Issac (I think...I'm never really sure...<g>) wrote: > I guess you could call me a large > format snob, I've never really considered 35mm all that great as far as > image quality goes.
35mm really isn't a printer's medium. In the '30s and '40s it was considered "miniature," and no self-respecting photographer would think of turning in work done with one. The arguments used against foreshadowed the very arguments we're hearing against digital today. Oddly enough, 4x5 was once considered "as small as film should get" as well, in comparison to "real" large formats which were used in stand cameras. But it was so much easier to use, could be handheld (albeit often with flash), and was so handy that it came to predominate. As lenses and films got better, 35mm's capabilities won out. (Sort of in the same way that people are just very reluctant to buy manual-focus cameras today. Autofocus exists, so it's almost like people are afraid not to have it.) With 35mm you could shoot very wide or very long on the same roll, develop 144 pictures in the same time you could develop 24 frames of 120--you know all the arguments. Photographers could do things with it they couldn't do with Rolleiflexes and Speed Graphics. If you ask me, 6x7 is the best printer's medium. I'll tell you why I think so. In the 1980s, we did an extensive set of tests using a panel of observers. We first compared 6x7 shot under non-ideal conditions--VPS, handheld--with 35mm optimized--Leica M6, 35mm Summicron stopped down to f/8, tripod, Ektar 25 film (then the best color neg film that existed). The Leica prints held their own until somewhere between 8x10 and 11x14. By 11x14 the 6x7 had taken over and as the sizes got bigger, it won ever more decisively. At 16x20 the non-optimized 6x7 with the lowish-res film just creamed the best Leica prints. Next, we compared 6x7 to 4x5. This time, we shot in a studio using strobes and the same kind of film in each camera. We showed the comparison prints to a number of photographers, graphics professionals, picture professionals, students and "lay people" (sounds a little weird with photography, but you know what I mean). A FEW of the photographers picked the 4x5 print at 11x14 without being told what they were looking for, and most of the photographers could pick correctly, WITH CLOSE SCRUTINY, once we told them that they were trying to tell which was which between 6x7 and 4x5, but NONE of the lay people had a preference. At 16x20, the 4x5 print was BEGINNING to pull away from the 6x7 print but much more subtly that the margin by which the 6x7 had creamed the Leica. However, even at this size, none of the lay people could discern a difference, and only a minority of the graphics and picture professionals had a firm preference. The only logical conclusion is that 6x7 is the best compromise if you're making prints on 11x14 to, say, 14x17 floated on a piece of 16x20 paper. It's a big step up from 35mm, but the step from it to 4x5 is nowhere near as large to non-photographers and non-perfectionists. This doesn't consider a lot of issues such as the fact that 6x7 can be used handheld, 4x5 has movements and individual development of sheets of film, 6x7 lenses are faster, 4x5 is cheaper, etc., etc. All I'm talking about is the way viewers perceive prints. --Mike - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
