[pure-silver] Re: 35mm (started with Film in Dektol)
- From: Tim Daneliuk <tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:57:26 -0600
Elias Roustom wrote:
> There is a lot to commend 135, even with its Lo Fi limits. A lot of
> great scans from 135 on Flickr that show how creative people can get
> with it. Forget comparisons to other formats (including digital), now
I have been in- and out of love with 35mm for some 40 years now.
Yes, it has a "look" unto itself. Yes, it looks fine on the
web at 96dpi and 2"x3" image sizes. But as a display medium to hang
on the wall I find it very much wanting. There are some exceptions,
so I do very occasionally still shoot a bit of 35mm - if
nothing else, for nostalgia's sake. As a practical matter, the
last place I used 35mm much - for family holidays and vacations,
it has pretty much been replaced by a Nikon D-80 digital. Sadly,
I am discovering the very real limits in dynamic range of a digital
camera. For people and places pix, it's fine. But try shooting
an nice scenic with any real dynamic range and it'll drive you
bats.
> that 135 is no longer the standard for reportage and memento
> photography, we can enjoy it for what it offers, and it has a unique
> look worthy of praise. My TLR lenses treat 135 flim much better than my
I'd be interested to hear you say more about this. Specifically,
what your experience is on how the TLR lenses treat the smaller
film better. I'm curious about this because, generally speaking,
MF and LF lenses need *less* resolving power than their equivalent
35mm lenses. This is because the larger format negs are presumed
to require less magnification to make a given size print than one
from a 35mm neg. So, to get to a desired perception of sharpness -
ISTR something like 6-8 lp/mm in the final print - a large negative
requiring only 2x magnification only needs to hold 12-16 lp/mm, but
a small neg requiring 8x magnification will need to hold 48-64 lp/mm.
This places a far higher resolution burden on lenses for 35mm systems
than MF or LF. I don't recall the specifics any longer, but I think
that MF lenses commonly preserve something like 40 lp/mm but lenses
for 35mm more typically are in the 70-80 lp/mm range - which would
argue that the TLR lenses should actually produce *poorer* results on
35mm film than the lenses made for that format.
Of course, sharpness is not the whole story. Flare reduction, contrast,
diffraction effects, and so on also enter into the equation of final
print quality. Like I said, I'm curious what your experience here has
been.
> SLR lenses, but since I'm often going for content of a personal nature,
> it hardly matters. That it's so much easier to carry and use 35mm gear
> does matter.
For all but a very few rare cases (shooting Formula 1 or pro football
- neither of which I do), I'd argue that you can get essentially the
same speed of use with rollfilm. In my youth, I shot many high school
sporting events with a Mamiya Universal, a Mamiya C body TLR, or a
Yashica MAT 124G. These days, when I want portability, I usually use a
Fuji GA-645Zi - a rollfilm "point and shoot". I'd argue that - unless
you need ultra fast multiple exposure firings and/or very, very long
lenses - 35mm bodies are actually harder to use in some cases - at
least the SLRs are - because of the, mirror blackout time.
And the larger negs, of course, make a huge difference in output
quality. I regularly demonstrate this to naysayers by showing them
work done with a 20 year old Mamiya C-330f ($150 on ebay) or Mamiya
645J ($130 on ebay) blown up to 11x14 or 16x20. The finest 35mm film
cameras and pretty much any of the DSLRs cannot keep up for sheer
tonal rendering and sharpness. Well - perhaps the $10K Nikon/Canons
can and probably the $40K Hasselblad H3 can, but at those prices they
*ought* to be spectacular :) (Oh, and I don't think any of the above
can touch my Hassy or 4x5 negs, but I'm bigoted that way ;)
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Tim Daneliuk tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
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