okcomputer
Member
If it weren't for the gorgeous equipment, I think I would have given up on 35mm film already. The let-down is the scanning, and "faking it" (VSCO, Silver efex, etc) has gotten so good on digital, that sometimes I wonder why I go to the trouble.
On the V700, I flatten my 35mm negatives on the carrier with ANR glass, but I can't approach the flexibility of the files I get from my Sony A7r. I love the look and process of film, and love the results from B&W medium format, so I think I'm going to give that another go. I've used most systems in the past, except for 645.
What's the most compact camera out there with fast lenses (f/2.8)? I'm looking at a Mamiya 645 Pro with an 80mm (1.9 or 2.8)? Can anyone comment on speed of focusing, and "heft" on this camera?
Below: The top is 35mm/V700 and the bottom is the A7r. I'd love to hear from people who thought they've hit a wall with 35mm and then got over it...
Long shadows by adnan76, on Flickr
leaper by adnan76, on Flickr
On the V700, I flatten my 35mm negatives on the carrier with ANR glass, but I can't approach the flexibility of the files I get from my Sony A7r. I love the look and process of film, and love the results from B&W medium format, so I think I'm going to give that another go. I've used most systems in the past, except for 645.
What's the most compact camera out there with fast lenses (f/2.8)? I'm looking at a Mamiya 645 Pro with an 80mm (1.9 or 2.8)? Can anyone comment on speed of focusing, and "heft" on this camera?
Below: The top is 35mm/V700 and the bottom is the A7r. I'd love to hear from people who thought they've hit a wall with 35mm and then got over it...
Long shadows by adnan76, on Flickrleaper by adnan76, on Flickr
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
One looks like grainy film, another like noiseless digital. Are you trying to get TRiX film to looks like digital? I was close to it with TMAX, no grain, good range and such 
Also, after scanning and wet printing from some negs taken with some Leitz glass I lost interest in MF.
PS. I like yours A7r b/w more than M-Monochrome pics from many.
Also, after scanning and wet printing from some negs taken with some Leitz glass I lost interest in MF.
PS. I like yours A7r b/w more than M-Monochrome pics from many.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I've basically walked away from 35mm too. I shoot black and white in Medium Format and color with a Canon 5DmkII.
I have used a Mamiya 645 Super, which is very similar to the 645 pro, for over 20 years. I have the 80mm f1.9 for it. It is not a fast camera to operate. The focusing screen is not as easy to focus on as those in good 35mm SLRs. This is true also of Hasselblads, and is probably true of other Medium Format SLRs.
If you go for the 645 Pro, buy the winder grip for it. This makes it very nice to handhold, almost as easy as a large 35mm slr.
The 645 pro is great for portraits and landscapes. I've done some incredible work with mine!
I would not use it for street photography, though. Get a Mamiya 6 or Mamiya 7 rangefinder for that. I use a Mamiya 6 for a lot of my work now, because I like the square. It is very easy to focus quickly, and I've used it for street-type work. The lenses are slow, but that hasn't been a major limitation for me.
This is the 645 with the 80mm f1.9N lens. Can't remember the aperture, but it was not wide open. Probably f4 or f5.6
The three portraits above were made with the 645 handheld with the 80/1.9N. The last was cropped to near-square.
I have used a Mamiya 645 Super, which is very similar to the 645 pro, for over 20 years. I have the 80mm f1.9 for it. It is not a fast camera to operate. The focusing screen is not as easy to focus on as those in good 35mm SLRs. This is true also of Hasselblads, and is probably true of other Medium Format SLRs.
If you go for the 645 Pro, buy the winder grip for it. This makes it very nice to handhold, almost as easy as a large 35mm slr.
The 645 pro is great for portraits and landscapes. I've done some incredible work with mine!
I would not use it for street photography, though. Get a Mamiya 6 or Mamiya 7 rangefinder for that. I use a Mamiya 6 for a lot of my work now, because I like the square. It is very easy to focus quickly, and I've used it for street-type work. The lenses are slow, but that hasn't been a major limitation for me.
This is the 645 with the 80mm f1.9N lens. Can't remember the aperture, but it was not wide open. Probably f4 or f5.6
The three portraits above were made with the 645 handheld with the 80/1.9N. The last was cropped to near-square.
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
Fast 645? Fuji GA645. Fast to operate, and f4 minimum doesn't matter much in the kind of light you chose for your examples. F2.8 in MF can be a pretty thin slice, and those MF SLRs are beasts before you mount the heavy fast glass. The Mamiya 6 or a Bronica rf645 (I use one of these with the 65mm/45mm) would give you manual control in a smaller lighter machine, as well as P/A modes.
GA645: Medium format P&S for not much $. Never misses.
GA645: Medium format P&S for not much $. Never misses.
noimmunity
scratch my niche
Personally, I like the look of the first shot hands down (better exposure, more interesting tonality), while the subject of the second one provides a visually more engaging image.
The way people talk about MF today often makes it sound like it offers some kind of indisputable refuge from digital that 135 just doesn't have claim to anymore...
...except when people (like mrksgrn) start looking at the way in which the process becomes part of the composition.
I just love using my 135 film RFs. I look at MF with lust, but don't think I'd get into carrying it around with me, except for a few notable exceptions.
The way people talk about MF today often makes it sound like it offers some kind of indisputable refuge from digital that 135 just doesn't have claim to anymore...
...except when people (like mrksgrn) start looking at the way in which the process becomes part of the composition.
I just love using my 135 film RFs. I look at MF with lust, but don't think I'd get into carrying it around with me, except for a few notable exceptions.
mfogiel
Veteran
I find 645 to be a great format. In 35mm, if you shoot on film like Tmax 400, and scan properly, you can also get great results, but you need to forget flatbeds.
For walkabout camera the Bronica RF+65/4 is hard to beat, for portraiture, etc, Contax 645 is wonderful, but you can get very close results from a Pentax 645N for a quarter of the price. I have not used Mamiya AFD, but it has the benefit of having the shortest flange to film distance, so you can adapt tons of other brand lenses to it. I prefer Zeiss/Pentax or even Bronica lenses to Mamiya - they are too clinical and for me the bokeh is problematic.
Bronica RF lenses give you incredible shadow detail.
Bronica RF + 65/4
MF20142515 by mfogiel, on Flickr
Pentax 645N + 67 90/2.8
MF20145709 by mfogiel, on Flickr
Contax 645 + 55/3.5
MF20145401 by mfogiel, on Flickr
For walkabout camera the Bronica RF+65/4 is hard to beat, for portraiture, etc, Contax 645 is wonderful, but you can get very close results from a Pentax 645N for a quarter of the price. I have not used Mamiya AFD, but it has the benefit of having the shortest flange to film distance, so you can adapt tons of other brand lenses to it. I prefer Zeiss/Pentax or even Bronica lenses to Mamiya - they are too clinical and for me the bokeh is problematic.
Bronica RF lenses give you incredible shadow detail.
Bronica RF + 65/4
MF20142515 by mfogiel, on FlickrPentax 645N + 67 90/2.8
MF20145709 by mfogiel, on FlickrContax 645 + 55/3.5
MF20145401 by mfogiel, on Flickr
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
I keep re-reading the OP but not understanding what exactly 35mm isn't providing in this case, so I'm not sure what advice to give.
Huss
Veteran
Leica M3 DS, Summicron 50mm V1
brbo
Well-known
Get a proper scanner.
MF film scanned with V700 will get you nowhere near your A7r.
I'm actually thinking just the opposite. Ditching MF system and just use 35mm and getting LF camera for the shots that I really want to MAKE not just shoot. You can get a real 5400dpi scanner for 35mm cheaper than V700, there are 35mm film camera systems with incredible glass (old and latest state of the art), modern film is really good even in 35mm...
taskoni
Well-known
What you want to do with your scans? Show off your pictures here or on Facebook and be proud you shoot film? Why not just shoot digital for digital, and print the film like a man - in the darkroom, on paper. Otherwise why bother?
I personally think is stupid to waste time and money for film and scanner to make a digital photo out of the negative... You can print 24x30cm and scan prints - how about that? You can print smaller as well...
I didn't tuned the photo after the scanning, well, forgot to uncheck the unsharp mask, but it took 3 minutes to scan the print with the crappiest flatbed scanner I found around the house, it works for me
Regards,
Boris
I personally think is stupid to waste time and money for film and scanner to make a digital photo out of the negative... You can print 24x30cm and scan prints - how about that? You can print smaller as well...
I didn't tuned the photo after the scanning, well, forgot to uncheck the unsharp mask, but it took 3 minutes to scan the print with the crappiest flatbed scanner I found around the house, it works for me
Regards,
Boris
David Hughes
David Hughes
Hi,
I don't think 35mm is to blame and decent enlargers and lenses for them are dirt cheap these days...
Regards, David
I don't think 35mm is to blame and decent enlargers and lenses for them are dirt cheap these days...
Regards, David
nongfuspring
Well-known
Truthfully I don't think your 35mm photos will match the A7R unless you're using slow speed film, and even then I doubt your negative scans will be as flexible as an A7R raw file for modifying in post.
Like brbo said you should get a proper scanner, though I would also check out the possibility of using a macro lens on your A7R and "scanning" that way. That's what I do with my fuji and I have gotten better scans that way than what I have from pro labs, I can get grain level detail from ISO 100 film and if I stitch two images together I can have 32 megapixel files (though I rarely if ever get negatives that have more than 16 megapixels of detail). I imagine an A7R would be ideal for this kind of thing provided you want to put the effort in to set it all up.
For me I thought I would get into medium format in a significant way, but now I'm just about to give away my last 6x6 to a friend and have gone back completely to 35mm and digital. 35mm gives me more shots in a roll, the cameras are generally smaller, and I don't at all mind grain or the (comparative) lack of detail. When I want smoother or higher resolution negatives I just use slower film. No doubt your needs are different than mine but I'm fine with 35.
Having said that though, if I someone gave me a Fuji gf670w I might change my mind.
Like brbo said you should get a proper scanner, though I would also check out the possibility of using a macro lens on your A7R and "scanning" that way. That's what I do with my fuji and I have gotten better scans that way than what I have from pro labs, I can get grain level detail from ISO 100 film and if I stitch two images together I can have 32 megapixel files (though I rarely if ever get negatives that have more than 16 megapixels of detail). I imagine an A7R would be ideal for this kind of thing provided you want to put the effort in to set it all up.
For me I thought I would get into medium format in a significant way, but now I'm just about to give away my last 6x6 to a friend and have gone back completely to 35mm and digital. 35mm gives me more shots in a roll, the cameras are generally smaller, and I don't at all mind grain or the (comparative) lack of detail. When I want smoother or higher resolution negatives I just use slower film. No doubt your needs are different than mine but I'm fine with 35.
Having said that though, if I someone gave me a Fuji gf670w I might change my mind.
Highway 61
Revisited
I can't believe that now in 2015 people may still want to achieve something interesting by using a flatbed scanner for scanning 35mm film, after all those years (more than a decade now) of good threads explaining why you can use a flatbed for MF or LF with no problem (in this case, an old Epson like the 3200-4870-4490 models which can be found for dirt cheap will perform extremely well and 100% as well as an expensive V600-700-750) while you absolutely must use a good dedicated film scanner for 35mm (made by Nikon or Minolta).
You can of course brush your teeth with a shoe brush. Everybody's free to do whatever they want.
You can of course brush your teeth with a shoe brush. Everybody's free to do whatever they want.
okcomputer
Member
[FONT="]35mm is ideal for me, as the Contax T is “full frame in my pocket”. I have another film scanner (Reflecta 7200, which is either broken or terrible), and I’ve tried an using my Sony A7R as a 35mm “scanner” (using an Olympus 1:2 50mm Macro with a bellows and slide duplicator adapter). I’d had mixed results with the latter. Could be either light leaks, or focus drift. Incidentally, I asked to borrow a friend’s 645 for the weekend to see how I got on with it. I was expecting something relatively compact, but this is the package he handed me [/FONT]
[FONT="]What are the current good 35mm scanners that work with modern OSX?[/FONT]
[FONT="](the bottom photo is an example of an A7R “scan”)[/FONT]
Zeiss Jena 180mm by adnan76, on Flickr
Wedding toast reaction by adnan76, on Flickr
[FONT="]What are the current good 35mm scanners that work with modern OSX?[/FONT]
[FONT="](the bottom photo is an example of an A7R “scan”)[/FONT]
Zeiss Jena 180mm by adnan76, on FlickrWedding toast reaction by adnan76, on Flickrottluuk
the indecisive eternity
Well, medium format is nice but it's also a lot more trouble and expense to do properly.
Think about this:
* a flatbed scanner isn't going to be any sharper on a bigger format. You can simply waste more detail from a bigger neg and still end up with a half-decent file.
* a dedicated scanner for MF is very expensive
* handheld, you are likely to shoot faster film than 35mm in an equivalent situation, because the lenses are slow, DOF is limited, and, in case of some SLRs, mirror and shutter vibration is worse
* carrying extra lenses makes the package from big to huge with most systems – so you may find yourself cropping more often
* systems vary when it comes to consistent film flatness which is rarely a problem in 35mm
To some extent, you can bridge the gap between practical 35mm and MF by going to a slower, finer grain film and a dedicated scanner.
During the past six months I've been shooting more 6x6 (mainly Rollei TLR) than 35mm (Leica M) and I've come to the following conclusions:
a) sticking with 35mm makes a lot of sense in many situations and the quality is actually good enough for most of what I want to do;
b) moving up a format doesn't cure GAS, unfortunately.
Think about this:
* a flatbed scanner isn't going to be any sharper on a bigger format. You can simply waste more detail from a bigger neg and still end up with a half-decent file.
* a dedicated scanner for MF is very expensive
* handheld, you are likely to shoot faster film than 35mm in an equivalent situation, because the lenses are slow, DOF is limited, and, in case of some SLRs, mirror and shutter vibration is worse
* carrying extra lenses makes the package from big to huge with most systems – so you may find yourself cropping more often
* systems vary when it comes to consistent film flatness which is rarely a problem in 35mm
To some extent, you can bridge the gap between practical 35mm and MF by going to a slower, finer grain film and a dedicated scanner.
During the past six months I've been shooting more 6x6 (mainly Rollei TLR) than 35mm (Leica M) and I've come to the following conclusions:
a) sticking with 35mm makes a lot of sense in many situations and the quality is actually good enough for most of what I want to do;
b) moving up a format doesn't cure GAS, unfortunately.
Timmyjoe
Veteran
I gotta agree with you here. Comparing 35mm B&W negs shot with my Nikon auto focus lenses, to MF shot with a Hasselblad, the Hasselblad won out. But then I started shooting some Leitz glass and the Hasselblad advantage disappeared for me. I was blown away in the darkroom by how large I could print the negs shot with the Leitz glass, especially when compared to my Nikon negs.
Best,
-Tim
Ranchu
Veteran
Does less development = more flexibility? I've tried to like medium format, but I just can't give up having a camera that I can make appear and disappear.
JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
I've dabbled for decades with 35mm, 645 MF and 4x5, then went mainly digital since 2008 with micro-4/3.
Then recently the 35mm bug hit and I put those old Minolta MD lenses to use with an X700 body, along with a number of 35mm P&S cameras.
Reflecting back on it, I've concluded that the 645 format meets my needs better than the 3:2 aspect ratio of 35mm. Which also happens to be the same aspect ratio as my digital cameras: 4:3. So now I'm leaning towards micro-4/3 for digital and 645 for film.
It's funny how, for me, aspect ratio seems to have been the deciding factor.
~Joe
Then recently the 35mm bug hit and I put those old Minolta MD lenses to use with an X700 body, along with a number of 35mm P&S cameras.
Reflecting back on it, I've concluded that the 645 format meets my needs better than the 3:2 aspect ratio of 35mm. Which also happens to be the same aspect ratio as my digital cameras: 4:3. So now I'm leaning towards micro-4/3 for digital and 645 for film.
It's funny how, for me, aspect ratio seems to have been the deciding factor.
~Joe
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
Then use digital and be happy. Collect the gorgeous equipment and put them on a display cabinet.
Or try darkroom printing, it'll breathe a new appreciation on what film photography is all about.
It's great to be able to choose whichever you want these days.
dtcls100
Well-known
[FONT="]What are the current good 35mm scanners that work with modern OSX?[/FONT]
Recently bought a Nikon Coolscan V, a 35mm scanner, which Nikon discontinued and no longer provides software support for. However, if you purchase Vuescan (about $89), included are updated Windows 8.1 and Apple drivers with unlimited free upgrades. Works very well for both color and B&W -- far better than a flatbed scanner -- and scans both mounted slides and negative strips.
Recently bought a Nikon Coolscan V, a 35mm scanner, which Nikon discontinued and no longer provides software support for. However, if you purchase Vuescan (about $89), included are updated Windows 8.1 and Apple drivers with unlimited free upgrades. Works very well for both color and B&W -- far better than a flatbed scanner -- and scans both mounted slides and negative strips.