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The author talks about getting into medium-format photography. When shooting film, I usually shoot medium format and I’ve been shooting mostly medium-format for

The author talks about getting into medium-format photography. When shooting film, I usually shoot medium format and I’ve been shooting mostly medium-format for 15+ years. I have observations about what the author says about MF. > It seems like the vast majority of medium format cameras have fixed focus lenses though. This is the toy camera movement. Holga, Diana, Lomo, etc. The cameras might cost you $20 or less and exhibit severe vignetting, fixed focus, lens flare, and even light leaks (people put tape on the cameras). These seem really common, but I think that it’s just that toy cameras are still manufactured and sold in stores so you see them a lot. I think you can get these cameras at places like Urban Outfitters. > The alternative is getting one of the medium format SLRs with an actual focusable lens but those are again ridiculously overpriced for a box with a hole for a lens in it. The Hasselblads are the other extreme end. They are collector’s items. They are also good cameras, but because they are also collector’s items, they are expensive. You might spend $1,500 for a used Hasselblad system. There are alternatives between a Holga and Hasselblad, though! You can get Yashica TLRs for relatively inexpensive, as well as Seagull, Mamiya C, and some other TLR brands. I would expect to pay $100 or $200. Around $500 you open up a number of more modern “workhorse” MF cameras including SLRs, like Mamiya RB67 & RZ67, various Bronica, Pentax 645, etc. And upwards of $700-$1,500, you can get Fuji rangefinders, Pentax 67s, and maybe a Hasselblad. If you are doing this as a hobby and just want to see if you like MF, I recommend going for a used TLR—they are inexpensive, light, and fun to use. If you want to suffer a bit more and have more control over your pictures, read lens reviews for MF SLRs. > The film scans I've seen online taken through such cameras make it look like there's way less detail than my 35mm film pictures though. Complicating the issue is the fact that you can get good scans of 35mm film with relatively inexpensive equipment. The only ways I’ve been able to get really good scans of MF film is with the Nikon CoolScan 9000 or drum scanners. Epson flatbeds do the job but getting good MF scans from flatbed scanners is tricky and requires some passion. Getting drum scans has, in the past, set me back around $30 PER PICTURE so it has to be something you care deeply about. Unless you have a wet lab or are willing to invest in high-quality equipment, you are not going to get near the level of quality from MF that you’d expect, given the size and lens quality.

throwanem 5y ago
> You might spend $1,500 for a used Hasselblad system. I think you left off a zero at the end there. Either that, or maybe I need to go learn real quick how to snipe Ebay auctions...
- dietrichepp 5y ago
  $1,500 is about the entry price for a used Hasselblad 500C/M with kit lens (80mm f/2.8). If you're paying $15,000 for a Hasselblad, you can get something brand-new with two or three lenses. If you're buying straight off eBay auctions, it's easy to end up paying too much, but even then, you aren't likely to be paying more than $2,500 for a typical 500C/M kit.
- taylodl 5y ago
  It's funny because my school (back in the early 80's) had Hasselblads but nobody wanted to use them because they were old - like 20-30 years old even then! They were a nightmare to operate, had no light metering let alone expose control - but damn! You could get some great photos if you said your prayers right! I had a brand-new Canon AE-1 Program but still liked using the Hasselblads from time to time because you could get some great shots that you could enlarge to poster size without any grain! Incredible to think how much those cameras would be worth today!
MartijnBraam 5y ago
Ah with the cheap medium format cameras I mean something like the Agfa Clack. Really cheap to get second hand but I don't see it producing decent quality pictures. I did get an Epson V600 to do photo scanning, do you have any detail on why it would not produce good scans? I tested it with a few old 35mm negatives and it looked quite alright after disabling _all_ the postprocessing crap in the official software and loading it into darktable to do the negative processing. Also thanks for the pointers on the medium format cameras. I guess I'll keep eying ebay for those cameras a bit longer.
- dietrichepp 5y ago
  The first problem with MF scans is that it is hard to mount film so it is completely flat. If it is not flat, it cannot be in-focus from edge to edge. 35mm is smaller and has wider borders (where the sprocket holes go) and so this is much less of a problem with 35mm. There are various techniques and tricks to get MF flat, like using tape, using glass, or wet-mounting. Tape might not work in your film mounts at all, depending on construction. The next problem is that your film has to be held in the focal plane of your scanner. There are film mounts which let you adjust the film height with screws, and some scanners have focus adjustments (usually automatic, I think). Next, you will want to enable the IR channel for chromogenic film (including B&W chromogenic, like Ilford XP2) and disable it for non-chromogenic film. Generally speaking, I would use one of the aftermarket scanning software packages like VueScan or SilverFast. You can save the IR channel as alpha and use it to remove dust later. Do tests to find out the actual resolution to scan at. My experience with flatbeds like the Epson V600 is that you can get very good results, but you are getting like half the resolution MF film actually provides and the image is less clean than it could be. For 35mm it is not hard to find “film scanners” that let you feed slides or strips of 35mm and get better results. For MF, flatbed is as good as it gets until you go to like an Imacon (expensive, IMO not that much better than a good flatbed) or drum scanner (best results, maybe $30 per scan). In the lab, you focus the enlarger carefully using a “grain focuser”, use a high-quality lens for your enlarger which has enough covers for your film size, set it to a middling aperture (tiny apertures affect focus), and you can get sharp, sharp prints for less than the cost of getting that same sharpness in the digital domain.

throwanem 5y ago

> You might spend $1,500 for a used Hasselblad system. I think you left off a zero at the end there. Either that, or maybe I need to go learn real quick how to snipe Ebay auctions...

dietrichepp 5y ago
$1,500 is about the entry price for a used Hasselblad 500C/M with kit lens (80mm f/2.8). If you're paying $15,000 for a Hasselblad, you can get something brand-new with two or three lenses. If you're buying straight off eBay auctions, it's easy to end up paying too much, but even then, you aren't likely to be paying more than $2,500 for a typical 500C/M kit.
taylodl 5y ago
It's funny because my school (back in the early 80's) had Hasselblads but nobody wanted to use them because they were old - like 20-30 years old even then! They were a nightmare to operate, had no light metering let alone expose control - but damn! You could get some great photos if you said your prayers right! I had a brand-new Canon AE-1 Program but still liked using the Hasselblads from time to time because you could get some great shots that you could enlarge to poster size without any grain! Incredible to think how much those cameras would be worth today!

MartijnBraam 5y ago

Ah with the cheap medium format cameras I mean something like the Agfa Clack. Really cheap to get second hand but I don't see it producing decent quality pictures. I did get an Epson V600 to do photo scanning, do you have any detail on why it would not produce good scans? I tested it with a few old 35mm negatives and it looked quite alright after disabling _all_ the postprocessing crap in the official software and loading it into darktable to do the negative processing. Also thanks for the pointers on the medium format cameras. I guess I'll keep eying ebay for those cameras a bit longer.

dietrichepp 5y ago
The first problem with MF scans is that it is hard to mount film so it is completely flat. If it is not flat, it cannot be in-focus from edge to edge. 35mm is smaller and has wider borders (where the sprocket holes go) and so this is much less of a problem with 35mm. There are various techniques and tricks to get MF flat, like using tape, using glass, or wet-mounting. Tape might not work in your film mounts at all, depending on construction. The next problem is that your film has to be held in the focal plane of your scanner. There are film mounts which let you adjust the film height with screws, and some scanners have focus adjustments (usually automatic, I think). Next, you will want to enable the IR channel for chromogenic film (including B&W chromogenic, like Ilford XP2) and disable it for non-chromogenic film. Generally speaking, I would use one of the aftermarket scanning software packages like VueScan or SilverFast. You can save the IR channel as alpha and use it to remove dust later. Do tests to find out the actual resolution to scan at. My experience with flatbeds like the Epson V600 is that you can get very good results, but you are getting like half the resolution MF film actually provides and the image is less clean than it could be. For 35mm it is not hard to find “film scanners” that let you feed slides or strips of 35mm and get better results. For MF, flatbed is as good as it gets until you go to like an Imacon (expensive, IMO not that much better than a good flatbed) or drum scanner (best results, maybe $30 per scan). In the lab, you focus the enlarger carefully using a “grain focuser”, use a high-quality lens for your enlarger which has enough covers for your film size, set it to a middling aperture (tiny apertures affect focus), and you can get sharp, sharp prints for less than the cost of getting that same sharpness in the digital domain.