engineers from introducing harmonic distortion...

Yes but if you want it to sound like vinyl you have to press it to vinyl. Introducing all those things in software will generally sound kinda crappy and it's fiddly. You can do it in hardware, but that's likely more effort than just sending it off to get an acetate pressed or something. I'm not campaigning for it, just trying to make the point that there are no rights and wrongs in a creative process.

And there is something magical about vinyl: the 1:1 correspondence between the physical medium and the stored sound means that DJing vinyl will always be a more satisfying experience for the DJ than any other playback technology. A turntable has almost no state to worry about: once can operate a pair of decks and a mixer blindfolded, by touch alone. The same is not (generally) true of traktor or CDJs. This promotes the "flow" state of mind, and therefore higher quality DJing.

This is the primary reason why vinyl still exists in 2013, and it's the only reason why countless twentysomethings like me have thousands of records stacked up in their bedrooms.

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#37

Post by dsimms »

pmelendez wrote: post #17

Wow, A casual reader might get confused with these comments and think that HN means Haters News. Here we have a product that a curious person (like myself) interested in learning how photography used to work would buy in a heartbeat, and still the top three comments (as I write) are " Who is this for?", "This is so goddam stupid." and "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen". If these guys are doing this…

wonkblog covered this recently: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/27/r...

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#38

Post by JonnieCache »

omegaham wrote: post #33
crististm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

21st century music is beyond loud. Is as loud as the medium allows it. You can't imagine how loud it is. There is no silence in this music. Every microsecond of it is recorded as if there are no bits in the quiet end of the loudness range. This is one important reason why the music on vinyl sounds nicer. Not because of the harmonics, but because of the mastering. The medium does not allow very high dynamics and you n…

This confuses the hell out of me. Why would you make a CD loud and distort the sound when there's a volume knob? It takes just as much (or little) effort to turn the volume to 30 as it does to turn it to 10. Albums like Death Magnetic are particularly egregious examples of this, but I think that every CD suffers somewhat from this obsession with making the CD itself so damn loud. We have amplifiers for a reason.

Because you want it to sound louder than the previous record when it's played on the radio, or in the past, the jukebox.

Yeah, I know.

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#39

Post by BashiBazouk »

Robin_Message wrote: post #31
luscious wrote: post #5

because your time is worth less than your money. we are fully descended into the first level of mediocrity. I think I must be getting time-trolled. People come up with ideas to deliver me 5 minutes of hate on a Monday morning. Let's put together cheap things to waste massive amounts of time in the pursuit of crap, disposable techno-folk-art. Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear.

> Thank goodness the bombing starts right after football kicks into high gear. Is this a film reference? It seemed like a total non-sequiter, except I think I watched the referenced film just yesterday.

The American football season starts on Thursday but most games will be played on Sunday. The next day Congress takes up the issue of bombing Syria...

Re: Analog photography is dead. Long live analog photography

#40

Post by bigdubs »

DigitalJack wrote: post #32
bigdubs wrote: post #19

Not commenting on the article, just want to comment on the title for a sec. "The King is dead, long live the king!" is a special phrase used only when a ruler is dead and there is an immediate and available heir to assume the throne. It implies uninterrupted line of accession. "Analog photography is dead, long live analog photography" is not a correct usage of this phrase. A better way to phrase it would be : "Photog…

I'd rather be "wrong" and have people understand me.

This statement seems specious. I'd rather understand the idioms I'm using, otherwise their meaning and effectiveness becomes diluted.
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