About 10 or so years ago I attended a photographic weekend put on by the Victorian Amateur Photographic Society (VAPS). This is a group of around 50 or so state based clubs.
A pair of photographers who pondered exactly what you ask, put one of the best attended lectures on.
They used a Bronica 645 with the standard 75mm lens and a 35mm camera with a 50mm lens.
Their aim was to see if a 12x16 print from either was a straightforward winner, or was there a grey area?
They used tripods, had the cameras almost side by side and aligned the image in each viewfinder to match as reasonably as possible each other and pressed the shutter within 1 second of each other. I cannot remember whether they used colour neg or transparency film, but the outcome was a 12x16 colour print.
The films were printed on the same enlarger and same batch of paper; prints were developed in a rotary system. In short, they used a seat of the pants test that was real world and carefully managed to ensure that neither format was either penalised or advantaged over the other.
Going on the different formats one could assume that the advanced amateur using the entry level camera of the day, which was the Bronica 645 with a 75mm lens and one back would have a clear cut advantage over the 35mm camera, all things being equal.
Well I have to tell you it was virtually impossible to pick which came from which camera. These prints were scrutinised by around 100-125 photographers. Some of them scientifically trained as photographers and quite knowledgeable in colour printing in their own darkrooms. I consider myself to be quite a good colour printer; I couldnt pick them at all!
Each pair of prints were matted and hung alongside each other. The pictures ran the gamut of what anyone could or would take. From close focused stuff with minute detail, to landscape and sweeping panoramic stuff. Each attendee of the lecture/talk/demonstration was given a paper with the pairs of pictures numbered, we were all instructed after their presentation to carefully and as closely as we liked, to view the pairs and note which print originated from each camera. At the end they then proceeded to tell us pair by pair, which was which. Well it became obvious that by and large nearly everyone couldnt tell the difference. There was one exception though; one fella picked everyone, except one pair. It turned out that he was a professional colour printer printing day in and day out and was currently in the groove.
How did he do it, when virtually all others failed?
He explained that it was relatively easy, depth of field! Basically one has to remember that the two lenses were set to the same stop. One of the lenses was 50mm and the other a 75mm. The wider angled 35mm lens had marginally more image in critical focus, than the longer medium format one. I have never forgotten that little insight of what I believe is a major difference to various formats in photography.
The consensus was, if you were extremely careful, used similar quality lenses then the differences with 12x16 prints, was barely, or not detectable.
Last year I seriously considered purchasing a Bronica SQB, which is 6x6. It had the standard lens, one back and WLF. Firstly I ran some film through to get a feel for the shutter and aperture settings, that settled, I then went and tested the unit with the outcome being 12x16 prints.
I use 12x16 prints because as an amateur I concluded years ago that the best value for money darkroom formats were 12x16 & 8x10 paper, especially in colour negative paper as I have a 12 wide colour paper processor.
Anyway back to my tests. I used the SQB with the standard lenes and my Nikon F3 with a micro Nikkor 55 2.8, which is the closest to standard I have. I applied the same strategy as outlined above, however I used both B&W and colour negative films. The B&W was FP4+ and the colour was a Fuji 160, (cannot remember which one but they were identical).
What I did find interesting was that the FP4+ 120 negs looked brilliant, compared to the 35mm version on the light box, but that brilliance didnt transform to a major difference in the final outcome, which was prints. I did have one difference; I only have a 50mm and 105mm enlarging lenses. Both Schneider and both Componon S lenses.
Well the bottom line was that I declined from purchasing the SQB as I felt the format didnt give me an appreciable difference over my 35mm system at the size of prints I have as a final outcome.
In the future I may be really tempted to move to 4x5 but I really think, apart from fun antique type of cameras, Ill leave medium format alone. For instance, yesterday I used my mothers Kodak Box Brownie flash II from the fifties, it gives quite funky 6x9 negs. I also have the flash for this camera along with flash bulbs and original Kodacolor-X CX620 film as well as a set of paper covered AA batteries by Eveready. I developed the negs today and will print at least 3 frames, fun this photography, eh?
Mick.
