> Cesar M. wrote: > > > I will not give in to medium format! I will not give in to medium format! > > I will not give in to medium format! ...
I didn't think I wanted to get involved with medium format either. I was using a very good 35mm camera, with a very good lens, and had my processing routine nailed down securely. I was shooting Panatomic-X and was making nearly grainless 11x14 prints with what I thought was excellent tonal range. Then a friend bought a Hasselblad. I was astounded at how effortlessly he was able to turn out pictures of amazing technical quality. One day, we each took identical pictures of my Harley. In my picture, you could just make out the brass key fob hanging off the ignition stitch in front of the oil tank. In his picture, you could plainly see the eagle that was engraved on it. A short time later, I bought into a medium format camera (Bronica ETRs, 645). The quality improvement in my photos was immediate and tremendous. Suddenly, my pictures had real tonal range, and visible fine detail. I was totally hooked on the larger negative, and when the opportunity presented itself to move up the format ladder again, I jumped to the Pentax 6x7. While not a quantum leap in quality like the move from 35mm to 645 had been, the bigger negative did give a very visible quality improvement. Enough that I would never consider the 645 format again. The biggest print size I make on a regular basis is 11x14, with the occasional 16x20, and the rare 20x24. I have had the ability to compare prints made with the same film, to the same size of print from 6x7 and 4x5. The difference is pretty non existent until 20x24, which is a size I feel is impossible to get a technically acceptable print from 35mm. I expect I have mentioned this before, but I truly believe that aspiring photo artists (and I think most on this group fit the description in one way or another) owe it to their craft to use medium format equipment. I can work my tail off to get good results from 35mm, I can nail down my exposure and process the film just right to make sure the image is on the sweet part of the curve, and still not have an image as technically good as a hack medium format negative where I have barely paid attention to the meter, and sort of half assed slopped the film around in the chemistry for a while. HTH William Robb - 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 .
