Why does Medium Format look so different to 35mm?

[Bobfrance]

No, I mean the odd "smearing". Check out the shot of the people sitting on the base. On the top-right hand corner there is very strange aberrations in the image. It doesn't look like OOF bokeh, more like something is wrong with the lens.

Ah, I think that's glare from the sky. This lens has a lot of marks on it and I think that makes the image go hazy where the sky is and causes it to bleed into the darker areas on the horizon.
The lens is battered but I quite like the effect and have decided to work/experiment with it. I'm enjoying the more organic quality I'm getting with this setup compared to the crispness of my 35mm digital images.

 

[Bobfrance]

I got a theory. It's related to the more real estate in medium format negatives. Just as there is more real estate in 4x5 and 8x10, etc. negatives.

OK, so you point your lens at a scene and the lens packs the scene onto the film. Now suppose that there is a gradual white to black transition in the scene. Lots of in between greys right? In the packing onto film process, the gradient that occupied a foot in real life may occupy a 1/4" on medium format and a mm on 35mm film, right? So, tonal gradient was spread over a lot of film grains on the medium format negatives and only one or two on the 35mm negative. It's like when you divide something in half repeatedly. Sooner or later you will end up with something too small to cut in half. That something will disappear. The grey will be gone leaving just black & white.
Clear as mud?

I think that may hold true if making wet prints, but when scanning a B&W neg you only have a limited amount of levels of grey when it is digitised.
The neg is bigger but if you scanned a 35mm neg at twice the red of a 120 then I imagine you shouldn't see any difference - but you do. Even on a small thumbnail.

 

[Bobfrance]

Its the way a longer lens renders a scene added to the increased neg size. a longer lens gives a flatter field of view at a given focal distance (eg 50mm compare to 80mm)

Obviously bigger negative gives more tonality and detail at equivalent enlargements but the main issue is focal length.

Stick a 80mm MF lens on a 35mm camera and its no different to a picture taken with a 35mm 80mm but expand the negative area and you can then get closer and receive the same angle of view as if you put a 50mm lens on it in the first place. however the 80mm gives you a flatter perspective and shallower DOF hence the difference in 'look'

Its even clearer with a 150mm lens on 5x4 or on the opposite end of the scale a 25mm on micro four thirds

edit Not sure if thats explained particually well.

This could be the answer I was grasping for - I'm trying to get my head around it. Anybody got any diagrams to make it simpler for me. 🙂

 

[atlcruiser]

Interesting discussion and lots of good points.

Here is a wrench in the scheme....the hasselblad X Pan. Yep...it is 35mm but 6cm wide. When looking at these they are identical to other MF negs in quality and tone. I think of the X pan as a narrow MF camera that is just using a "slice" of the 6x6 neg.

 

[Instantclassic]

considering the amount of discussion on this forum about the character of different M-mount lenses, I'm amazed no one has suggested that medium format lenses have different character than 35mm lenses.
For example, the lens light gathering area of an 80mm lens at 5.6 on medium format is much bigger than a 50mm lens at 5.6 on a 35mm camera. I'm not talking about film area here but the amount of lens area that sends light to any single point on the film. Medium format lens have bigger diamaeter for same size f-stop. That will make captured information much greater for same point in subject And its made bigger on the film. So I think its not just magnification from printing. (it's analagous to the quality of a pixel being higher for some cameras than others.) Or you could consider that telescopes use massive light gathering areas to get the quality they require. It's not just magnification as you could use a small light gathering area and magnify that but you don't get the same quality as the larger light gathering area.
Having said that, if you work at optimising your 35mm with the right film and developers you can get fantastic looking images so I don't think that just moving to MF is some kind of magic bullet, especially when you consider its size and heft etc. For example, I have frequently heard people say a Mamiya 7 is the equal of Large Format. Well if MF can be the equal of LF then small format can be the equal of MF. With small format, film and developer control is everything for ultimate quality.

I think you are right.

 

[ChrisN]

I always enjoy looking at my TLR images. I like the tonality in small prints and print around 8x8 inches. Even at that small size I prefer them to my 35mm images..

Stuart might be on to something here. We had a similar discussion a few years ago (link here) and print size and enlargement ratios was discussed at some length.

Whatever it, I can certainly see the difference. MF images are just so much more whole and satisfying.

 

[FrankS]

The mitigating issue with large format sheet film is film flatness and correct placement at the focus plane.

 

[Bobfrance]

I'm tempted! But I doubt I could street shoot with LF. 😉

 

[CarlRadford]

Gregg Miller

Gregg Miller

I'm tempted! But I doubt I could street shoot with LF. 😉

Its just a matter of style: http://www.gregmiller.com/ - the idea of mutual manipulation - put forward by Sanders McNew (?) - describing the interaction between subject and photographer has got my brain aching!

 

[Pherdinand]

Because it matches digital for detail and resolution ... but without looking digital!

And I'm not trolling ... it's just the way it is. 😀

lol...how's your x100 doing, Keith? 😛

 

[Pherdinand]

i haven't read all three pages, but seems that nobody included the human factor.

Otherwise, i agree with Nick's funny but pretty accurate description/formulation PLUS the human factor: in most cases, people are slower and more careful with MF film than with 35mm. Yes i know you can have same shooting habits with 35mm but MOST people in MOST cases do not. So statistically this contributes as well.

All those little things brought up one by one in the comments add up with the above (and not necessarily linearly add up) so the end result on a MF image drifts away little by little from 35mm.
Of course you can do the usual tricks to get it closer- to eliminate one or even a few of these parameters- but not all factors, and not in all cases.
So we end up with the generalized observation that MF images are...different.

I suppose it is the same story when you go to large format. Lenses are even further in optical behavior, film area is even larger, processes are even slower, film is even more expensive and more cumbersome to handle so photographer is even more careful with each frame...etc etc.

And finally, there's that little part of psychology added...which is in the head of the viewer... saying, this is MF, this must be different/better/cooler.

 

[Pherdinand]

I think you are right.

He has some right when talking about more glass should have more influence, BUT, he is mistaken i two parts:
1. not all MF lenses contain more glass (like it was mentioned, the TLR example)
2. the telescope comparison is wrong. The large area of a telescope reflective/refractive element is simply to gather more light i.e. have a bigger "f-stop" if you like.

 

[Steve Ash]

MF look in 135

MF look in 135

You can get the MF Look which is mainly due to high level of detail and shallow depth of field if you utilize high quality glass wide open like summiluxes and low iso films like adox cms 20 or velvia 50/100. During daylight you might need an nd filter depending on the level of light.

Regards
Steve

 

[hans voralberg]

Hi Bob did you add the vignette or it comes out that way? and how did you achieve the contrast?

 

[Steve M.]

"I'm aware DOF is shallower at smaller apertures than with 35mm, but even so I'm yet to see a wide open Noctilux image that cropped square looks like medium format."

Two probable reasons. Film grain is constant, so when you put it into a small 35mm format the grain looks huge, relatively speaking. At 6x6 or 6x9 the grain appears to be much smaller (again, relatively speaking) because there's so much more of it than in 35mm. This gives the smoother tones.

The other reason (I'm going to skip over the DOF issue, since this is more related to the physics of focal lengths) is that MF cameras tend to have really good lenses that are capable of resolving more detail. My Leica photos look nothing like the shots from my Canon AE-1. Same 35mm format, but drastically different lenses. This is why not all MF cameras produce that MF look. I had a neat early Rolleiflex Standard that had an uncoated Tessar lens. While the photos were great, they looked nothing like the photos from the Voitlander Bessa II Heliar's shots. Not even close.

 

[Strangeluv]

I have no experience whit MF, but I do however love the look it produces.
Maybe its just me, and feel free to tell me otherwise, but I think the 35mm C-Biogon to some extent produce the MF "look" if you can call it that 🙂

M8 shot at 2.8

 

[Griffin]

This could be the answer I was grasping for - I'm trying to get my head around it. Anybody got any diagrams to make it simpler for me. 🙂

You might like this page then:

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

 

[Bobfrance]

Hi Bob did you add the vignette or it comes out that way? and how did you achieve the contrast?

Hi Hans,

I shot it on 400 ISO film and then did all my post processing in Lightroom. I adjusted curves and exposure to gain the contrast I was after and added vignette. There may have been a little dodging and burning too - I can't remember.

I tend to only do things to the digital file I could reasonably achieve with a wet print (just a little rule of mine).

Bob.

 

[tlitody]

Hi Hans,

I shot it on 400 ISO film and then did all my post processing in Lightroom. I adjusted curves and exposure to gain the contrast I was after and added vignette. There may have been a little dodging and burning too - I can't remember.

I tend to only do things to the digital file I could reasonably achieve with a wet print (just a little rule of mine).

Bob.

I think you should post a straight scan before post processing or least without the heavy vignetting as I think people wouldn't have the same "MF Look" opinion. I played with removing the vignette and it looks very different but of course I don't know exactly what it did look like so it was guess work and working from a small jpeg isn't ideal.

 

[tlitody]

He has some right when talking about more glass should have more influence, BUT, he is mistaken i two parts:
1. not all MF lenses contain more glass (like it was mentioned, the TLR example)
2. the telescope comparison is wrong. The large area of a telescope reflective/refractive element is simply to gather more light i.e. have a bigger "f-stop" if you like.

Using stndard lenses of 80 on MF and 50 on small format (SF) the actual physical area of same aperture is bigger on MF. Yes that gets spread over bigger area on film but for any single point there is a bigger glass area producing it. Its analogous to multisampling 4 times as opposed to say 16 times for example.
A MF camera can have smaller glass but it will also have a smaller max aperture. Its not just a case of the diameter of the glass.

Someone said they have a MF camera with small glass. They did not say what max aperture was compared to their 135 camera lens..