Is medium format your main format?
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What we have here in this thread is an apparent failture to communicate...leading to 'argument'. So let me try to help here:
- If I put 48mm FL on 135 format (FL = 2 * short dimension of the film), focus at 10' at f/4, the 20/20 vision DOF zone (which is more precise than 'manufacturer standard' DOF) is 13.5" deep
- If I put 86mm FL on 645 format (FL = 2 * short dimension of the film), focus at 10' at f/4, the 20/20 vision DOF zone (which is more precise than 'manufacturer standard' DOF) is 7.3" deep
- ...both cameras see the same vertical FOV by using 2 * short frame dimension (we are deliberately ignoring the overlong 135 format frame vs. the 645 frame which better fits 8x10" print size with less cropping)
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MattKing
Moderator
It is more a reflection of my approach.
I'm more likely to be using shorter focal lengths than longer ones.
I am probably more likely to use a tripod or other camera support if I think that the photo suits that.
And I've been doing this a while, so I have a reasonable sense about what I can do successfully, and what I can't do successfully.
I'm more likely to be using shorter focal lengths than longer ones.
I am probably more likely to use a tripod or other camera support if I think that the photo suits that.
And I've been doing this a while, so I have a reasonable sense about what I can do successfully, and what I can't do successfully.
I think the correct way to state this is for the equivalent depth of field and angle of view, the longer focal length lens needed on a medium format camera will require a smaller f-stop, thus more light. Not sure it is 2 stops as stated in post 124, I haven't done a side-by-side comparison. Another issue to consider would be the relative grain size of faster film that will need less enlargement for MF compared to slower film for 35. Another comparison I haven't made. Oh, yeah and square vs 2:3...
MattKing
Moderator
All of this is true. But it rarely matters in normal light, because f/8 will be available with 400 ISO and normal shutter speeds.
It is only on the margins that there is a difference, and part of that is also compensated for by the need for less enlargement.
The DOF calculations are based upon the SAME FINAL PRINT size, so the apparent DOF is real, not 'on negative'.
The Circle of Confusion sizes are different for different formats simply because they are factored to consider the degree of magnification to achieve same final print size. Ergo, the 'different magnification' is already factored into the computation.
You are in effect acknowleding the 'MF need more light' in saying to 'use ISO 400' film. But what if the shot were on ISO 400 film due to low light...you cannot find ISO 1600 film for the medium format camera, so that is not a remedy. While you said 'in normal light', shade is 'normal' light and you have lost about -4EV from 'daylight', and if your subject is a moving one, you might need to use ISO 400 film in the 135 format body in order to control motion sufficiently, but no ISO 1600 on medium format leaves you with 'needing more light' to make the same shot on MF.
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If we stick to math and physics, we can agree on truths. Once you add variables like "normal light" or "normal shutter speeds", we're talking about individual preferences. This is also fun, but that is us sharing of our experiences.
And since we're sharing, my experience doing the same type of photography with a similar-FOV lens on both formats is that on MF I need 2-3 more stops of light. I can (mostly) compete with ISO100 35mm camera by using ISO400 film in medium format. Math and physics do not disagree. Due to this, a 35mm camera with ISO400 film often is my only option, so becoming "100% medium format" photographer is impossible.
That's a useful thing to read online when one's contemplating an upgrade. I was surprised by this because it's rarely talked about, that's why I shared it. Dismissing it as "not true" or "not a big deal" is just not nice.
@Pieter12 Delta 3200 has been challenging for me. For some reason I struggle with consistency. I'll have some gorgeous frames and complete duds on the same roll. Strangely, it's the contrast that's eluding me. I find it hard to predict based on input data (light, exposure, etc). I've been exposing it at EI 1600 and will continue to experiment some more.
And since we're sharing, my experience doing the same type of photography with a similar-FOV lens on both formats is that on MF I need 2-3 more stops of light. I can (mostly) compete with ISO100 35mm camera by using ISO400 film in medium format. Math and physics do not disagree. Due to this, a 35mm camera with ISO400 film often is my only option, so becoming "100% medium format" photographer is impossible.
That's a useful thing to read online when one's contemplating an upgrade. I was surprised by this because it's rarely talked about, that's why I shared it. Dismissing it as "not true" or "not a big deal" is just not nice.
@Pieter12 Delta 3200 has been challenging for me. For some reason I struggle with consistency. I'll have some gorgeous frames and complete duds on the same roll. Strangely, it's the contrast that's eluding me. I find it hard to predict based on input data (light, exposure, etc). I've been exposing it at EI 1600 and will continue to experiment some more.
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You can push film harder on medium format with much less grain than on 135.
You’ll get more contrast, but that can be helped in a number of ways.
A powerful flash, preflashing the film, compensating development, darkroom burning and VC paper, Ilford P3200 etc.
You’ll get more contrast, but that can be helped in a number of ways.
A powerful flash, preflashing the film, compensating development, darkroom burning and VC paper, Ilford P3200 etc.
Let me know when you are no longer comparing apples to potatoes.
I haven’t time or patience to do a deep dive comprehension read of every post here, but if I get the gist correctly:
It is as though you keep insisting that there is some kind of unknown sucking light out of medium format cameras.
And the posters answering, appear to think the poster is locked into negative magical thinking.
There is something called bellows factor with large format photography, that does indeed suck light with really long bellows, but that couldn’t be the factor explaining anything like the one discussed here.
Medium format lenses simply can’t practically be made as fast as 135 format lenses. That much is true. But that doesn’t seem to be what you are onto either.
Why precisely is it you think medium format is slower, with the same aperture and emulsion‽
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MattKing
Moderator
This is what I mean by "the margins".
If you are working in circumstances like this, than you are probably not going to get any extra benefit from the larger negative anyways, so there is little point in using medium format.
But you should consider trying the Delta 3200 option (shot at 1600) if you want to see if you can come close to replicating the experience.
So a field of view of X in 35mm with a depth of field of Y is an Apple, and the same field of view of X in a 120 format with the same Depth of field of Y is a potato? Or is the 35mm the potato?
How about something more Apples to Apples -
50mm f/4 at 10 feet - Total in focus depth: just shy of 3 feet in 35mm
Options for comparable 6x9:
50mm f/4 at 10 feet - Total in focus depth of over 7 feet, but twice the field of view.
Or
~116mm f/4 at 10 feet - total in focus depth of a little over a foot, but you are back within a few fractions of a degree on your field of view.
To make up the difference in sharp focus you have to drop down a little over two stops.
Sure you can take a image with a medium format at the same f/stop, and get a perfectly fine exposure, but you're also accepting a radically different image unless you're photographing a lot of empty air.
I'm on the younger end of the user base here, but I have over two decades in science, engineering, and art at this point, and grew up around farms. You'll have to expand upon what you think an apple is if I'm going to understand what you're trying to discuss here.
I haven't used a small format film camera since I was a kid, so my closest personal experience is an even smaller crop digital to the 6x6 film that I use the most, and that's kind of fuzzy at best. I've felt the difference tends to lean towards 3-4, depending on which way I would be cropping which image. I've run comparisons through a few different calculators that came down to the same ball park.
I also tend towards opening up for thinner focus ranges, rather than stopping either system down to keep more of the scene sharp. But, 'same difference' in the grand scheme of things really.
To get the same depth of field, true.
But
A. That seems to be one of the draws of medium format. More separation for a given angle of view.
B. It isn’t that different and certainly not with 4.5x6.
C. Another of the great things about medium format is that you can stop down a lot with no detriment to sharpness due to diffraction.
A very wise man once said “good ideas don’t often scale”.
What that means for photography, is that you can’t just scale for example an SLR to any size and expect it to perform the same.
And even if some scaling works without breaking the idea completely, you’ll still get something subtly different.
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Focal length, ISO, DOF, shutter and aperture are deeply secondary. That's just how we reason about our equipment, not about the world. Here's a much simpler model for explaining what's going on. It doesn't even include lens:
You have a "foton emitter", i.e. a scene reflecting them, that's your picture. You have a "foton receiver" - the negative surface area. If the "emitter" stays exactly the same but the "receiver" gets bigger, you will need more fotons to fill it up.
That's it. Everything else is not terribly important.
You have a "foton emitter", i.e. a scene reflecting them, that's your picture. You have a "foton receiver" - the negative surface area. If the "emitter" stays exactly the same but the "receiver" gets bigger, you will need more fotons to fill it up.
That's it. Everything else is not terribly important.
But you need to include the lens (and aperture), since it’s cameras we are discussing.
Notice how the front element of a 3.5 Retina Xenar is tiny compared to a 3.5 Tessar on an Ikonta, when the lens designs are more less the same and they are of the same vintage?
Bigger collector for the chosen film size.
MattKing
Moderator
As I think about this, I realize that in all the years I've been using both 35mm and medium format, I've rarely used both for the same things.
I tend to choose format based on what I want to do with the result I'm hoping for.
If I want a bit more depth of field or faster shutter speeds I probably use faster film - medium format lets me do that.
Just as 35mm only photographers sometimes choose very slow speed film to try to replicate what I get from medium format.
If light levels are either very high, or very low, I either modify the light, or choose the format that is slightly better for the conditions and/or accept the compromises that I need to make - whatever suits my needs.
In almost all circumstances, medium format doesn't need any more light to permit me to do what I want to do with it. I can forsee a very few situations where the light levels would lead me to choosing either special film (Delta 3200) or 35mm film.
I'm sensing that for Bormental, with his specific needs, he would be more likely to have to make those choices more often. So for him, with his particular needs, the statement "medium format requires more light" may apply more often.
But he might want to be careful with those sweeping statements!
I tend to choose format based on what I want to do with the result I'm hoping for.
If I want a bit more depth of field or faster shutter speeds I probably use faster film - medium format lets me do that.
Just as 35mm only photographers sometimes choose very slow speed film to try to replicate what I get from medium format.
If light levels are either very high, or very low, I either modify the light, or choose the format that is slightly better for the conditions and/or accept the compromises that I need to make - whatever suits my needs.
In almost all circumstances, medium format doesn't need any more light to permit me to do what I want to do with it. I can forsee a very few situations where the light levels would lead me to choosing either special film (Delta 3200) or 35mm film.
I'm sensing that for Bormental, with his specific needs, he would be more likely to have to make those choices more often. So for him, with his particular needs, the statement "medium format requires more light" may apply more often.
But he might want to be careful with those sweeping statements!
Helge, not really. Lenses just happen to be the instrument we use to "carve out" the scene from the rest of the world. What matters is that if the scene is 100% identical, but the negative gets bigger, you need more fotons.
...Then you need a bigger spoon to carve with.
Which is what you have on almost all medium format gear.
PS. I still love my 6x9 Nettar f6.3 though ;-)
PPS. What you are saying might appear to be true to the naive if we are talking astronomical or other highly unusual long exposure examples, where we are talking single photons drizzling in at an interval.
But even there simple statistics work in favor of the larger lens.
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@Bormental For the same film speed and shutter speed, you need the same focal ratio -- f stop -- to get a correctly exposed negative or transparency. With medium format, this requires a physically larger (heavier, more expensive) lens, and medium format, for reasons of weight and cost, usually has "slower" lenses than 35mm aimed at the same market (simple, consumer, semi-pro, professional). For the same focal ratio and the same permissible circle of confusion, a longer focal length lens will have less depth of field than a shorter one -- that is, a 105mm at f/8 will be more critical of focus than a 50mm at f/8. This is because the iris in the 105mm is just over twice the diameter of that in the 50mm for the same f-stop -- creating roughly double the circle of confusion for a given distance from the mathematical plane of best focus.
In one way of looking at it, your larger film does require more photons to expose -- but the larger lens provides more photons at the same f-stop than the smaller lenses commonly used with smaller film. This, in fact, is why we use a ratio for our aperture measurment -- it lets us generalize exposures regardless of the focal length of the mounted lens.
In one way of looking at it, your larger film does require more photons to expose -- but the larger lens provides more photons at the same f-stop than the smaller lenses commonly used with smaller film. This, in fact, is why we use a ratio for our aperture measurment -- it lets us generalize exposures regardless of the focal length of the mounted lens.
I'm sensing that for Bormental, with his specific needs, he would be more likely to have to make those choices more often. So for him, with his particular needs, the statement "medium format requires more light" may apply more often.
But he might want to be careful with those sweeping statements!
Matt, as my wife often says: "you're not a photographer, you're an engineer" and I take it as a compliment. The analogy above is how I would start a photography class for kids. Too many photographers learn photography by tinkering with tools, which is the most convoluted path towards understanding as evidenced by endless debates on side effects of complicated relationships of aperture, film speed, negative size and focal length. Those do not matter. What matters is that light is water. Cameras are buckets for storing water. You need more water to fill a larger bucket. It takes time to fill the bucket. Lenses are like pipes for water. To fill the bucket faster, you make the pipe wider, that's why some lenses are called "fast" and that's why they're bigger, etc. Printed photographs are puddles of water. To make a bigger puddle you need a bigger bucket which means more water! Now a kid understands that large prints need more light, so it wasn't even about camera size to begin with! These are not sweeping statements, that's the forest behind the trees.
Based on what you write and your difficulties at clearly visualizing, I’d guess you are neither photographer or engineer.
Not yet, at least.
If you take a scene that reads f/5.6 @ 1/125th second for ISO 100 film, and have a 35mm camera with a "normal" lens next to a MF camera with a "normal" lens, the settings would be identical, so it is the same amount of light to make a proper exposure on the film. No additional photons required. The difference is the 35 camera would have a 50mm lens and the MF camera an 80mm lens. Those lenses do not have the same DOF at the same aperture. Even though the exposures are identical, but the look of the scene can be different.
Are you trying to say that MF lenses are slower? So that where you can shoot down to let's say f/1.8 with a 50mm lens with a 35mm camera, the equivalent lens in a medium format with let's say 90mm lens only goes to f/3.5? So you can shoot with a faster shutter in 35mm f/1.8 opposed to f/3.5 in MF..
MattKing
Moderator
Except, as Donald indicates, an f/8 aperture in an 90mm medium format lens lets twice as much light through as an f/8 aperture in a 45mm lens for 135. The light is spread more when it reaches the film, so at the film plane you end up with the same exposure.
In other words, f/8 fills both buckets just as fast.
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