Why does Medium Format look so different to 35mm?

tlitody said:
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..
Click to expand...

that's not necessarily true from the popint of view of glass involved (even if aperture is larger). You cant simply compare it though, since most people shoot faster 35mm lenses than MF.
It very much depends on the lens design.
Indeed my kowa 55/3.5 has a lot of glass in it compared to a similar e.g. 55mm rf lens for 35mm (or corresponding wide angle lens), but a 4-element 75mm tessar in a flex, again, uses an extremely small amount of glass compared to a lens many people use in 35mm format at 45-50 mm focal length. Maybe not less than a slow 50/3.5 but as i said, that's not a typical popular lens in this format (f2 and faster are usual) and here we talk not scientific tests but "the look" of one format versus the other, without exactly specifying which lenses are used.
 
bobbyrab said:
Regarding the physical size of a lens and it's glass area. Can anyone explain why my old Mamiya TLR had an 80mm 2.8 lens that produces a 6x6 neg, is about a third to half the size of the equivalent Hasselblad lens. I suspect that there's not necessarily
a simple correlation between FL, max aperture and image circle, as different lens configurations will affect the size, could the fact that the Mamiya has a bellows system allowing close focus while keeping the lens relatively small. The same would apply to large format cameras, which is again a bellows system with a disproportionately small lens compered to MF SLR systems. This is all conjecture on my part, I tend to learn just as much as I need.
Click to expand...

Again... It is NOT only the format and FL.
It's also matter of lens design and how much of one thing lens makers want to sacrifice versus another to gain.

You should look at lenses in the chipmaking tools (optical lithography tools). Those lenses consist of tens of elements with 20-30 cm width to produce an image that is 2 to 4 cm wide only!! (but at what resolution...!)
One element of the whole lens easily weights as much as 3 kg.
 
The Wollensak Velostigmat (actually an anastigmat design with a specific name signalling top quality) are the only lenses I know of that were used in both 35mm and 120mm format.

The 135-suited lens was used in the Leitz Wollensak Velostigmat but interestingly also in cheaply built Perfex rangefinders, the 120-suited lens in Ciro-flex roll film cameras.

I feel nothing can be said until one uses the same lens design from the same manufacturer and shoots on one sort of film only.

For instance, Nikon is known to have its own glass factories and will most definitely use different types of glass for different lenses, why not assume other (or all?!) manufacturers have done likewise when designing and producing lenses that were designated to produce 120-sized images, as opposed to 135-sized shots?

Meanwhile, I like the results in many MF shots, no matter how they came about!
 
fascinating thread.

today i shot some photos using the GW690II.
After scanning the negatives, i realized just how much the tones were.
Much richer than 35mm photos.
Even at a minuscule scale (aka FB), the tones are very nice,
perhaps it is the Fujinon EBC lens, but I wager it is the magic of MF.

One caveat is that this camera does not like slow shutter speeds.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=279673&id=703791450&l=ddab6372b8
 
Had a similar discussion perhaps 15+ years ago on another forum.

I went through my shooting gray scales, testing phase, which confirmed I got a more complete gray scale with MF film.

I thought it might have something to do with the base on 35mm film, and this was shot down by all the sages, and fwiw, it was a simple hunch on my part.

We never got to the bottom of it all, and when I started printing RA4 I shot mostly color, and with digital I have tried to get scans that match what is needed to produce files which can be printed commercially to the quality I was getting in the wet darkroom.

I really liked the tonality of MF with Rodinal, and later Xtol. I tried many papers, including a bunch which were produced by Czech Neobrom-- who custom coated for me 5,000 sheets of 8x10 and 11x14.

Lots and lots of variables, but the one thing remaining was that I got one or two additional gray scales with MF film.

I also got one more gradation with Foma T200 (Creative 200) than other 35mm films.

I began carrying 35mm and one Fuji 645, -- and simply tried to get all I could out of 35mm, plus shot more color. I liked the images with my Contax G2's.

Now, I am trying to use what is available now -- I can no longer carry two big Domke bags-- seems a lot to carry one Leica M9 body and 5 lenses or so.

Would like to know precisely why MF film does what it does so well.

Waiting for that Fuji 645zi with a MF sensor. ;-)

Remains an interesting question.

Regards, John, for those who waded through this long post.
 
I found colour prints from MF to have better colour saturation and smoother tones,presumably just due to the lower enlargement. Sharpness was, however, no better than a good 35mm. I put this down to MF's dubious film flatness and the quality of some of my Bronica lenses; my 60mm, which should have been the most-used focal length, was an absolute dog., although the 75mm and 135mm were good. Handholding also lost a fair bit of sharpness due to the mirror kick.

MF black and white looked no better to me, I'm afraid.
 
by normal rules of composition, this picture is all wrong.. (centre positioning, unbalanced horizon, film unevenness, developer residue on the side). But I find the picture mesmerizing. The original scanned MF picture shows very good tones.

Rodinal with Fomapan 100
Fuji GW690II

dramatic6x9-2.jpg.jpg
 
When I first saw the shot, that's what I thought as well. Fantastic image.

Just goes to show you that that the "rules" don't always apply.
 
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raytoei@gmail.com said:
by normal rules of composition, this picture is all wrong.. (centre positioning, unbalanced horizon, film unevenness, developer residue on the side). But I find the picture mesmerizing. The original scanned MF picture shows very good tones.

Rodinal with Fomapan 100
Fuji GW690II

dramatic6x9-2.jpg.jpg
Click to expand...

I love these kind of shots, they have a dream-like quality to them, which I find both MF and film lend themselves to.
 
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Great points here, also nice photography. I've always thought, but have no proof, that lens designers around the late 1970s early 80s began to "perfect" lens coatings which resulted in increased contrast and less lens flare. The lens designs of the Yashica TLRs predate these changes. The earlier lens designers emphasized lens resolution over contrast. Black and white printers added the contrast later if needed using filters and dark room processes to whatever degree of contrast they wanted. There is also a type of lens flare from these earlier lenses that helped to open up the shadows which also helped to decrease the contrast of the image again for a smoother, creamier look.
 
Bobfrance said:
Hi Folks,

I've recently returned to dabbling with medium format using a Yashica-Mat TLR. I have to say I'm really enjoying the experience.

What I have noticed is the huge differences in the general look of 120 images in that (to me) they are far more pleasing to the eye than 35mm.

Would anyone care to explain to me what the essential differences are optically and how that affects the finished image?
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. ....

I await your wisdom. 🙂
Click to expand...

From my experience (using both 35mm and 120 for many years) the main reason is that the 120 negative needs less enlargement for the same print size. That generally results in better tonality and smoother tones.
With less enlargement there are more silver-halide grains per area unit to form the picture.

Compare it with with a small balloon: The more air you put in it, the bigger the ballon is getting (the bigger the enlargement) the lighter and "thinner" the color on the balloon gets, because its surface is increasing.

That's also the reason why compared in the same format, you generally get finer tonality and smoother tones with finer grained and higher resolving films at bigger enlargements.

But, als always, there are exceptions from the general rules. There are some film-developer combinations on the market with which you can get medium format quality even with 35 film.

One example which I can recommend from my own experience is Agfa Copex Rapid, developed in SPUR Modular UR New developer (Part A1 + B).
Outstanding stuff, because

- real ISO 40/17° with this developer
- panchromatic film
- excellent tonality, almost ideal chracteristic curve, negatives are very easy to print
- outstanding resolution, significantly better than T-Max 100, Delta 100, Acros 100 pulled at ISO 50/18° with fine grain developers, and also much better than Ilford Pan F+ and Efke 25
- excellent sharpness, surpassing all other films in this speed range
- very very fine grain
- excellent dynamic range of about 13 stops, great overexposure latitude.

I make 16x20" prints from 35mm Agfa Copex Rapid which have even a little bit better quality than my 16x20" prints from my 6x6 / 6x7 Fomapan 100, CHS 100, FP4+ and Plus-X shots.
I can therefore highly recommend the Agfa Copex Rapid / SPUR Modular UR New combination to achieve medium format quality with 35mm film.
It works great.
And it is an excellent fit for our beloved and outstanding Leica, Zeiss and Voigtländer Cosina rangefinder lenses.

Cheers, Jan
 
The last post almost got it. "With less enlargement there are more silver-halide grains per area unit to form the picture." This is not true. It should be with a smaller negative format (ie 135, 120, sheet) there is less silver halide grains per unit area to form the picture. The tonality loss happens because with enlargement there is an increase in contrast. This is why the negatives between the different formats look so different. In 35mm you want a lower contrast negative because of the contrast increase from enlarging.

It is really not the lens but the negative.
 
raytoei@gmail.com said:
by normal rules of composition, this picture is all wrong.. (centre positioning, unbalanced horizon, film unevenness, developer residue on the side). But I find the picture mesmerizing. The original scanned MF picture shows very good tones.

Rodinal with Fomapan 100
Fuji GW690II

dramatic6x9-2.jpg.jpg
Click to expand...
He is right that everything is wrong. I do not see this is a good picture.
 
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