[pure-silver] Re: Tonal gradation/smoothness in 35mm negs c.f. larger formats
- From: Sauerwald Mark <mark_sauerwald@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:33:45 -0800 (PST)
--- Peter Badcock <peter.badcock@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> So for me I
> am curious because I'd
> like to know what I might be missing out on if I
> don't shoot larger
> formats. Up until yesterday the predominant thing
> for me was presence or
> lack of grain.
> regards
> Peter
>
Peter I own and shoot 35mm, MF, and LF (both 4x5 and
8x10). For a long time I shot almost exclusively 4x5,
and still feel that my best images have come from 4x5,
but when I try to analyze why, I come up short. It is
true that with 4x5 there is no grain for most normal
size enlargements, tonal range is superb, but there is
also just a sense of the image popping out at you
which doesn't seem to happen for me with smaller
formats.
A few thoughts - when you shoot LF, you get a much
more thoughtful process to exposure than you do with
35mm, much more time is spent looking at each
composition, calculating each exposure etc. It is not
that you can't do that with 35mm, but you generally
don't. As a result, I find that often when I am
printing 35mm I find that I want to do more cropping
in the darkroom to get the composition which is going
to work best - and of course with a small negative
cropping gets much harder. I find that my LF negs
rarely need cropping.
I also find that different types of photography seem
to call for different types of cameras. This
christmas we had the kids visiting - I have two sons
who are both musicians, and one day they were both
wearing black turtleneck sweaters - my wife commented
that they looked like the 'bookends' album cover from
Simon and Garfunkel - she dug out the album, and there
was a similarity - and she asked if I could duplicate
the picture - I grabbed the hassy and got a decent
replica of the album cover - why did I choose MF? -
Not sure, but it just seemed right, probably could
have done it in 35mm or LF, but MF just fit that
application better. I wouldn't dream of shooting
landscapes with my 35mm gear - not because it couldn't
be done, but for me, it just seems right to view a
landscape upside down. Street photography with
anything other than a little rangefinder?
As to your question of what you are missing out on -
perhaps nothing, perhaps quite a bit. The important
thing is that the camera that you use allows you to
get the images that you want.
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