Would a half frame camera be good for portraits?

[gone]

The little Pentax MV I bought to avoid lugging the big camera everywhere was a step in the right direction, but it's 50mm lens was throwing me off. I usually use 85mm to 135mm for a walk around lens as that's how I usually see the composition, and that sort of focal length works well if a portrait opportunity arises.

Half frame could be fun w/ the equivalent of those focal lengths, but just what would those equivalents be for half frame? Is a 50mm lens still a 50 on a half frame camera? And just how are lens focal length/DOF and bokeh affected by using only half the frame? I'll need a fast, short tele lens.

Everything else w/ the format looks promising, especially the vertical format. but if the focal length and bokeh aren't going to work for half frame I'll buy another small full frame camera like the MV and hunt up an 85-135 lens for it.

 

[AgX]

"Would a half frame camera be good for portraits?"

Yes, but only if you refrain yourself to half-portraits...

 

[AgX]

Actually just this was done so by law enforcement authorities.
So there is some truth in all I say...

 

[drmoss_ca]

Half-frame is perfectly good for portraits, and you get them at half-price! Diagonal crop factor is 1.4, so a 60mm lens is the same as 84mm on a full-frame. However, the 60mm and 70mm primes for the Olympus Pen F family are shockingly expensive. You can get a 50-90 zoom pretty cheap, but it's f3.5. There's also a 100mm/f3.5 prime which is not expensive, If shallow DoF portraits are your thing, it won't be attractive to you, as the lenses retain the DoF associated with their focal length, regardless of negative size.
Some of these portraits have appeared here, but you might get some idea of what they are like.

Pretty much every Pen body you can buy has a 38mm/f1.8 standard lens attached. I've got a stock of them now. There are two things to be sure about when buying - how dirty is the viewfinder (they all have some specks or worse), and whether the camera's weak point, the film sprocket is destroyed. That only shows up if you wind on with the back open and try to put a little drag on the sprocket with your finger or thumb. If it keeps turning as you use the wind-on, good. If it doesn't, it cannot be repaired without a donor camera. John Hermanson (if still in business) might be persuaded to do it if you promise him a donor camera, but otherwise he won't do Pens any more. I have an FV with the issue and an FT gone as donor to a shop in Quebec City. Don't know if that will work out or not. I'd avoid the FT - the uncoupled meter makes the viewfinder dark by stealing light through the semi-silvered mirror, it uses mercury batteries or zinc-air cells with an adaptor, and the meter is very inaccurate anyway! The Pen F is older, has a ground glass focusing screen and is a double stroke mechanism. The FV will be younger, with microprisms, and single stroke.

 

[BrianShaw]

This is the half-frame I use for portraits (and a lot more). Unfortunately limited to “normal” focal length.

http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_Duo_Six-20

http://kodak.3106.net/index.php?p=302&cam=914

 

[Sirius Glass]

Half frame cameras are in portrait format when held normally. One has to rotate the camera for landscape format. We can avoid such discussions by using the Perfect Format - Square.

 

[BrianShaw]

Half frame cameras are in portrait format when held normally. One has to rotate the camera for landscape format. We can avoid such discussions by using the Perfect Format - Square.

Yes… a Rollei TLR would be ideal!!!!

 

[Paul Howell]

Canon and under the Bell and Howell brand sold 1/2 frames with a fixed 28mm 2.8 lens, with Tmax 100 with a soft developer, color, Porta 160, maybe Gold 100, 5X7 or 8x10 why not.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes… a Rollei TLR would be ideal!!!!

A Rollei SLR would be even better. Even a Hasselblad.

 

[AgX]

Half frame cameras are in portrait format when held normally.

I see this as advantage within the topic of this thread.

 

[BrianShaw]

I see this as advantage within the topic of this thread.

Indeed it is. And, historically, it might be highly likely that photographers using small-format cameras have found it no more difficult to rotate the camera 90 degrees than to visualize a vertical crop on a square format.

 

[removed account4]

The little Pentax MV I bought to avoid lugging the big camera everywhere was a step in the right direction, but it's 50mm lens was throwing me off. I usually use 85mm to 135mm for a walk around lens as that's how I usually see the composition, and that sort of focal length works well if a portrait opportunity arises.

Half frame could be fun w/ the equivalent of those focal lengths, but just what would those equivalents be for half frame? Is a 50mm lens still a 50 on a half frame camera? And just how are lens focal length/DOF and bokeh affected by using only half the frame? I'll need a fast, short tele lens.

Everything else w/ the format looks promising, especially the vertical format. but if the focal length and bokeh aren't going to work for half frame I'll buy another small full frame camera like the MV and hunt up an 85-135 lens for it.

it depends
.
half frame works great but. .. 1 is a regular roll of film seems to take forever to finish unless you roll your own and roll short rolls. and 2 if you enlarge the images past a specific size some might find the grain to be distracting.
look at how vaughn uses a split dark slide, you could easily make a skylight filter half black ( or use a black card ) and make your own 1/2 frame camera without having to shell $$ out for new cameras and lenses. and you wouldn't have to shoot 48 to 72 images on a roll. some 1/2 frame cameras are better than others for user controls. (fs, ss, lenses &c ) others are like a p/s camera and don't have the fl you want. bencini made a nice one if u like Italian Futurism.

 

[Huub]

And how about hunting down a 85mm, 105mm or a 135mm prime for your little MV? Especially the smc pentax 135 f3.5 can het found for surprisingly litlle money and offers good quality for the cash. But also in the other primes can be found easely and are great lenses!

 

[dynachrome]

My two half frame cameras are a Konica Auto Reflex and a Konica AA35 - known in other markets as the Recorder. The SLR gives me a great choice of lenses and can be used in full frame or half frame mode. I am not worried about excessive depth of field in half frame mode when shooting portraits. By now I think the selective focus/bokeh look where only the tips of the eyeballs are in focus is overdone.

 

[Paul Howell]

Or not that 110 is available how about a Pentax 110 with lens, or the Minolta 110 with fixed zoom?

 

[Les Sarile]

Half frame could be fun w/ the equivalent of those focal lengths, but just what would those equivalents be for half frame? Is a 50mm lens still a 50 on a half frame camera? And just how are lens focal length/DOF and bokeh affected by using only half the frame? I'll need a fast, short tele lens.

Having the Konica Auto-Reflex - which can switch between full and half frame at any point on the roll, it is easy to tell that the 50mm lens is still a 50mm lens except that the field of view is cropped.

Konica Auto-Reflex by Les DMess, on Flickr

Yup, these half frame cameras are natural made portrait shooters and with the appropriate film, lens and image extraction can easily be used for web or print enlargements.

Untitled by Les DMess, on Flickr

The lenses for the Olympus can get pricy but they are the original adaptable cameras with lens adapters for practically any mount but those are probably as rare and pricey too.

Olympus FT&Nikon by Les DMess, on Flickr

I do enjoy my Olympus FT - given that it was serviced by John Hermanson http://www.zuiko.com/ to like new. The half frame cameras may not be as convenient or economical to own and they are certainly not that much smaller, specially given the film real estate you would be sacrificing compared to the smallest full frame 35mm cameras.

Smallest 3 by Les DMess, on Flickr

 

[Sirius Glass]

I remember when the Olympic Pen F first came out, all the engineers at work were very excited about it. I do not remember if the excitement resulted in any purchases.

 

[nosmok]

This talk about 1/2-frames and square formats-- well, what about a square format on 35mm? I just got a Zeiss Tenax II, and it's a lot of fun, but I think the Robot 24mm x 24mm cameras are probably better because of more lenses and accessories. They are rare, but apparently very well made, and when I see them my usual thought is "they're not as expensive as they could be".

 

[Sirius Glass]

This talk about 1/2-frames and square formats-- well, what about a square format on 35mm? I just got a Zeiss Tenax II, and it's a lot of fun, but I think the Robot 24mm x 24mm cameras are probably better because of more lenses and accessories. They are rare, but apparently very well made, and when I see them my usual thought is "they're not as expensive as they could be".

For some unknown reason, marketing?, 24x24 or 24x28, or 24x30 just never caught on. Perhaps the inertia cause by Leica being the first on the market with 24x36 was too much to overcome.

 

[faberryman]

For some unknown reason, marketing?, 24x24 or 24x28, or 24x30 just never caught on. Perhaps the inertia cause by Leica being the first on the market with 24x36 was too much to overcome.

126 was a square format on 35mm film which had a pretty good run with the Kodak Instamatic cameras. It was introduced by Kodak in 1963 and last produced by Ferrania in 2007.

 

[Sirius Glass]

126 was a square format on 35mm film which had a pretty good run with the Kodak Instamatic cameras. It was introduced by Kodak in 1963 and last produced by Ferrania in 2007.

I like that format and the Instamatic Cameras. They were popular for a while and I sold many Instamatic 104s. The format never moved to compete with 35mm though.

 

[wiltw]

The little Pentax MV I bought to avoid lugging the big camera everywhere was a step in the right direction, but it's 50mm lens was throwing me off. I usually use 85mm to 135mm for a walk around lens as that's how I usually see the composition, and that sort of focal length works well if a portrait opportunity arises.

Half frame could be fun w/ the equivalent of those focal lengths, but just what would those equivalents be for half frame? Is a 50mm lens still a 50 on a half frame camera? And just how are lens focal length/DOF and bokeh affected by using only half the frame? I'll need a fast, short tele lens.

Everything else w/ the format looks promising, especially the vertical format. but if the focal length and bokeh aren't going to work for half frame I'll buy another small full frame camera like the MV and hunt up an 85-135 lens for it.

If you think of FL = [vertical frame size] * [multiplier], one can compute ANY 'equivalent'
if 135mm = 24mm * 5.63, then if half frame is 18mm high, 'equivalent FL' is 101mm

Wow, talk about thread drift with so many ignoring the question posed!

 

[Paul Howell]

My wife had a Rollieflex SL26 with the 3 interchangeable lens, she loved the easy of loading, downside in the hot summer days the plastic cassette tended to warp with a loss of sharpness.

 

[Down Under]

Yes… a Rollei TLR would be ideal!!!!

...with a Rolleikin 35mm kit, of course!

I've used this combo often in the past for quick portraits. The Rolleikin converts the Rollei's 75mm/80mm lens to a+/-125mm telephoto, an ideal if somewhat long focal length for good portraits - like 135mm in full frame '35' format. It 'flatters' the subjects by flattening the facial features, which improves everyone's looks no end. So my subjects often told me in the past.

The Rolleiflex half-frame format does defeat the small size of the Olympus Pen, though. But it's unusual, also fun to use.

To return to the original post (about the Pen F), as I see it the greatest advantage of this beaut small camera is not only its size, but the format - half frame means two times as many images on a roll of film, which given the cost of film nowadays, is no laughing matter.

Unfortunately for me, what undoes all this is the expense of buying a Pen F in working condition - check the Ebay prices.

The lenses also seem to be going for the price of a spare kidney. So I'll stay with my Rollei.

(Added later)

Now we’re in the right spirit. Taking a great idea and making it greater again!

Good one! Lateral thinking wins it every time - it's what makes Photrio such a great place.

 

[BrianShaw]

Now we’re in the right spirit. Taking a great idea and making it greater again!