Large format look

Can somebody elaborate what is behind the specific look of large format photography. I think its not only about high resolution/dynamic range and shallow depth of field. Why large format photographs (even portraits) looks so different and more epic and lifelike than 35mm photographs?

Having shot some portraits over the years with 4x5 I think that part of the difference is accounted for by the slow and unfamiliar process, at least to most portrait subjects. Because you can't "machine gun" your way through 30 shots in 30 seconds you have to take a different approach and interact with your subject differently. I found that people take the process more seriously and were much more patient than when working with small format where the expectation is that the session will be quick.

 

Incidentally, large format doesn't necessarily imply shallow depth of field--with studio flash, it is easy to shoot at f/16 or f/22 with ISO 100 film, something that I routinely did when shooting 4x5 for commercial work.

The benefit of large format, to me, was the ability to get superb enlargements from very little (relative) magnification. An 8x10 was only a 4x enlargement, and a 16x20..., you get the picture. Even though, in later years I went to medium format (6x7) for a lot of portraiture, I used 4x5 when I thought the subject needed it.

 

I always thought, or maybe just my imagination, that large format enlargements had a depth to them that roll film lacked, and not just depth of field. A part of the process, too, were the lenses. I owned an old Taylor Cooke which I had remounted to a shutter with X-sync. It had some spherical aberration in it, and the softness of the image, especially for women on the high side of 40, worked wonders.

 

I also patronized a local custom lab, and we developed a long-term relationship, along with a couple of the technicians, who were master printers in their own right.

It's one area where size actually is important.

 

I posted these (about 1/8th frame) crops just recently in another thread. Both shot on FP4, one on 35mm, the other on 5"x4". Taken with roughly equivalent focal-length lenses from the same distance.

I think the difference is sufficient that you don't need to be told which is which.

 

The grain in the 35mm version is obvious, but I don't think many people realise that granularity and tonality are totally linked.

Because the description "Black & White" is completely true. There are no shades of grey at the grain level in B&W film. Only specks of opaque silver, or a lack thereof. Grey tones are perceived from the dithering together of many tiny black specks against a white ground - as in halftone printing. And just like halftone printing, the finer the dots the better the tonality. Even if the individual dots are invisible to the eye.

P. S. (Too late to edit, apparently)

I don't see dynamic range as a factor. The limits of exposure are the same for any given film type, regardless of format size. As is the limit of printable/scannable density.

 

It used to be recommended (illogically in my view) to develop LF film to a higher contrast - or 'gamma' - than smaller formats. This would actually have the effect of reducing the dynamic range of LF film over films developed to a lower contrast-index.

 

So, no. Dynamic range doesn't really enter into it IMO.

Nice examples, Joe.