I just don't get the 35mm vs bigger format thing.

[Ken Nadvornick]

Ok back to work for me.

We need you to work later and take longer lunches...



Ken

 

[miha]

With HP5 or Trix the difference is obvious even in small prints. On the other hand, a fine grain film, APX Leverkusen, for instance - I have been looking at some old prints of mine, enlarged to 8x10 from 35mm - hardly looks any different to medium format enlarged to similar size. There must be some sort of threshold when the difference becomes obvious.

 

[removed account4]

I guess I'm really lucky. The type of photography I do doesn't really require a lot of detail, so I'm in the camp of - who gives a shit?

None of my photographs become better because of more detail and resolution.

i wonder if the folks who are suggesting how details +c, are so apparent and important MF+LF photography ( and without them you are doing it all wrong) ...
... if they enlarge to 20x24 or whatever massive enlargement size floats their boat go up to the prints ( and have others do the same )
with a magnifying loupe and point out the great details in their prints.
if they do, good for them, sounds like it might be fun with the right sort of print, but it also sounds like a headache.
a photograph with all those details ( to me at least ) is just white noise
like a dinner table with 15 4th graders all yammering on at the same time when you ask what they want for supper.

 

[frank]

John, I could frame the opposing view just as deftly with hyperbole, but that would also not be helpful in advancing our discussion.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I'll add some noise to your correct interpretation by saying the same information is potentially available. I would say you're on solid ground for MF but that the potential likely isn't reached most of the time in LF due to a combination of technique and camera-related limitations. Full disclosure, I shoot LF and 35mm so I have nothing at stake here one way or the other.

Possibly so in a real-world attempted comparison.

But then the goal was to eliminate all variables other than the single one to be compared. That being, in the case under consideration here, physical negative size. If this somehow proves not to be practical (and cannot otherwise be systemically mitigated), then the correct answer would simply be: Sorry, we can't validly compare apples and oranges.

In other words, we either find a way to remove those "technique and camera-related limitations" from both sides, or we mark the problem as unsolvable, which then becomes our published final result. That's as far as we can go without resorting to pixie dust.

(Me too. I've used everything from enlarged ½-frame 35mm through contact-printed 8x10. So I'm painfully aware via personal experience of the real-world differences in final appearances. Those differences may not be important to everyone, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.)

...(sorry but as APUG's depressive, angry, disillusioned, misanthropic curmudgeon it is my duty to rain on every parade).

Wouldn't have it any other way...



Ken

 

[RPC]

Optics and films used are important factors, but image size is the key, as has been alluded to earlier.

To generalize,

A given portion of an image will have x number of grains representing it. With MF or LF, many more grains will represent it than with 35mm because the image size is much larger. More grains will mean more detail is recorded and seen. Ten grains can record and display more detail than five grains. Tonal changes will also have more grains to represent them, and appear smoother. Since the image size is larger with respect to grain size, the grain appears finer and the same with dust and scratches.

Now if you do things right, have good eyes, and accept that it is there, you will see the difference. If you don't see it, well...

 

[removed account4]

John, I could frame the opposing view just as deftly with hyperbole, but that would also not be helpful in advancing our discussion.

frank

go for it, post an oposing view enjoy your self.
make sure you put something about how people who don't
notice there is a differce are doing it all wrong ... and incredulous

as far as i am concerned the discussion ended a few pages ago

 

[frank]

As said in my post that you quoted, hyperbole is not helpful, what's needed is clarity, and controlled variables.

 

[NJH]

Ken Rockwell gets a lot of stick but he had a comparison example on his website that illustrated the point, I believe it was an old Leica lens on an M body vs a Pentax 645 both with velvia loaded. The result was what we expect, at anything other than maximal resolution scanning the detail difference wasn't that great but the MF slide scan showed much less grain and hence cleaner colours and tones. My own observations of a film such as Acros raises a similar point, for sure I can pixel peep a 40 Mp scan from my KM5400 and imagine printing it 24" long but whilst there is sharp detail in there the grain looks kind of blotchy and not very nice really at that level. Mute point given that I prefer the tonality of traditional films like tri-x/neopan etc. and orange filters. I think trying to max out what you can get from 35mm is a bit of an odd game really, something I personally decided that I couldn't see the point in given the availability of cheap MF gear, a whole MF outfit costs less than 1 Leica lens. Others may feel differently but that is OK if it works for you're photography.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

Not that there's anything wrong with small prints... but I'm not interested in doing those. I want to make 30x40+ prints and for those, since I 'pixel-peep', want the largest film I can deal with. For me, only due to personal limitations, that's 4x5.

 

[cliveh]

Larger format gives greater detail, end of story.

 

[frank]

Larger format gives greater detail, end of story.

159 posts and you only tell us NOW?

 

[removed account4]

Not that there's anything wrong with small prints... but I'm not interested in doing those. I want to make 30x40+ prints and for those, since I 'pixel-peep', want the largest film I can deal with. For me, only due to personal limitations, that's 4x5.

LOL

about 7 -8 months ago i sold a 40x60 print made from a 35mm negative, it might have been tri x.
sorry to read you have to lug that big caemra around

 

[MattKing]

... as APUG's depressive, angry, disillusioned, misanthropic curmudgeon it is my duty to rain on every parade...

So it was you Michael who won the contest!

It must have been a hard fought battle

 

[dpurdy]

My 2cents. I am a pretty precise and controlled craftsman having run a custom lab and commercial photography business for some 30 years. Whatever format, I always use a tripod unless I am on vacation. I have done the side by side tests between different cameras in as controlled circumstances as possible. My cameras are 8x10, 4x5, Rolleiflex, Pentax 67 and Nikon F100. My LF lenses are all tops. Red Dot Atar, Gold Dot Dagor, G Clarons, etc. I once set up a still life subject and shot both 4x5 without movements and Pentax 67, both on Acros and processed in Xtol. I printed to 8x10 on Ilford paper. I took those prints to a meeting with two other photographers who were multi format users. I asked them which they thought was which. They both identified the Pentax 67 as the 4x5 neg.

I decided to give my nikon a really good testing once and loaded it with Acros and used my heavy tripod and used a few different nikkor lenses for a few landscape photos. Detail type stuff with trees and shrubs and such. I made a set of prints on Ilford paper at 6x9 inches and though hoping for great results I was very disappointed in that the image quality was not good enough for me. Edge sharpness was fine but tonality wasn't smooth enough and minute detail wasn't there.

I once did a side by side comparison between an 8x10 contact from my 8x10 camera on Tmax 400 and a similar sized enlargement from my Rolleiflex shot at the same time of the same subject. The print from the Rolleiflex was sharper than the 8x10 contact but only because I somehow got the focus off with the 8x10.

Dennis

 

[frank]

I don't doubt that there isn't much difference in fine between MF and LF, mainly due to film flatness and focus issues with the big camera, but tonality would still be richer.

The issue in this thread is the inclusion of 135 format being equivalent in technical qualities.

 

[markbarendt]

Shoot HP5+ (or whatever) in 4x5.

Shoot something smooth and gray at a normal portrait distance, like a gray card. throw on a machinists ruler.

Shoot a second sheet as a macro. (Somebody might be able to do the math) to where it was shot at the magnification a 35mm shot would be in relation...

Print an 11x14 from that neg.

Now enlarge to the point where you are printing from a 1x1.5" spot in the middle of that negative.

This would demonstrate the difference in grain between formats.

Now print the second negative so that the rulers are exactly the same size and compare the detail

Possibly so in a real-world attempted comparison.

But then the goal was to eliminate all variables other than the single one to be compared. That being, in the case under consideration here, physical negative size. If this somehow proves not to be practical (and cannot otherwise be systemically mitigated), then the correct answer would simply be: Sorry, we can't validly compare apples and oranges.

In other words, we either find a way to remove those "technique and camera-related limitations" from both sides, or we mark the problem as unsolvable, which then becomes our published final result. That's as far as we can go without resorting to pixie dust.

(Me too. I've used everything from enlarged ½-frame 35mm through contact-printed 8x10. So I'm painfully aware via personal experience of the real-world differences in final appearances. Those differences may not be important to everyone, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.)





Wouldn't have it any other way...



Ken

 

[DREW WILEY]

If someone can't tell the difference between a field mouse and a barnyard bull, they probably shouldn't wear red.

 

[flavio81]

I use a basic 50mm f/1.8 Double Gauss design to demonstrate the principle, but I'll stop it down to f/5.6 since practical large format lenses start at that f/#. I think this design is actually the Olympus OM-series 50mm f/1.8 patent prescription, if you're curious where it came from, but it is one of the designs in Zemax's (and Code V too I think) optical database.
(...)

Now I scale up the design to "fit" an 8x10 format. For fair comparison, I want to keep the same aspect ratio, so I scale for a 6.85" x 10" film plane. So I have to scale the lens to a focal length of 51.21 * (254/35) = 371.6 mm. This gives the same FOV for both lenses. The scaling factor is about 7.25.

(...)

Now if you enlarge and make a print from the 35mm film by 7.25x, then compare to a contact print from the larger format, the blurs will all look the same... the only difference is from the effect of the film grain itself (assuming you did all the development the same of course).

Aberrations scale with focal length (for same f/#).

Hi Nodda Duma,

It's great that you took the patience to try it on ZEMAX. However, it seems that you did not take into account my objection, and it's really simple.

If we have a good 50/1.8 design, for example a 6-element 4-group Double-Gauss like what's pictured, and we want to have an equivalent on a larger format (say medium format 6x7), it's ridiculous to think that the equivalent would be a 100 / 1.8 lens (!)

Due to the depth of field difference between formats, the correct equivalent, that is, the one that will provide an image not only with the same angle of view but also with the same depth of field would be a 100mm f3.6 lens*.

Now, as you know already (or should already know), a 100mm f3.6 lens to cover the 6x7 format of a performance similar to the 50/1.8 lens is easily doable even with 4 elements (Tessar configuration). And thus if designed for using 6 elements (Double gauss configuration) the 100/3.6 in theory can be designed with a higher correction than the 50/1.8 for the 35mm format.

Take into example the 127/3.8 lens for the Mamiya RB system. It provides the equivalent angle of view and depth of field than a 63/1.8 lens in 35mm, which, if it would exist, would probably be done with a 6/4 (six element, four group) design. The 127/3.8 lens achieves excellent correction with a very simple design only 5 elements in 3 groups. It is one of the most highly regarded lenses for the RB system and it fully uses the resolution of common film (say, Acros 100).

The Key factor is Film

I contend, as explained above, that the lenses will be about as good in both 35mm in MF. However, the film can make the difference, and here's the interesting thing.

We should take into account that film will be the same in both cameras. And film has a MTF (transfer) curve which decreases with increased resolution (cycles per mm). I will be considering three films: One is Tmax 100 which is the 100-speed film with the best MTF curve. The other is Tri-X which is a standard. The other is Fomapan 100 which is an example of a film with high "acutance" or perceived sharpness but low resolution.

In 35mm, fine detail which will be of, say, 60 cycles per milimeter of size -typical for very fine details-, will thus fall into the place for 60 cycles/mm in the MTF curve. And in the MTF curve for some films, this is the result for 60 cycles/mm:

Tmax 100TMX: 100% response
Tri-X 400TX : 50% response
Fomapan 100: 30% response

However, for 6x7 format, the same detail can be rendered by about 30 cycles/mm. This is the response of the same films at 30 cycles/mm

Tmax 100TMX: 110% response (sharpness enhancement)
Tri-X 400TX : 90% response
Fomapan 100: 55% response

What can be said of this? It's actually simple to read:

a) For a 'classic' film like Tri-X, the difference in perceived sharpness of details will be striking when going from 35mm to medium format. For a "sharp but not so high resolving" film like Fomapan 100, finer detail will be captured.

b) An exceptional film, like Tmax 100, will give about the same perceived sharpness for the "fineness of detail" under test.

c) However, even finer detail would be captured by using Medium Format, IF the size of the enlargement allows this detail to be visible to the naked eye. For example, in 35mm with Tri-X 400TX, 80 cycles/mm cannot be captured. However the same amount of detail will require 40 cycles/mm in medium format, where it would be captured at a good 70% contrast with the same film, Tri-X.​

---

* Actually the percieved depth of field is even shallower on the 6x7 format due to the availability of more detail. Thus, the viewer, at high enlargements, expects to find more detail than if he/she were looking at a 35mm picture. In other words, if we compute the depth of field using the same Circle of Confusion than in 35mm {which we could, since the film is the same and the lens resolution is similar}, DOF will be even narrower and, for example, the equivalent aperture for a 50/1.8 35mm lens wideopen would then be f6.7 in the medium format lens.

Thus the equivalent could well be a 100mm f6.7 lens, which would be even easier to design with outstanding optical correction.

 

[Nodda Duma]

Hi flavio81,

It's counterintuitive, but scaling a lens keeps the f/# the same. Therefore, a fair comparison keeps the f/# the same. Change the f/# and you're...well...changing the f/#....and introducing a variable that gives an advantage to the large format lens.

Remember, the discussion strips the variables away to get to an underlying comparison. I carefully chose to compare f/5.6 because that's a reasonable f/# for large format. Comparing different f/#'s is absolutely an unfair comparison.

You do highlight an important point that is worth mentioning: The mere fact that a reasonable 35mm format lens can be pushed to much faster speeds than a reasonable large format lens should tell you something very fundamental about potential resolution capability of different formats. I guarantee you that a *fast* good-performing lens is *significantly* easier to design for a smaller format than for a large format. Why? Because of the practical constraints that you mention.



I wholeheartedly agree...the difference really is in the film. In the real world, practical limits on the size of large format lenses also factor in.

Btw, if you wanted to unfairly compare the different formats by comparing an f/1.8 lens wide open to an f/5.6 or whatever lens, you may still find that the smaller format lens has a better MTF. But of course then the blur would be that much more apparent when you enlarged to compare prints.

 

[flavio81]

Remember, the discussion strips the variables away to get to an underlying comparison. I carefully chose to compare f/5.6 because that's a reasonable f/# for large format. Comparing different f/#'s is absolutely an unfair comparison.

But when we are expecting to create an equivalent image in 35mm versus 6x7 MF, we then need to take depth of field in consideration, and thus using the same f/# in both cases becomes an unfair comparison.

You do highlight an important point that is worth mentioning: The mere fact that a reasonable 35mm format lens can be pushed to much faster speeds than a reasonable large format lens should tell you something very fundamental about potential resolution capability of different formats. I guarantee you that a *fast* good-performing lens is *significantly* easier to design for a smaller format than for a large format. Why? Because of the practical constraints that you mention.

Yes; i agree, but don't forget the practical constraint of film.

For example i can use a 50/1.4 lens with ISO 400 (let's say HP5+) film in 35mm, and shoot a scene at f1.4 and 1/30 speed.
Or i can chose to carry a 80/2.8 lens with 1600-speed (HP5+ pushed) film in 6x6 format, and shoot the scene at f2.8 at 1/30.

The end result is a noticeably sharper, better resolved image with medium format.

So even if I can get a f1.4 ("faster") lens for 35mm, I can also get a f2.8 lens for 6x6 or 6x7 that at the end will give me better results under the same light conditions. Been there, done that.

In fact, last week I revisited a picture I took with HP5 pushed to 1600 with a 105/3.5 4-element lens in 6x6 format. It looked just crisp and with extremely fine grain; you might as well think it was done with 125-speed film (FP4) in 35mm with an excellent lens!! Except, of course, for the harsher tonality.

I have never heard or read about any Medium Format photographer complaining about f2.8 being very slow...

 

[RobC]

so I take a standard 50mm lens F5.6 focussed at 10 meters.

This will give me a DOF of 3439mm and CoC of 0.0075mm

I then take a 4x5 camera with standard 150mm lens. To get the same image on film I need to be at a distance of 7300mm to cover same subject height (I think. Someone please check it).

At F5.6 I get a CoC of 0.0077mm BUT a DOF of only 200mm. To get the same DOF as my 50mm lens on 35mm format I need to use an aperture of F91. At F91 I get CoC of 0.124mm

This means that I can enlarge my 35mm negative 16.3X before the CoC is the same size as on my 4x5 film negative when I am aiming to produce the same coverage and DOF in both images.

If you don't maintain the same DOF then you aren't making the same image on both systems so you are comparing apples and oranges.

Smaller formats give much higher resolution of film than larger formats when targetting same DOF and can therefore be enlarged more.

But as you focus more toward infinity the LF starts to win. The LF at 30m F5.6 gives the same DOF but the LF is covering much more subject area so its apples and oranges again..

 

[Bill Burk]

I went through this exercise a few years back. Visited my mom and in the backyard hang several pots of Epiphyllums - I shoot in my 35mm OM-1 with 40mm f/2 at f/11... And I shoot the exact same scene using my 4x5 with 135mm f/4.7 at f/32

In both cases I get 7 feet to infinity in focus.

Different circles of confusion apply because the 4x5 enjoys less enlargement.

But how do I get from f/11 to f/32? Doesn't shutter speed have to change.

Well, that's one way.

Or I could change to a faster film for the 4x5

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

LOL

about 7 -8 months ago i sold a 40x60 print made from a 35mm negative, it might have been tri x.
sorry to read you have to lug that big caemra around

Ha ha... sorry yours is so small.

Ya know I'm just playin', right?

 

[M Carter]

18 Pages from a sort-of troll-ey thread.

Anyone regular on APUG knows that this sort of question generates… well, 18 pages.

But I do love how a well shot and properly processed 6x7 neg - on a lightbox with a good loupe - just looks sort of insanely three dimensional. And I do love some of the grab shots I've done on 35 that ended up being little once-in-a-lifetime, lighting in a bottle shots.

But shooting 6x7 or LF for bragging rights? I shoot those cameras in the studio… the models, clients, and makeup artists have seen a million of 'em.