Digital Camera for a Film Shooter

[Godfrey]

Can't speak to 44x33 (yet but very soon) but with FF shooting stopped down isn't an issue. Even if you have to open up to focus and then stop down to shoot that workflow is no different than large format photography.

Shawn

LOL! Large format photography tends to be a much less casual, more deliberative type of photography than small and medium format work. If that's what you do and you now use FF in the same way, well, more power to you.

It's not generally my kind of photography so the difference in working methodology does make a difference visible in the photos. 😉

G

 

[joe bosak]

Digital Camera for a Film Shooter

My list of digital cameras giving a film-like experience would be these of the ones I have tried:
Fuji XPro1
Sigma DP Merrills
Sigma SD14
Sigma SD Quattro
Sony A7RII + M42 adapter

Other than that I have a Mamiya AFDii with a 22mp ZD back; it's quite a relic; not sure I'd recommend it. The colours it produces seem really nice; it's very heavy, needs a tripod; and very noisy; uses CF cards up to 2gb. Can use an old screw-in cable release, and you can get Pentacon 6 and Kiev 88 adapters from Hartblei if that's your thing. Easy to replace focusing screens. I though it would be a cheap way to have a camera that could do both film and digital; after buying it I found that the HM401 film backs have awful flatness issues and are fairly scarce, and the HM402 (which fixed the issue) is even more costly and rarely seen here anyway. Of course, 22mp is peanuts nowdays, but more recent backs (if any fit this body) are much more expensive.

 

[shawn]

LOL! Large format photography tends to be a much less casual, more deliberative type of photography than small and medium format work. If that's what you do and you now use FF in the same way, well, more power to you.

It's not generally my kind of photography so the difference in working methodology does make a difference visible in the photos. 😉

G

That isn't what I do FF, I shoot stopped down FF without an issue. If I have to shoot MF wide open for focusing then stopped down for shooting it isn't too big of a deal to me. Workflow is like large format or early 35mm SLR with preset lenses. With a Nikon adapted lens on a G adapter literally it is just a twist of the barrel to go from preset F stop to wide open and back again.

With Canon adapted lenses and a smart adapter it is exactly the same as shooting 35mm with a Canon... the lens will stop down when shooting but be wide open for focus. Will even AF.

New to me 50r arrived yesterday, but I had to send it back as one of the memory card slots wasn't holding the card in. That was a bummer....

Shawn

 

[Godfrey]

Right, whatever you say Shawn. Everything is just hunky dory.

G

 

[DownUnder]

... I predominantly shoot 120, and will continue to use film for my black and white work but would like a replacement for color. I use a Mamiya 7, Pentax 6x7 and Rolleiflex for 90% of my fine art work. 6x7 or 4x5 are my preferred ratios. Currently my only digital camera is a Fuji X-E1 which I use as it was cheap and I can easily mount my older slr glass. I have had a Sony A7 II which I strongly disliked and and canon 5d mk II which I liked for the most part aside from the 35mm character.

I am not opposed to medium format digital but I am not willing to spend more the 3000-3500 so the new models are out of the questions. Older Hasselblad digitals and the Sigma SD aspH camera are what I am most drawn to, both for their results and their workflow but I'm finding it hard to find anyone with experience coming from film speaking to their digital equipment choices.

Not an easy post to respond to, this. Others have already covered a lot of territory with some interesting observations (and a few excellent images), so you may have an overload of information.

I shoot Nikon FF DSLRs, which may be a little away from your areas of interest. In the past year I've moved away from color and am now shooting more B&W.

I have a D800 for color and two D700s set on monochrome and used with Nikkor B&W filters. They produce excellent images for me with a little fine-tuning (and some effort) - some here may say the filters achieve little or even nothing in the images, but I find they give quite a lot of variation in the mid-tones. So far I've used only yellows and the orange, not yet red nor green. I almost never use a polariser as I rarely shoot landscapes.

My Nikon lenses are D series. Other than an ancient 28-85 zoom I've kept as it's surprisingly sharp but far too decrepit to be sold, my lenses are primes.

For me, MF digital is overkill. I'm a retired architect and I still shoot stock of buildings, but the money is peanuts compared to even 10 years ago. At this time in my life, keeping and using my old gear is the sensible option, even if (as we all know) common sense is, well, "optional" as a life guide.

Last year I considered trading my Nikons for a Df or a Z6. My retail seller in Melbourne (now closed, thanks to Covid) had demos and kindly let me do a few days of test-shooting.

(I also tried a new Sony FF, but found it too flimsy, and I admit to a bias to Sony after a bad experience with their shoddy warranties.)

I didn't take to the Nikon Z6 - the ergonomics didn't suit me, the new Z lenses are too expensive, I disliked the lens adapter.

The Df was closest to my ideal, but I balked at the A$3000+ price for a new kit and opted to pass. I now regret this, no new Dfs are available in Melbourne and secondhand ones seem as rare as diamonds on St Kilda Beach (I won't buy on Ebay).

For now, I'm satisfied with the B&W images from my D800 and D700s, though after comparing with film taken with my Nikkormats and Contax, I realize I have more road to travel before I get final results I'm entirely happy with. The difference (for me) is in the mid-tones. Film is better, but sadly it's now almost a paleontologist's dream.

 

[Abbazz]

The best solution for a 'dedicated film shooter' using medium format film that wants to retain the feel and workflow of using their film camera is unfortunately a little expensive: buy the Hasselblad 907x body, take the included CFVII 50c back and install it onto nearly any Hasselblad 500 or 200 series body. The effect is like fitting a reduced format A16 back with an infinitely long roll of film in it ... you work with it in almost exactly the same way that you work with any film back on the traditional V-system Hasselblad body.

The problem lies in the "reduced format" part. A Hasselblad 500 is not really suited to capturing 33x44mm pictures.

As much as using other bodies (like the Fujis with their focal plane shutter) with adapted lenses (from, say, the Pentax 6x7) can be done, some of the original feel and workflow is lost in doing that since the lenses are no longer coupled to the auto diaphragm mechanism. Using an SLR without an autodiaphragm lens can be done, for sure, but it is not the original experience and adds complication to the workflow.

Then why not going for the real thing? A Pentax 645D will provide autodiaphragm with all Pentax 6x7 lenses (and autofocus with newer 645 lenses). It will also have a viewfinder showing the real 33x44mm frame and nothing more.

Of course, the Hasselblad setup is most economical if you already have a V system kit. It worked well for me since I had my 500CM and four lenses already, but the price is about double that $4000 max goal you had in mind even for that.

A good Pentax 645D should cost less than $2000.

And if the OP doesn't want to cope with the cost and bulkiness of digital medium format, a Foveon camera provides most of the image quality of MF and a shooting experience quite similar to using a film camera loaded with Kodachrome! My personal favorite: Sigma dp2 Merrill.

Cheers!

Abbazz

 

[Godfrey]

The problem lies in the "reduced format" part. A Hasselblad 500 is not really suited to capturing 33x44mm pictures.
...

That's purely a matter of opinion. I've shot 6x6cm, 6x4.5cm, 24x56mm, and now 44x33mm in my 500CM with no problems at all. It's an extremely versatile camera system.

Service Door - Santa Clara 2020
Hasselblad 500CM + Planar 80mm f/2.8
ISO 100 @ f/5.6 @ 1/90​

I can't say much either for or against the Pentax 645D. I had a 645 film body and lenses at one time. It was a good body with decent lenses, but had some significant drawbacks; most significant to me was the fixed prism finder. The 645D is also a 33x44 mm format camera. The current version (645z?) is a $5000 body only (new). I also used to work with Pentax APS-C DSLRs ... some excellent lenses, but the bodies weren't quite as good IMO.

I gave up on Pentax because I found getting service and support spotty at best, they seemed to have ongoing quality assurance issues with lens motors and such, and once Ricoh took them over it was unclear just how much love the Pentax line was going to get. I don't know for sure how it's played out since it's been more than 12 years since I sold off all my Pentax gear and I don't generally just watch equipment threads, but I've been a lot happier with the equipment I replaced the Pentax gear with over the years.

G

 

[shawn]

Right, whatever you say Shawn. Everything is just hunky dory.

G

Well, now that I have tried it....

A Canon lens with a $81 smart adapter not only focuses wide open then stops down to shoot, it also autofocuses (with face/eye detect if desired) and passes all lens EXIF data to the Fuji to record aperture and lens info.

The adapter even passes the lenses built in correction profile to the Fuji. The Fuji writes that into the RAW file and Lightroom then applies the correction. Not only that but the Fuji actually applies the correction to the JPEG too and it did a good job correcting the distortion in the lens.

So yeah, I'd call that pretty darn hunky dory.

Shawn

 

[Peter_S]

While I am a fan of the Sigmas, I am not quite sold on the "like/almost like" MF quality claims. I used them quite a bit, both the old DP2 and the DP2M. IF the light is right, IF well exposed, then the images can be amazing. IF not, I struggled with weird colors (the blues and magentas...) and lengthy post-processing (that can be OK, if the results warrant it).

From my limited experience (limited as in no controlled comparisons), the Leica Monochrom M9M resolves at least as much detail with a sharp lens. That does not take away from the size/cost to (potential) image performance ratio of the Sigma. Sigma files sure enlarge well, no doubt. And is absolute per-pixel resolution the main priority for Adam?

MF systems also have a variety of other benefits related to sensor size other than pure sharpeness (I am telling nothing new here) - like a variety of lenses with different characters and rendering. The out-of-focus rendering of the Sigmas is nowhere near MF level (logical). On some occassions, the Sigmas may have an edge in sharpeness due to larger depth of field. But on all other fronts, I just cannot see how they could (or should) compete with MF.

However, given the low costs of the Sigmas, they may well be an additional camera to a MF system; possibly instead of that focal length for the MF system. Sigmas are 3:2 format cameras however, which moves them even further away from being a solution for 6:7 format work. Again, I like the concepts of Sigma and Foveon, I just think it has its limitations (and that is totally OK).

 

[Godfrey]

Well, now that I have tried it....

A Canon lens with a $81 smart adapter not only focuses wide open then stops down to shoot, it also autofocuses (with face/eye detect if desired) and passes all lens EXIF data to the Fuji to record aperture and lens info.

The adapter even passes the lenses built in correction profile to the Fuji. The Fuji writes that into the RAW file and Lightroom then applies the correction. Not only that but the Fuji actually applies the correction to the JPEG too and it did a good job correcting the distortion in the lens.

So yeah, I'd call that pretty darn hunky dory.

Shawn

I'm very glad you're happy.

G

 

[Godfrey]

My Hasselblad A16 back returned from it's overhaul and CLA ... It is now in "as new" condition. So I stuck the Planar 80/2.8 on the black 500CM body, loaded the A16, put a charged battery into the CFVII 50c, and went out for a walk with them.

Using the CFV50c focusing screen in the camera, the scribed format frame matches the CFVII 50c format perfectly ... and with the A16 back on the camera, all you need to imagine is that the diagonal lines from corner to corner within the scribing extend out to the edge of the viewfinder. So it's very easy to switch backs and do paired photos on both film and digital with virtually identical framing aesthetic. Camera operation is identical with either back, with the one proviso that you need to set the ISO on the digital back.

As you can see from the FoV calculator output, the difference in field of view is about 10 degrees on the diagonal ... pretty small, in other words.

Angle of View analysis - output in degrees

Film:
Width = 41.5 mm, Length = 56 mm, Diagonal = 69.7011 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
80mm - 38.6 - 29.1 - 47.1

Digital:
Width = 33 mm, Length = 44 mm, Diagonal = 55 mm
f - Hor - Vert - Diag
80mm - 30.8 - 23.38 - 37.9]​

IMO, this is the closest match to a 'digital MF camera that feels and works like a film camera' I've used, on par with the Leica M-D typ 262 in 35FF format that I had a couple of years ago.

G

 

[rhl-oregon]

A propos Peter’s comments on Sigma/ratio/focus/out of focus, but mainly for the OP (who may not have been discouraged by off-topic opinionating), here are a few SDQ images framed and developed in 7:6, shot on the 30 1.4 lens between f1.4-1.7. All are iso100.

These are 50mb files downsized to for the RFF gallery; expect no miracles. I am happy to send anyone a supersized jpeg or the Foveon original for comparison.

I thought it witty to depict a 6x7 Fujica for this thread. In the original, the script on the lens ring is quite sharp, and instead of pixel peeping you can dust-peep the undusted coffee table. The rest of the camera and room are more or less oof. 1/5 sec.

f1.7 several feet more distant from the camel in daylight.

Minimum focus distance for the 30 1.4 lens, and shallow DOF.

This sort of landscape suffers from the radical compression of a 50mb Foveon file down to RFF 490kb gallery requirements, alas; it becomes an impressionistic contrast of soft treeline and bristly foreground. In the original, the dew-sparkle and fine hairs of the Y-shaped grass stems are more distinct.