lf-photo.org.uk

Along with the announcement of a `new` version of Kodak T-Max 400 film recently, it looks like `new` traditional analogue products are increasing.
Both Ilford and Kentmere offer a fine range of ink-jet papers for those who don`t like to get their fingers wet or are afraid of the dark.
It`s refreshing to read that a company that supports analogue photography is growing stronger in a declining market.

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/pressroom/article.asp?n=87

It's too bad "analogue" photography does not exists.

Analogue applies to electronic signal. So, "digital" is not "analog" only in the field of electronics. There is no 'signal' in traditional photography. "Analogue" applies to audio very well for example, but not for photography.

For photography, there is the "chemical" adjective which have been bang on target for the best part of 200 years, and is not obsolete yet.

Michael, a digital signal processing expert.

analog or analogue
Adjective Measuring or representing data by means of one or more physical properties that can express any value along a continuous scale. For example, the position of the hands of a clock is an analog representation of time. Compare digital.

analog. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Science Dictionary. Retrieved October 17, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/analog


Can't see any reason why this can't be applied to photography!

Steve, a disciple of the English language

This place is looking more like the French forum every day!
Michael, you have bravely, and maybe somewhat foolishly, entered a minefield. And Steve was happy to follow.

For example, the position of the hands of a clock is an analog representation of time.

So you reckon time is continuous and not quantised...?!? Stick with the EngLitt, may I suggest, considering the debate raging on this subject in the physics world. And so what happens with the moving image captured on film: is that analog(ue) or digital? Our perception blurs the frames into a continuous signal, but they're still individual frames. A case where analogue is digital, then? Or you could say that the print from a digital camera has colour levels too fine for us to distinguish, and therefore is analogue.
I like the French term "argentique" (silver-based) for what you call analog(ue), even if even that is restrictive. Wouldn't it be fairer to say that both digital and silver-based photography utilise a physico-chemical vehicle, whether it's grain or pixel at the smallest dimension, and are not that different really? In one case, you shine light through the tranny (which acts as a signal processor), in the other case, the file guides the monitor's emission (software control - ie more signal processing). At most, you could say the former is subtractive and the latter additive.
For me, the term analogue is very close to analogy/ analogous. I don't see why silver-based or digital are any more analogous to the real-world (or a projected version thereof), one than the other. And like-wise with audio.
Charles, a word-nerd

Here we go And all this just because Ilford bought Kentmere.....

Charles, the definition was not mine, but as cited, and an American one at that. But there are almost as many definitions as you want I suppose.

Whilst I agree that the colour levels can be too fine for us to distinguish, there is still a finite number of discrete values. Besides, the data is still represented in a digital form, i.e. a number of bits, that have only two values.

So perhaps as digital images become larger, with larger bit depths, they tend towards, and aspire to be, analogue images.

Or, as the definition of language is not fixed, as does attempt to represent actual usage, then as the two terms are widley understood, then that is there true definitions.


Steve, with too much time on his hands.

buze wrote:It's too bad "analogue" photography does not exists.

Analogue applies to electronic signal. So, "digital" is not "analog" only in the field of electronics. There is no 'signal' in traditional photography. "Analogue" applies to audio very well for example, but not for photography.

For photography, there is the "chemical" adjective which have been bang on target for the best part of 200 years, and is not obsolete yet.

Michael, a digital signal processing expert.

I`ve always been into `digital` photography. I often use my right index finger as the `digit` for pressing the shutter release button on my 35mm Camera.