Why Medium Format?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

A creative person use tools to produce some output.

Yes, a camera is a tool, it's an enabler. But some tools make life easier, faster to achieve results, less distracting to the creative process, or less follow-up work required (leaving more time to add a creative touch).

There may also be other attributes that make some tools more enabling than others, like ruggedness or longevity, ease of handling, fewer exposures (fewer scene movement issues), etc.

And it is usually nicer to work with well designed tools than to struggle with poorly designed stuff. And for some the esthetics of the tools already start with the capture process, and can have a positive influence on the rest of the creative process. Some even use the deficiencies of the tool as a statement/style (e.g. Lomography, Polaroid, etc.).

Cheers,
Bart

[N80]

Some even use the deficiencies of the tool as a statement/style (e.g. Lomography, Polaroid, etc.).

Cheers,
Bart

Sally Mann comes to mind in this regard.

[FMueller]

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-have-we-reached-peak-digital-photography

I've chased "IQ", sharpness, dynamic range, etc... for a lot of years. It ain't all it's cracked up to be.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

It all depends on needs or wants, perceived or real…

Some folks make their living making large size prints. With large print size the demands on image quality raise, but large prints are often viewed at some distance. On the other hand, some prints need to be viewed close and good detail may be a part of the attraction of a print.

Astronomers know that the most important thing in imaging is the diameter of the inlet pupil. That is the reason astronomical telescopes are always measured by diameter.

A larger physical aperture means more photons and less diffraction. MF lenses have a larger aperture. But, they also have a longer focal length at same field of view, so you need to stop them down more. Stopping down reduces the advantage, you get less photons and more diffraction.

A larger sensor can collect more photons. There has probably been some development in full well capacity with modern sensors, but if we assume similar technology like the modern Sony sensors in Phase One, Hasselblad, Pentax and Nikon cameras we can assume that the larger format sensors can collect 1.7-2.7x times more light (photons). So the larger formats will have 30-60% advantage in Signal Noise Ratio (SNR) at similar exposure.

On the other hand, SNR on sensors is pretty good today. But:

- With MFD you can underexpose one stop to protect highlights
- Or shoot at 170(44x33) ISO or 270 (full frame 645) ISO and have similar image quality to 24x36 at 100 ISO

MFD lenses are often well corrected, but for the price of a normal MFD lens you can buy a top quality 24x36 lens. Sigma Art, Zeiss (Batis, Milvus, Otus) lenses are usually great performers and camera makers also have great lens options, once you are spending a bit more.

For a major photographic operation camera gear doesn't mean a large part of the operating costs. A small operation may need to consider each penny on other hand.

So, yes there are advantages of large formates. But, most of the time the smaller formats are good enough. That applies all the time you go down the format stairs. MFD may be good enough, 24x36 mm may be good enough, APS-C may be good enough, 4/3 may be good enough, 1" is often good enough and so on.

You can probably make excellent A2 size (16" x 23") prints from 4/3, at least Ctein says so.

Best regards
Erik

I've chased "IQ", sharpness, dynamic range, etc... for a lot of years. It ain't all it's cracked up to be.

[Joe Towner]

There is a difference between good enough and maximum quality.  Don't be confused as to what is acceptable to you today, and what is acceptable to a client in a year or two.  Raw files get better, but native resolution is native resolution.

[Theodoros]

There is a difference between good enough and maximum quality.  Don't be confused as to what is acceptable to you today, and what is acceptable to a client in a year or two.  Raw files get better, but native resolution is native resolution.

IMO, good enough means that it is ...good enough! I've not seen any customer ever re-doing his 10 years old order as to do it better... I could even argue if there's anything a "modern tool" could add as to make it better... If skills are 99% and tooling only 1%, then skills will always win... Tools are only there to "help" skills... it's not to the user (or "reviewer") of some tool to say what is a better tool, it's up to the creator of the (commonly acceptable) great image to use the tool that suits him...

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

My starting point is this interview with Ctein: https://luminous-landscape.com/videos/conversation-ctein/conversation-ctein/

I also fall back on my experience walking up trough formats from 2004 onwards today, not least a few recent tests including 80x120 cm prints.

Another small point is that maximum resolution can only be achieved in a single plane of absolute focus, you can tilt it, or it may be a curved plane as many lenses have curvature of field. You can stop down but than diffraction will take its toll.

Now, what is good enough varies from person to person. But, about 12 MP is needed to match human vision in A2 print viewed at 50 cm. You can of course look closer, but 50 cm is pretty close.

On the other hand, I have been told that there is an observable difference between 16-18 MP and 36 MP in A2 size prints, at least on glossy papers and with certain subjects.

I can mention two cases, one was a landscape shoot. It was a windy evening and I was concerned about to much motion in the leaves. At that time I was shooting with a Sony A900 a 24 MP camera, but I also had a Sony A55, 16 MP APS-C. The APS-C camera had live view, so I could achieve more accurate focus. Sensor on the APS-C was a newer generation so I could crank up ISO to 400 instead of 200. With APS-C I could you use another lens that was sharper over the APS-C area. In that case the APS-C image went on the wall.

The other was a recent comparison where I was shooting my Hasselblad 555/ELD with the Distagon 40/4FLE and my P45+ on one hand and my Sony A7rII with my Canon 16-35/4 on the other. Pixel peeping gave at hand that the two systems were about the same near center, with the P45+ having a lot of colour aliasing artefacts. Moving of center to midfield the Distagon broke down. At the extreme corners both lenses were bad but the Distagon 40/4 FLE fared better.

I printed a 50% crop at A2 size. That corresponds to 33"x49" for the full image. Looking at around 50 cm the midfield part didn't look that great on that Distagon with the Canon zoom being clearly better, moving back to 100 cm viewing distance the weakness of the Distagon 40 FLE was masked by the increased viewing distance.

This is an 1:1 sample from the Distagon 40/4 off axis (midfield):


And this one was from Canon 16-35/4 off axis (mid field):


So, in this case the Canon 16-35/4 is significantly better in this subject area and this was absolutely evident looking at the 33"x49" print at 50 cm, moving back to 100 cm, there was no visible difference and I would probably give the Distagon/P45+ the nod. Now, a person with better vision than 20/20 would probably consider Sony A7rII Canon combo sharper at 100 cm.

If you see a difference between the two images, try to walk back a bit and see what happens. Viewing the image at 80-100 cm on a 100PPI screen would correspond looking at my 33"x45" print at 50 cm.

But, would you hang those prints side by side and the observer would walk between the two the differences would be even less noticeable. Would the observer do a close scrutiny he would observe two differences:

• The P45+ image has significant alising at the center.
• The P45+ / Distagon combo is not sharp enough for that print size at close viewing

Here are a set of actual pixel crops from that test:
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/P45+_vs_a7rII/WA/

I am not doing a lot of those tests, but I just got my Canon 16-35/4L and have done a lot of shooting those day to find out it's limitations. I found very few, except extreme corners.

Regarding the Distagon 40/4 FLE, it is just a single sample, but I also had the Distagon 50/4 and have the Distagon 60/3.5 and all had a weakness off axis. Zeiss made a Distagon 40/4 IF which is much better. It is quite rare and expensive. I have also seen quite a few postings indicating similar weaknesses with the Distagons and that is of course also consistent with measured MTF at Zeiss and Hasselblad.

It used to be said that around 180 PPI is needed for a great print and 180 PPI is a good match for the resolution of human vision (20/20) at 50 cm viewing distance. That would be 180x33 -> 5940 pixels vertically for my 33"x45" print, and that is what both the P45+ and the Sony A7rII deliver. So, watching at 50 cm you see the same as pixel peeping on the screen. But backing of to 100 cm the issue with the Distagon / P45+ is not very visible.

Best regards
Erik

There is a difference between good enough and maximum quality.  Don't be confused as to what is acceptable to you today, and what is acceptable to a client in a year or two.  Raw files get better, but native resolution is native resolution.

[bpepz]

Everyone is getting too caught up on sharpness and resolution. I literally could care nothing about it.

There is just simply a different look to medium format images. It's not even bokeh related. Just a different look I have not been able to get on smaller formats. I make my entire income doing stock photography, and I totally believe a large part of my success is entirely due to the medium format look imparting a small advantage when people look at a page full of thumbnails to buy. That is what does it for me.

[eronald]

Everyone is getting too caught up on sharpness and resolution. I literally could care nothing about it.

There is just simply a different look to medium format images. It's not even bokeh related. Just a different look I have not been able to get on smaller formats. I make my entire income doing stock photography, and I totally believe a large part of my success is entirely due to the medium format look imparting a small advantage when people look at a page full of thumbnails to buy. That is what does it for me.

Finally an interesting remark. My experience as a part-time artist was exactly the opposite: Prints sold well, but never my MF work. Maybe I was just better with the Canon - the MF images were technically hugely better, although it took me much more effort to make the MF thing yield a keeper.

Whatever works is the right equipment.

Edmund

[KevinA]

Everyone is getting too caught up on sharpness and resolution. I literally could care nothing about it.

There is just simply a different look to medium format images. It's not even bokeh related. Just a different look I have not been able to get on smaller formats. I make my entire income doing stock photography, and I totally believe a large part of my success is entirely due to the medium format look imparting a small advantage when people look at a page full of thumbnails to buy. That is what does it for me.

No one talks about look, it's what the numbers add up to that counts these days. The last exhibition I went to was a Bresson. I can't think the pictures would of been better if the technical side had been nailed. The picture doesn't count anymore, the nembers is where it's at, put a meter on it if you want to know if it's good.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

That is really good news, if nobody cares about technical quality than we don't need anything more than a simple camera. Art thrives and photo industry dies…

Just consider this: great art has been made with analogue 135 cameras with or without mirrors for many years. They were considered to be around 6MP, 17-th May 2000 Canon introduced the EOS D30, that only had 3.1 MP but could still compete head on with film. The main reason for that was that the digital image was low noise and it didn't require intermediate steps, like scanning or printing.

The question the original poster raised is quite relevant, what applications need medium format? You can ask the very same question for any format or camera. Who needs 24x36, or who needs APS-C, 4/3, 1", etc. Most images today are probably shot on cell phone cameras and those images can be quite OK, probably better than many images shot on Tri-X pushed to 1600 ISO in the seventies.

Just keep in mind, technology sells. Would that not be the case, the photo industry would be stone dead. After all, most people who can afford a camera already have at least one that is perfectly good enough.

Another way to see it, you can analyse your needs. For instance, I mostly print 16"x23" (A2) and I have essentially found that 12 MP yields adequate prints. Going to 24 MP may have visible benefits. Going to around 40 MP, I have seen little benefits at A2 sized prints.

On the other hand, those 40 MP are almost free. For sure, the 42 MP camera I have is a bit more expensive than the 24 MP version, but lenses and stuff are the same.

Opting for a smaller system can save you a lot of money and weight. So, if you don't need the image quality you can buy an APS-C system like the Fuji XT, still very high quality but much less weight.

A bridge camera won't give the image quality of full frame or APS-C, but a camera like the Sony RX-10 will give image quality that is quite OK for A2 and offer a tremendous flexibility.

So, estimating needs and buying stuff that meets those requirements may be smart way of optimising system choice.

Best regards
Erik

No one talks about look, it's what the numbers add up to that counts these days. The last exhibition I went to was a Bresson. I can't think the pictures would of been better if the technical side had been nailed. The picture doesn't count anymore, the nembers is where it's at, put a meter on it if you want to know if it's good.

[Theodoros]

No one talks about look, it's what the numbers add up to that counts these days. The last exhibition I went to was a Bresson. I can't think the pictures would of been better if the technical side had been nailed. The picture doesn't count anymore, the nembers is where it's at, put a meter on it if you want to know if it's good.

A few decades back, an excellent British songwriter (Billy Bragg), made an album (on an independent label of course) called "Talking with the taxman about poetry"... I only have to add to your (excellent in its sarcasm) post that its sad to see people in forums commenting in "image quality", while at the same time their understanding of "image quality" has nothing to do with what is taught in photographic schools as being "the art of photography"... Billy was spot-on in his album's title....

[N80]

A few decades back, an excellent British songwriter (Billy Bragg), made an album (on an independent label of course) called "Talking with the taxman about poetry"... I only have to add to your (excellent in its sarcasm) post that its sad to see people in forums commenting in "image quality", while at the same time their understanding of "image quality" has nothing to do with what is taught in photographic schools as being "the art of photography"... Billy was spot-on in his album's title....

I get your point but it sounds, for lack of a better word, a bit snobbish. Or maybe elitist is a better word. Don't get me wrong, I agree that one needs to know what one is looking at. But at the same time I'm not sure that requires a photography school education or even higher education. Much of the world's great art and literature comes from talents that were neither born in nor honed in academia. And to be honest, and maybe indirectly more elitist, I'm not sure that being taught how to look at something in photography school is the measure of one's eye.

[Theodoros]

I get your point but it sounds, for lack of a better word, a bit snobbish. Or maybe elitist is a better word. Don't get me wrong, I agree that one needs to know what one is looking at. But at the same time I'm not sure that requires a photography school education or even higher education. Much of the world's great art and literature comes from talents that were neither born in nor honed in academia. And to be honest, and maybe indirectly more elitist, I'm not sure that being taught how to look at something in photography school is the measure of one's eye.

What is taught in photography schools is many different things... One only though is the fundamental behind all of them... and that is what photo-graphy is/should be... Same is with theater, music, ...all arts... One doesn't have to attend a theater school to become a great actor, but this doesn't mean that he can become a great actor unless if he is fully aware of how great acting should be...

[GrahamBy]

What is taught in photography schools is many different things... One only though is the fundamental behind all of them... and that is what photo-graphy is/should be...

That would already be a feat, to agree on that. You can learn mathematical theorems and be pretty sure that it is based in objective reality, but once one starts talking about what X "should" be, it's by defintion subjective. It's hence neither right nor wrong, but may be predictive of how other people will react: you could argue that art schools currently function to
create a pool of people who agree on what art should be, but that choice is arbitrary. If you don't like it, it's that you're not qualified (and if you're still a student, your chances of getting qualified may be seriously compromised). It may be that in 50 years no one will have any respect for it other than as a historical oddity. Or not.

[Rob C]

That would already be a feat, to agree on that. You can learn mathematical theorems and be pretty sure that it is based in objective reality, but once one starts talking about what X "should" be, it's by defintion subjective. It's hence neither right nor wrong, but may be predictive of how other people will react: you could argue that art schools currently function to
create a pool of people who agree on what art should be, but that choice is arbitrary. If you don't like it, it's that you're not qualified (and if you're still a student, your chances of getting qualified may be seriously compromised). It may be that in 50 years no one will have any respect for it other than as a historical oddity. Or not.

There's also the possibility that contemporary 'art' validity is being promulgated by those making money from the pushing of particular styles and personalities. Art schools? I don't know - I'd have liked to spend a few years in one, but it wasn't to be for all manner of reasons mostly beyond my power to do a heap about. What would I have gained that I have not picked up on my own? Hard to tell since one can't walk two roads at the same time; however, it would have been very nice to have been able to get a better grasp on painting techniques, graphic design and, above all, typography which I see as the fundamental skill to making almost any form of advertising material. Photography 'lessons'? As there was no Photoshop to learn in those years, I don't see it would have given me anything I didn't already have.

There's a division here, of course, between gallery art and commercial art; it really depends which of the two one is discussing. For most of the art school kids I actually knew, all it brought was a teaching job and some medium luck in selling the odd painting here and there (the latter most often if coming from wealthy families). Some found employment in ad agency studios...

In all cases, there would have been the valuable thing called connection; being plugged in, enchufado.

Exceptions abound, of course, and we have some right here on LuLa.

Rob

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I am involved right now in an interesting experiment. We are going to decorate a lot of wall space at our offices (something like 300 square meters) and I was asked to provide pictures. The images I have proposed are a wide variety, from APS-C to P45+ and ranging from 12 MP to 42 MP. Will be interesting to see which pictures the panel picks.

Best regards
Erik

[N80]

I do not know the biographies of many great photographers so I can't say what the correlation is between specific art education and output or appreciation for great art. I can speak in terms of writers. Two of my favorites: Flannery O'Conner and Fred Chappell. Both university trained in English and writing. Both are amazing to me. Both technically precise. But in my opinion, William Faulkner eclipses them both, and again, in my opinion, eclipses all modern writers. He had virtually no training at all. Certainly not in writing. Technically, Faulkner is a mess to the point of abandoning punctuation. I doubt that anything Faulkner ever wrote would be presented to a student as a "how-to" example.

But on a more personal level, I have a great appreciation for photographic art. I know what I like and why I like it. That is not something that can be compared or quantified and I'm not pitting my taste, style, sensibility or sense of fashion against anyone else, but still feel qualified to recognize good work. I'm educated. But not in the arts.

[GrahamBy]

however, it would have been very nice to have been able to get a better grasp on painting techniques, graphic design and, above all, typography which I see as the fundamental skill to making almost any form of advertising material.

I'm a bit jaundiced by the French approach : one of my friends has just dropped out of the fine arts course at the Université Joseph Fourier (Grenoble) in disgust: very little practical content, huge dependence on theory, teaching via workshops which turned out to be unstructured chaos and evaluation based on parroting of the official line.

I doubt Fourier would have approved.

[N80]

And didn't French Impressionism pretty much stem from a break with the academy?

And then there's this:

When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a sort of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.
—Jackson Pollock, My Painting, 1956

How does one approach that sort of art as a viewer or a critic? Think of that approach applied to photography.