At 10:35 12/12/98 +0200, Matthias wrote:
>
>I think that the advantage of the medium format is greater in colour slides
>than in black and white. If you extend the 35mm format, the results in
>black and white can be great, for example if you use modern films with
>t-crystals or the kodak technical pan as picture film (there are special
>developers to achieve pictures from this document film). The technical pan
>is not available for medium format, I think. Then for landscapes you should
>use a tripod and middle apertures for both 35mm and medium format. The
>results of the two formats can be very similar then, but have you ever seen
>a slide show in medium format? You may think you stay in the scene.
>Matthias
>
Yep, I would agree with Matthias on this one. I originally bought my
Mamiya 6 kit for tranny work, the intention being to print Cibachrome, and
the results were much better than I'd been getting from 35mm. Then I
stumbled upon a decent 6x6 slide projector at a show for £150, and have
been hooked on MF slides ever since! The lens is not as good as that on my
35mm projector, but even so the difference is *very* marked.
It's probably heresy to say so on this list but I almost abandoned my OM
kit for a couple of years and used MF more or less exclusively, both for
slide and b/w work. But in recent months I've returned to my favourite
APX25 and the OM system, enjoying the vastly superior versatility of the
small format (I like wide angles, and 50mm is the widest Mamiya 6 lens,
equivalent to around 28 - 35 on 35mm) and with care, it's possible to
extract extraordinarily good quality from b/w. Care is the operative word
though - there's less margin for error on the smaller format. Sure, the
results are quite different than those from a large format negative, and if
you're looking for Ansel Adams-type prints then there's no alternative to
LF.
For anyone thinking of moving up, here's a few things I learned about MF.
It's big and heavy, obviously (apart from the Mamiya 6/7). The range of
lenses is more restricted than OM, unless you go Hassy or something in
which case you'll need a second mortgage as well. And for landscape work,
depth of field is a problem. I found that particularly with the RB67 - I
found myself working at f32 or f45 all the time, and with a slow (100 or
less), fine-grain film you don't want anything moving in the frame! I
chose to go MF rather than LF to avoid having to buy a new enlarger etc,
but if I were in the same position now I'd go LF. A 5x4 isn't much heavier
than a decent 6x6 or 6x7, and you have the camera movements to sort out the
depth of field problem. Perhaps one of those rollfilm field cameras is
what I'm looking for ;-)
But I think it's certainly possible to create fine b/w prints from 35mm,
and indeed the grain of the faster films can be a pictorial asset in its
own right. Prints don't have to be big, either. A carefully produced and
presented 8x6 or 10x8 can have an almost jewel-like quality, and a 35mm
negative on a fine grained film is perfectly adequate for the job. I would
certainly agree that b/w printing is more difficult than Ciba. It's easier
to produce a basic print, but much harder to produce an excellent one. And
washing fibre paper is a pain, but I wouldn't print on anything else...
Which OM body would I choose over all others? Hmm. Difficult. My
immediate response is my OM-4, but the possibility of failure is worrying.
So it'd probably have to be my OM-1n, provided I could keep my Minolta
Spotmeter as well :-)
Cheers
Richard
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