Portra 160 and 400: Squeezing out medium format?

[Sirius Glass]

Come on lxdude, you know that I crop in the viewfinder. Its them amateurs who have to crop in the darkroom.

 

[markbarendt]

Unless you crop to 4:3!

Which way?

Cropping 6x6 to 4:3 yields 6x45 vertical or horizontal. Cropping 645 "against the grain" yields something smaller.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

Yes, cropping to a particular aspect ratio affects usable film real estate. I prefer longer images... minimum 1.5:1 (2:3)... so I'd be comparing 135, 6x4.5cm and 6x7cm to 6x9cm. Losing a bit off the short end of 135 increases the quality difference with 6x4.5cm but cropping a bit off of the long edge of 6x4.5 decreases the difference. If we go to 6x12cm then there's effectively no advantage going to 4x5. There's absolutely no comparison between 135 and 6x9cm, IMHO.

ETA: Every little bit counts though the difference between two adjacent formats can be like demanding a penny in change back after spending a dollar. Okay, it's more like demanding a dime or fifteen cents back... or maybe 35 cents.

 

[lxdude]

Which way?

Cropping 6x6 to 4:3 yields 6x45 vertical or horizontal. Cropping 645 "against the grain" yields something smaller.

Notice I said "Unless you crop to 4:3", "you" in this case being Steve, who is so Siriusly in love with his Hasselblad he thinks of its format as sex-by-sex!

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

The question you should really ask yourself: Is the 35mm negative good enough for what I wish to achieve? If you can say yes to that question, get on with the photography and don’t look back. It seems to me you are mighty pleased with what you achieve. If you’re happy with the 16x20” prints, then what else do you need?

I think you answered your own question. What everybody else thinks is not really a concern, unless the prints you make are for something like a wedding, professional portrait, or some other form of work that you sell to a customer. If that’s the case, you should take their demands in print size into account. If somebody asked you to make a 30x40” print from the same negative, could you do it? Is that important?

 

[xtolsniffer]

For colour work I can only comment on Reala for print and Velvia for transparency. I've had prints made from 35mm in both (Nikon), and in 6x7 (Mamiya RB67). In both cases the prolab I use scans and prints digitally to resolve 256 dpi on the print. For 35mm the prints are good. I've had up to 12"x16" made. From a distance they look great, close up they start to fall apart. The 6x7 is a different league, at 12"x16" the detail just goes on and on. Even comparing 5"x7" prints, there is a difference. It's small but it has an effect on the tonality, not sharpness. The prints from 6x7 just seem to have a better tonal transition. Hard to describe. Since starting to shoot 6x7 I use it whenever I can even though it's somewhat inconvienient in the field when trying to shoot macro at greater than life size!

 

[benjiboy]

However good Portra 160 and 400 are in 135 size they are better at around 3, 4, or 5 times the negative area on 6x4.5, 6x6, and 6x7 120 film, and I shoot both films in 35mm and 120.

 

[markbarendt]

Notice I said "Unless you crop to 4:3", "you" in this case being Steve, who is so Siriusly in love with his Hasselblad he thinks of its format as sex-by-sex!

I do find 6x6 really interesting, one of the focusing screens for my RB is marked with crop lines both ways and I find myself framing 6x6 quite naturally.

Another has no crop lines and again I see square but I need to be careful at the edges.

My third screen is a microprism screen marked for portrait, love it for focus but I struggle with the "suggested" crop.

6x6 is really alluring, I can see Steve's fascination.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Notice I said "Unless you crop to 4:3", "you" in this case being Steve, who is so Siriusly in love with his Hasselblad he thinks of its format as sex-by-sex!

For decades Hasselblad advertised that square was "the perfect format". As far as sexy, when I go out shooting with it, women ask me if they could model for me. YMMV

BTW I rarely crop when I print, because I cropped before I took the photograph.

 

[Brian C. Miller]

Although your 16" x 20" prints from 35mm look good, if you compare them with prints the same size from 120 negs (excluding those shot on 'toy' cameras), because you're enlarging less, you'll see less grain, smoother tones and more detail. Modern films may have brought 35mm to a point that you can obtain huge print sizes, but think of the same film used in 120 cameras.

(emphasis added)
Including those shot on 120 "toy" cameras, you'll see less grain, etc., etc. I haven't compared detail from my Holga to my Nikon, though. (But I did compare my Nikon to my Graflex.) Might be a fun test, just to do it.
+1 on everything else. I started out with medium format, and I never built up a 35mm kit. No point to it.

Yes, film has gotten better and better. I'll go off and mope about Kodak chrome...

 

[Dismayed]

Dust spots are much smaller on MF because they are enlarged less. And the tonality is superior to 35mm. So it all depends on your standards.

 

[waynecrider]

Not being a wedding shooter, but knowing shooters, especially some competing in the wide wide world of how low can you go in pricing, one must remember that the majority of prints made are going to be 8x10 and below. We're not talking about people with money who'll spend over 2 to 5-6 thousand or more to cover an event. Those are the domain of shooters with experience and lot's of recommendations. In that case yeah, a medium format camera would be a tool to use, but alongside the 35mm for alot of other shots, not being altar returns and large prints on the wall. When digital came of age more or less every in-experienced Tom, Dick and Harriet bought one to shoot weddings with and start a career. Much of what was produced was mediocre, but it seems the public to a certain extent is ignorant of good photography and many times the bottom line is price. I've also gone to enough weddings over the course of years and have yet seen a MF camera being used; The last was about 15 years ago.
More then likely if your a good photographer you'll do just fine with 35mm. Heck there are guys and gals out there who have shot the pants off an old Leica and produced prints to die for. It's about the ability of the photographer and not how smooth the tones are or if there is grain in the print that makes for a good wedding photographer and good images the customer will like.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

It's about the ability of the photographer and not how smooth the tones are or if there is grain in the print that makes for a good wedding photographer and good images the customer will like.

Exactly!

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

[...]
More then likely if your a good photographer you'll do just fine with 35mm. Heck there are guys and gals out there who have shot the pants off an old Leica and produced prints to die for. It's about the ability of the photographer and not how smooth the tones are or if there is grain in the print that makes for a good wedding photographer and good images the customer will like.

Very good point indeed Wayne! A salient point that others here should rise up to and digest carefully. Too much drivel about 35mm vs 120. Both have, and will continue to have, their application.

Portra 160 is a non-event. Seriously forgettable.

 

[markbarendt]

It's about the ability of the photographer and not how smooth the tones are or if there is grain in the print that makes for a good wedding photographer and good images the customer will like.

I disagree, it's about delivering what is expected.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

It's easier to add fake grain, decrease tonal smoothness, decrease dynamic range, decrease sharpness, etc. during... eh hem... post processing... than it is to remove grain and increase all of the other variables. I would never shoot 135 during a wedding ceremony or for any formal portraits. For the informal quick-grab stuff at the reception... absolutely.

BTW, I haven't shot a wedding in about 20 years and hope I never need to again. I don't like that sort of work. I'd really rather stick to landscapes and still lifes.

 

[benjiboy]

There's a saying where I come from " a good big'n is always better than a good little'n ".

 

[wogster]

One of the issues, is the same one d*****l shooters run into, that you need to be able to produce a massively huge print, grain (or pixel) free, in case someone went right up to it with a magnifying glass and proclaimed "I see grain" or in the case of d*****l - pixels. When in reality a large print is not going to be viewed from 3" away with a magnifying glass, so the fact that grain might be visible if you did so, doesn't really mean anything. Prints tend to be viewed so that the entire print is visible, so the bigger the print, the further away it will be viewed from.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

I don't agree with shooting 135 for weddings other than for the candid stuff because 135 just doesn't cut it for everything. But let's forget that for a moment. A very large part of being a successful wedding or portrait photographer is putting on a bit of a show. Once you pull out a big old clunky RB or RZ67 or Hasselblad and a hand-held meter most folks there will be convince you know what you're doing. Like it or not, even the best photographers need to portray themselves as being better than uncle Joe or aunt Ruby and big clunky manually operated camera gear is every bit as important in that regard as having a professional attitude and confidence.

If I paid $3K for a professional photographer to document an event and he/she showed up with only 135 format cameras I'd probably try to get my money back before he took a single shot and send him packing. And this is not because I want him/her to put on a show for my guests... I personally don't care about showmanship.

 

[BrendanCarlson]

Old-N-Feeble, not everyone wants to shoot on 120 or mf, and I have seen some amazing stuff done with 135. There is a wedding photographer from NY that shoots only 35mm cameras (mainly b&W) he does some amazing work. It's more about knowing what you're doing and having the right films than the format of camera or size of negative. That's my $0.02

 

[Sirius Glass]

I have printed 24"x36" color prints from 35mm full frame, but 36"x36" from 120 is much better even with cropping.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Strictly speaking, one's reputation and quality of work, not the format, will speak much, much more than the type of equipment you carry along. You are expected to discharge your engagement with consummate professionalism and precision: don't make a hue and cry about the equipment, or even be showy with it, no more than a tradesman should brandish a drill in one hand an airgun in the other. There are many important foundation skills to wedding photography. The portfolio is the first thing the wedding planners will want to see, followed by the presentation package — you might be asked what equipment you used, but it would hardly be relevant if the quality of your work creates at WOW! factor from open to close. Whether or not the event is shot on digital or analogue would be irrelevant based on the quality and creative diversity of the portfolio alone — you have to know your work inside out. Everybody knows that digital has ingrained itself in the wedding photography business. Not to say of course that there are analogue photographers with beautiful portfolios shot, for the most part, on 120 format, not 35mm — it is exceedingly rare now. A lady friend has completed her Masters (which included a component of wedding photography) shooting everything on a heavy and cumbersome (for her) Linhof Master Technika. One has to remember a 6x7 image for example is 400% larger than 35mm (take an image from a Linhof 4x5 and things get even more serious): it certainly does count for a lot when enlarged to 60cm or more for framing without any loss of sharpness that blights 35mm, which still has its inherent beauty and strength — to a point. At the end of the day, the quality of your work and your creative reputation will dictate whether you get the gig, but be prepared if you're asked to 80cm+ prints destined to be framed and displayed in the matrimonial home's palatial foyer — you will be expected to turn up an image with the satisfying quality visual hallmarks that have cemented 120 in this sort of work for eons.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

I guess things have really changed since I shot weddings... years before digital was even available to the public.

 

[Ken N]

As we yabber on about which film format is best, digital has trumped it all anyway for wedding photography. Sorry. That's just the way it is.

But with the advancements in film that we've seen in the last 10 years, (portra 400), It really doesn't matter. It's all good enough for nearly all use. Sure, larger is going to be better, but at what point is it really all just silly? My dad photographed weddings with a Speed Graphic. I'm not about to today. Besides, with 35mm we have better control over our focal lengths so less cropping is required.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

I guess things have really changed since I shot weddings... years before digital was even available to the public.

As Bob Dylan mumbled, "things have changed".
And things could be different, too.

Between 1998 and 2006 I was hired to photograph Renewal of Vows ceremonies and often spectularly abrasive Divorce Ceremony at a nudist colony.
Vows ceremonies were gracious, planned but pretty ordinary, all shot on 35mm (Canon EOS 50E) and 6x4 K-Mart gloss prints presented in $2.00 plastic folders (the resort owner asked for "nothing fancy or schmancy"!). I then added my $700 Fee for Professional Services. Everybody happy.

For the Divorce gatherings, again, I used 35mm, but plastic point-and-shoot disposable cameras because I was frequently a target during the messy punch-ups, screaming, hissing tantrums and vituperative tirades before they were all dumped into the mud bath — with me dragged along "you too, for bloody good measure!" to sort out their differences in the sludge. Very difficult stuff to grapple with. The resort closed in March 2010 after an illustrious, fun-field 25 years.