Does medium format *look* the same as 35mm?

[rexbobcat]

What I mean is....

If you have a 645 camera with a 90mm f/1.9, does it render the scene almost identically to a 35mm with a 50mm f/1.2? Would the only difference be resolution and aspect ratio?

Since depth of field and perspective distortion are a function of distance, I want to say yes, but I've never been able to find any direct comparisons.

 

[Ysarex]

DOF is also a function of the size of the film/sensor so there's going to be a DOF variation. The same equivalence rules that apply when comparing digital sensors will also apply here to film and so you can calculate necessary f/stops on each format to match DOF. That's still a rough match because it doesn't necessarily match up in the OOF area in the background.

Joe

P.S. There is also the magic element to pay attention to. It's present in the images in an inverse relationship to how much more the medium format gear cost.

 

[compur]

Define "render the scene."

And, tell me what 645 camera has a 90/1.9 lens. Or, do you mean the Mamiya 80/1.9?

 

[IanG]

Medium format prints (or scans) compared to the same sized prints from 35mm negatives have quite a different feel and look, it's not just resolution it's very significantly less grain which helps with tonality as well.

The visual difference between 35mm and 120/MF is more noticeable than MF to LF 5x4 unless you are making very large prints.

Ian

 

[Derrel]

Medium format, meaning 6x45cm, 6x6,6x7,6x8,and 6x9, looks 'different" from 35mm. In digital, many of 2019's "medium format" cameras use 44x33mm sensors ( cameras from Fuji, Hassy ,and Pentax), and deliver clean, crisp detailed shots, with ~50MP to 102 MP resolution. Today's 45-50 MP 24x36mm or "full frame cameras" deliver nearly as much detail. It's a matter of both MP count and really good lenses.


In film, I think 645 looks better than 35mm by way of a somewhat larger negative area, less grain, and lower DOF in most situations. 6x6 makes amazing 5x5" proofs..sort of in-between 4x proofs and enlargements.

One difference: 35mm has hundreds of zooms available (used and newer) while MF has VERY FEW zooms available, so framing is different. In 35mm we tend to "shoot tight", in MF --not quite so much, both due to format aspect, and lens choices. 6x6. being SQUARE, removes the need to flip the camera, ever, and so composition/framing is often a post-shoot decision.

The issue with 35mm has long been the 3:2 aspect ratio, versus the 6x4.5, or the 6 x 6 or the 6x7 aspect ratio, so the "takes look" different.. 3:2 is very "tall" when shot in the vertical.

Also....... for people uses, the waist or chest-level POV of a 6x6 camera using a WL viewfinder is subtly different than the higher, eye-level POV of a 35mm camera. Tripod-mounting, framing, then reacting to a person with direct eye-to-eye contact is VERY different than seeing the person through the camera, and it is a different "experience", more like "directing actors" when using a large, tripod-mounted camera and interacting eye-to-eye with people.

There is more to it than just "equivalence" in focal lengths and apertures; medium format photos can easily look very different than small-format photos, especially when people are involved. Not better technically necessarily, but "different", mostly in artistic and aesthetic ways.

Shooting with a 6x6 film SLR and a 150mm f/4 is different from shooting 35mm 3:2 with a 70-200 zoom.

 

[rexbobcat]

Define "render the scene."

And, tell me what 645 camera has a 90/1.9 lens. Or, do you mean the Mamiya 80/1.9?

Yes, that's the len I was referring to. I guess I mean that, even though the field-of-view is the same, are the visual characteristics such as the circle of confusion, background compression etc are different.

If you place a MF photograph (80mm f/1.9) and a 35mm photograph (50mm f/1.2) together, would you be able to tell them apart since, mathematically speaking, they give a very similar depth of field and field-of-view.

 

[IanG]

If you place a MF photograph (80mm f/1.9) and a 35mm photograph (50mm f/1.2) together, would you be able to tell them apart since, mathematically speaking, they give a very similar depth of field and field-of-view.

You'd spot the difference instantly, it's a huge leap in terms of image quality.

Ian

 

[Ysarex]

Define "render the scene."

And, tell me what 645 camera has a 90/1.9 lens. Or, do you mean the Mamiya 80/1.9?

Yes, that's the len I was referring to. I guess I mean that, even though the field-of-view is the same, are the visual characteristics such as the circle of confusion, background compression etc are different.

If you place a MF photograph (80mm f/1.9) and a 35mm photograph (50mm f/1.2) together, would you be able to tell them apart since, mathematically speaking, they give a very similar depth of field and field-of-view.

To match DOF between the two if you took say a portrait of someone with the 35mm camera at 50mm f/5.6 and then again with the 6x4.5 from the same location you'd have to set the f/stop of the 80mm lens to f/9.5. If you shot the same film in both cameras of course the larger negative will give you better quality which will show in prints of sufficient size. If the prints aren't that big then your ability to see a difference will lessen.

There's another concern having to do with matching that DOF. Assuming the same photo under the same conditions and with the DOF matched you lose a stop and a half shutter speed using the 6x4.5 compared with the 35mm. There's a reason we've always seen so many photographers with 35mm cameras hand holding them and so many photographers with bigger cameras using a tripod and it's not just the weight of the camera.

There's all kinds of ways to compensate this and compensate that. If you shot ISO 200 film in the 35mm you could shoot ISO 1600 film in the 6x4.5 and hand-hold the medium format but you just lost some of your fine grain high res advantage.

You're setting up an unusual comparison to begin with identifying a medium format lens with a maximum f/stop below f/2. How about getting together a list of all the medium format camera lenses with max apertures of f/2 and faster. Shouldn't be too hard, it's not a long list. However the list of lenses for 35mm cameras with max aperture of f/2 or faster will fill pages and pages. Comparisons like this are tricky things to do -- I've got an 85mm f/1.4 for my 35mm camera and you've got what 140mm f/2.25 lens for your medium format? If they did make it would be very magical indeed.

Joe

 

[Soocom1]

There is an aspect not discussed her directly but eluded to and your asking the question that eludes to it:
Reproduction Ratio.
What that simply means is that the distance from the subject to the focal point and from the focal point to the image area moves closer to real life 1:1 the larger the format. So the amount of detail or "information" recorded on larger format film and sensors means that the reproduction of the image to a usable and readable size is much less.

ergo: 35mm image (film or digital) will need to be enlarged by a factor of nearly 3 to 1 where a 120 (medium format) size is closer to a 1.89-2.2 to 1.


You also have a much wider tonal range, and a great deal of usable contrast. The reason for this is very involved in physics but boils down to the amount of actual light that is striking the image is much greater and thus renders an image closer to a real life lighting conditions (with all exposure aspects involved.)

Ill avoid the aspect ration issues because Ill start a massive fight on that.