35 nokton vs 65 mamiya

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meandihagee

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hello everyone,

i want to shoot a project with the 35/1.4 nokton. even if i find the characteristic of the lens perfect (and by that i'm referring to the relationship between the objects that a medium wide gives you) i think that it's too narrow in terms of the number of objects that i can get in my frame.

if i am to choose a wider lens, then the relationship between the objects will become different. i tried with a 24mm and everything has this really wide look. i'm guessing a 28mm will have roughly the same results.

so my questions is this: if i will shoot with a mamiya 7+65mm (that has the equivalent of a 32mm) will i be capturing more stuff in my frame (due to the 6x7 film size) and at the same time keeping a medium-wide perspective? or it will look like the same shot but on a higher resolution?

thanks
 
Hi,

You may find these blog posts and the accompanying gallery helpful. While meant for video capture It discusses the relationship among focal length, format size and final image.

http://prolost.com/blog/2011/1/9/the-shot-you-can-make.html

http://prolost.com/blog/2011/1/14/the-shot-you-can-make-gallery.html

Speaking theoretically, lenses get the distortion you describe as they become wider than their normal focal length. Normal is about 50mm for 35mm film. So a 24mm lens on 35mm would inherently give that sense of elongation of distances. In 6x7 format normal is something like 90mm I believe. So a 65mm would similarly give that perspective of elongation of distance, although possibly not as much so as a 24mm on 35mm.
 
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meandihagee said:
so my questions is this: if i will shoot with a mamiya 7+65mm (that has the equivalent of a 32mm) will i be capturing more stuff in my frame (due to the 6x7 film size) and at the same time keeping a medium-wide perspective? or it will look like the same shot but on a higher resolution?
Click to expand...

It is the same shot on higher resolution - the more so in this case where the slow Mamiya and fast 35mm lens should not have a significant difference in depth of field with both fully open.

You should really read up a good photography primer to get the basic properties of a photographic image sorted out - as long as you cannot figure out whether the "stuff" you want is resolution, angle, grain, contrast or depth of field (or even beautiful people, good lighting and a marvellous setting), you'll be entirely random at your efforts at camera and lens shopping...
 
sevo said:
It is the same shot on higher resolution - the more so in this case where the slow Mamiya and fast 35mm lens should not have a significant difference in depth of field with both fully open.

You should really read up a good photography primer to get the basic properties of a photographic image sorted out - as long as you cannot figure out whether the "stuff" you want is resolution, angle, grain, contrast or depth of field (or even beautiful people, good lighting and a marvellous setting), you'll be entirely random at your efforts at camera and lens shopping...
Click to expand...


thank you for the quick replies.

take a look: http://cargocollective.com/mihaicostache

the stuff i want is this: getting more stairs in my shot, capturing more of the green plants that appear in the upper left corner without changing the relationship of the things in the shot and without using a wider lens (using the same medium-wide perspective of a 35 lens on a 35mm format).

because i'm in narrow hallway i cannot go a few steps back. in this particular shot my back was against the wall.

i'm thinking a the medium format will have, let's say, a bigger crop on reality without changing the characteristics of the lens.

thanks
 
I see, maybe you could try shooting a more square format like 6x6 or Olympus' Four Thirds. At the same angle of view you wouldn't get any more width than 35mm but you would get a relatively taller frame to include more of the stairs and the plants. This doesn't have to do with the size of the image but the shape as 4:3 is smaller than 35mm.

You've said that you can't take any more steps back. What about putting the camera up against the wall on a monopod and standing to the side of it after you've achieved the framing and focus you want? That would allow you to back up the camera by whatever the depth of your body is.

Edit:

Also, why not just try taking multiple shots and stitching them together? If you overlap the frames enough that should minimize distortion. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/stitching.shtml. Some digital cameras offer automatic stitching functions.
 
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meandihagee said:
thank you for the quick replies.

take a look: http://cargocollective.com/mihaicostache

the stuff i want is this: getting more stairs in my shot, capturing more of the green plants that appear in the upper left corner without changing the relationship of the things in the shot and without using a wider lens (using the same medium-wide perspective of a 35 lens on a 35mm format).
Click to expand...

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. If neither moving the camera location nor wider angle lenses are possible (or permitted), you are stuck with that crop.

And I believe less than ever that the core of your problem is technical. More technical background cold help you in designing a complex technical solution to the problem of doing pictures of narrow staircases - but the most obvious solution is very simple: Do close-ups and details, with whatever camera and lens you have, and work out on how you could improve on that!

As a rule of thumb, it is a waste of time attempting totals of narrow passages, stairwells or lavatories - there is no space for it. Just about every perfect rectilinear wide of these subjects you've ever seen in architectural photography is either computer generated, a montage or a shot of a three-sided model. If you must shoot these subjects on location and in real, details are all you can do - unless you want to depict the real claustrophobic narrowness of them...
 
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davidefontaine said:
I see, maybe you could try shooting a more square format like 6x6 or Olympus' Four Thirds. At the same angle of view you wouldn't get any more width than 35mm but you would get a relatively taller frame to include more of the stairs and the plants.
Click to expand...

or shoot 6x7 in portrait, right?
 
meandihagee said:
take a look: http://cargocollective.com/mihaicostache

the stuff i want is this: getting more stairs in my shot, capturing more of the green plants that appear in the upper left corner without changing the relationship of the things in the shot and without using a wider lens (using the same medium-wide perspective of a 35 lens on a 35mm format). ......
Click to expand...

I too can't help but think of broken eggs/omelette type metaphors.

I actually think that neither a 35mm [3x2 ratio] lens on 35mm style format, or 65mm on 6x7 format are lenses for this situation. I've sold my Mamiya7 gear, but my go-to lens for this type of image making would always have been the Mamiya 43mm lens. It's a lens which renders space beautifully, without the distorting wide-angle effect of lesser lenses. Good 'wides' render better than lesser 'wides', but good 'wides' are harder to make and more expensive.

The 43mm lens is the one for the job on Mamiya7, or the Hasselblad Superwide on 6x6. Both lenses [more or less] give the equivalent image grab [along the picture's base] of a 24mm lens on 35mm, though their 'height' intake is different of course. If restricted to the 35mm format, I would require at least a 24mm shift lens to photograph in a stairwell unless converging verticals are acceptible [and they tend not to be acceptible with formal interior architectural type pictures].

It's no coincidence that many of us who have done a lot of architectural interior type photography immediately reach for a substantial 'wide' for this work. But you want to get more in without going for a necessary wide, whilst using a 3x2 format ratio [which works to your disadvantage unless you use a shift lens]. Something will have to give, I'd start with more eggs and a different omelette, but I've a feeling you won't find that helpful, in which case good luck squeezing more image into a lens that isn't the right one for the job.

Good luck.

.............. Chris
 
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