The Look of 35

I love the look of prints from good images caught with

medium format equipment. When comparable, I can even prefer

a picture from medium format to one from large format.

The tonality is superb and still one can see the grains

or at least get a "feeling" of the grain from the medium

format. So, I started to viewing pictures taken with

35 mm cameras, to see if the same was true when comparing

35 mm with medium format. Well, it was hard to find pictures

among my own that I thought "this wouldn't have had the

same impact if taken with medium format". There are some

35 mm pictures I have with great spontaniety, they have

this "point & shoot-look" where everything just happened

to fall right into place.

 

How do you feel about this? What kind of images just look

better to you when taken with 35 mm equipment? Is it only

the "decisive moment", or do you look for other things as

well that can make you prefer the 35 mm look to the

mf-look?

Peter, this is a tough, almost "philosophical" question to try to tackle. As one who started in medium format with a beat up Yashica TLR, then on to Nikon F2 35mm, and now back to medium format I think I know where you are coming from.

 

Fundamentally, 35mm equipment is faster to use, especially with today's plastiblob autoeverything cameras. Just point and shoot, and you can concentrate on the image versus twisting dials, focus rings, etc. The trade off for this ease of handling is, and always has been, a compromise in image quality. IMHO, 35mm is good pretty much only for slides but that is from my perspective as a B&W "expert." Yes, I have made mural size enlargements from 35mm that were taken with Leica equipment and were of surprising quality. However, in the 16X20 and 20X24 size range, medium format (and I mean GOOD medium format) beats 35mm on technical quality everytime. Depending, of course, what you are after for artistic effect. (I have loaded my F2 with TMAX 3200 to get the maximum grain effect for artistic purposes.)

 

Anyway, as to your question, yes I have found that 35mm is great for pictures of people in motion, whether sports or snapshotty type candids that will not likely be enlarged too greatly. The equipment is smaller, lighter, has all the doodads that make your photography faster. Another thing I like about MF is the very fact that you have to slow down and think about things. This invariably results in better pictures, at least for me. I have later Rollei SLR equipment, and it is darn near as fast as the latest 35mm equipment. But lately, I have been shooting with my old Rollei TLRs and Mamiya Super 23 with the 50mm wide angle lens. All anchored on a tripod. But then, I am a "scenic" and "fine art" photographer versus one working for Sports Illustrated, so I guess the correct answer to your question is "it depends on the types of pictures you want to shoot and what effect you hope to achieve."

 

Whew, enough of my prattering. Like I said, this is a tough question to answer and I can't believe I actually tried to....you just struck a nerve as I am deciding whether to liquidate my Nikons and assorted stuff!

Sometimes the best camera in the world is the one you have with you with film in it. That to me is where 35mm shines; its compactness makes it easy to take it along places where a lazy guy like me won't haul his Pentax 645 system. When I look at many of the best shots I've gotten over the last 20 years, most are still with 35mm simply because I had a camera with me at the time when something special happened. For landscape photography in exotic places, the 35mm cameras stay in the bag unless I'm doing a long hike, as that's where I think the extra detail rendered by medium format is a great advantage. Sometimes I do forget that a great photograph doesn't have to be painfully sharp and grainless, and that these limitations of 35mm negatives can be an advantage in producing a powerful image.

"A great photograph does not have to be painfully sharp and grainless"

 

Well said, Andrew. Anyone thinking of dropping a bundle on MF or LF equipment, in an effort to "improve" one's photography, should repeat this mantra over and over again.

 

Sergio.

Guys:

 

My Mamiya 645 has the feel of a 35mm but it is a lot heavier. I also want to point out, try getting 1 hour processing for 120 film! I live in Santa Fe, NM and there are only two places in town that take 120 film for processing. And both of them send it to Albuquerque, 60 miles away for processing. 2 days minimum and it costs film processing plus $.75 per print!!!! Not exactly quick turn around. And if you are out of town and don't know your way around, 120 processing is not for the person who needs 1 hour processing.

 

That being said, I agree that MF makes you slow down and take more time. I spend a lot more time paying attention to what is in the viewfinder, even if I am hand holding my 645. This has passed back to my 35mm as well. I don't shoot in a hurry any more. And I am always more pleased with the end result. Yeah, I still get the occasional "quick shot" on the fly, but I can do it with either camera. And having used a C330 for over 20 years, I am not to much concerned with how "quick" I get the shot off any more. Substance is my goal! Nice chat!!!!

I can't remember the quote exactly, but A.Adams says (as you probably already know), There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept, by which (a sharp concept) I've always chosen to believe he included good 'f8 and be there' photography as well.

 

I've gone through this MF vs. 35mm thing too, and my only reconcilliation so far is that the two are different, and must be approached differently; but that both suffer equally from a fuzzy concept; and both shine equally from a sharp concept; it's just that from a technical PoV the MF will probably look a little (or a lot) tighter than 35mm past a certain degree of enlargement...fwiw

The look and feel between 35 and MF format is very different for having different max aperture, perspective, ratio... Also they are different tools for different situations.

 

One big reason that I still like the 35 format is that I can do hand held low light photo with solid results. There is very few lens in MF has aperture bigger than 2.8 and with solid performance wide open.

It seems a many people mention the speed of 35mm compared to MF, which I think is precisely what Peter suggests. 35mm allows you to get these "decisive moment" shots, which may not exist with any other format. As far as the technical aspects of the image, I almost always prefer larger formats, but for those images that require the speed and agility of 35mm, nothing else will do.

The difference in shooting styles and situations has always seemed pretty straightforward to me, though I am very interested in the variations on this theme raised by the previous posters.

 

One thing that has been interesting to me is the effect of camera size on the subject when you are doing portrait work. A lot of MF cameras are...well, a lot of camera. It just seems to be much more daunting to people to look at a huge camera -- and I am including the larger 35mm cameras in this observation -- than a more modest one.

 

For people who really want to be photographed, it doesn't make too much of a difference -- they've already steeled themselves -- but for others, the camera size thing can really make a difference.

 

Anyone else every noticed this?