Odd LF vs MF question

[Merkin]

I have a slightly odd question about Large format and Medium format film that stems from ponderings over small digital sensors.

I know that Large Format produces significantly better results than Medium format due to the larger negative. Large format cameras, while still used today with the best modern film emulsions, are very old designs and many of them still in use today were built in the days of older, less advanced film emulsions. My question is this: If you were to take a large format (4x5) camera and a medium format (let's say 6x7 or 6x9) camera, with comparable lenses, and you loaded a very old film emulsion design in to the large format camera whereas the medium format camera had modern film in it, how much closer would the two be in image quality than if both had the same film? In other words, is there a point where size stops being king?

 

[hans voralberg]

Well modern LF lens have extremely high quality and resolution so even if you go with old emulsion type such as Efke or Adox then I'd imagine LF still out-resolve and provide more dynamic range than smaller format.

*just a personal opinion*

 

[Al Kaplan]

To me "large format" really means a size where you make contact prints, not enlargements. That's where you see the big difference in tonality. Resolution isn't the consideration, nor is grain. Most of you are too young to remember reading all the of the discussions in the photography magazines about condensor enlargers vs. diffusion enlargers, how they render tonality, enhance or subdue the illusion of sharpness, and even how silver chloride contact papers have richer tonality than chlorobromide or bromide enlarging papers.

There really IS a difference in image quality, illusion of sharpness, and tonality when printing a silver based negative with a condensor enlarger compared to a diffusion enlarger even though condensor enlargers are really "semi-diffusion" because of the use of an opal bulb rather than a true point light source. Some enlargers designed for microfilm printing had about as close to a point light source as physics allows.

There is plenty to read about the subject, easy to Google. It's called the "callier effect". It'll give you new insights as to why you can't scan silver negatives and make your prints look like they were printed with an enlarger. From the optical standpoint the scan is more akin to a contact print.

 

[Roger Hicks]

The answers here are far less obvious than they might seem.

First of all, there are no films as bad as the worst of (say) 50 years ago, some of which visibly lost sharpness and became grainy at 2x or at best 3x enlargements.

Second, the main limiting factor for sharpness with LF is film location and film flatness, so without a vacuum back, 4x5 inch may be worse than rollfilm at a 12x16 enlargement.

Third, tonality depends very much on film, developer and exposure, but up to about a 3x enlargement, a roll-film neg taken with a top-flight lens on a sharp film, well exposed and developed, may be indistinguishable from a contact print. This is whole-plate (6-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches) from Linhof's 57 x 72 mm negative...

Cheers,

R.

 

[sevo]

I know that Large Format produces significantly better results than Medium format due to the larger negative. Large format cameras, while still used today with the best modern film emulsions, are very old designs and many of them still in use today were built in the days of older, less advanced film emulsions.

What have cameras got to do with that? A camera is just a black box and focus tool. Old lenses may have lower resolution than new ones. The question makes more sense if we replace "old cameras" with "old lenses" - which is not the same, currently there is a 1920's Dagor on my 1994 sinar and a early 2000's Super Symmar on my 1936 Mentor.

Old lenses tend to have lower resolution than modern. But old lenses in that professional price and quality range were already quite excellent a hundred years ago - good LF lenses from the twenties on can be almost as good at center as any modern lens, the big improvements on more recent designs are in coverage (where a new wide will cover almost three times the angle of a 1910 Tessar at at least as good distortion and resolution for the entire area) and contrast (where uncoated lenses tend to be rather flat - in their time that was made up by using higher contrast paper, something that is not possible in colour).

Bigger is still better, modern film stays modern film even when used with a old camera or lens, so that grain is inevitably less than on a smaller format, and micro contrast will generally be much superior as well, thanks to less grain and film diffusion and thanks to the more gentle MTF performance degradation on large lenses.

Sevo