6x6 film vs 4x5 film vs 5D MkII

[feppe]

I'm on the last steps of getting a refund for a botched eBay deal for a 5D MKII (over a month of delays on shipping with bad excuses, then two months to get the refund, finally have check in my hand). This has given me time to re-consider the upgrade.

I do mainly travel photography, but am moving decisively towards portraits and glamour. Working in a studio gives me more control, and having digital side-by-side with MF/LF film would be an option.

Now I have three options:

• new 5D MkII - about 2500 EUR
• new or used 4x5 LF film system with 300mm lens - up to 2500 EUR
• a 250mm lens for my 6x6 - about 250 EUR

The recent article on LL on 5D MkII especially has me a bit frustrated, as well as others echoing it. Although I have L glass, including the 135mm prime, it sounds like the current Canon lenses aren't able to get the full resolution out of the sensor. It just doesn't sound like I'm getting much for the 2000 EUR I would be paying to upgrade from 450D - I almost never shoot faster than 100 ISO, don't need video. Perhaps getting some Leica primes on it would solve that, but that's another 2k+ EUR - and lack of AF on a 35mm viewfinder doesn't sound too enticing.

A 4x5 TLR sounds very attractive, except it would cost up to as much as the 5D MkII if bought new. I miss shooting film, though, and the deliberate shooting 4x5 necessitates would be perfect for the kind of shooting I'm doing.

The cheapest option by far is to get a portrait lens for my Mamiya C220. That camera produces absolutely outrageous results with scanned Provia, and it would be great for studio work with Portra. With the 2k I would save I could take a nice vacation for more photos, or a whole bunch of studio sessions.

Any thoughts? And no, plunking down another order of a magnitude more on S2/Phase/Hassy is not an option

[situgrrl]

The cheapest option by far is to get a portrait lens for my Mamiya C220. That camera produces absolutely outrageous results with scanned Provia, and it would be great for studio work with Portra. With the 2k I would save I could take a nice vacation for more photos, or a whole bunch of studio sessions.

What with, choosing your holiday destination   with 2k € I'd go for 3 months in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia.  

[feppe]

What with, choosing your holiday destination   with 2k € I'd go for 3 months in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia.

Well, me too, except I'm an amateur and have a non-photography day job

[ixpressraf]

I used to shoot 4/5' and 8/10" aswell as 6/7cm and 6/6. later i changed to digital using a scan-back. In 1999 i got my nikon D1. Altough the feel of the images was very medium format like, the detail was not present in the nikon images. later i got into MF back's such as the phase one H5, leaf cantare etc. Detail was present but it was until the hasselblad 384c i really was convinced that digital was the way to go. For my personal images i am using a 132c digital back from hasselblad on a mamiya 645AFD. last week i got my 5DMk2 and i was thinking to replace the mamiya by the canon after reading all those miracle stories about the canon.
But..... after the first shoot i saw that the 5D2 not even came close to the image quality provided by the back, and not even close is actually not in a zillion lightyears. OK the high iso is great but all the rest is just as it was 4 years ago with the 5Dmk1.
ifr you really want to enjoy great images, get yourself a back. You are welcome to visit me and try it yourself Feppe.

[feppe]

I used to shoot 4/5' and 8/10" aswell as 6/7cm and 6/6. later i changed to digital using a scan-back. In 1999 i got my nikon D1. Altough the feel of the images was very medium format like, the detail was not present in the nikon images. later i got into MF back's such as the phase one H5, leaf cantare etc. Detail was present but it was until the hasselblad 384c i really was convinced that digital was the way to go. For my personal images i am using a 132c digital back from hasselblad on a mamiya 645AFD. last week i got my 5DMk2 and i was thinking to replace the mamiya by the canon after reading all those miracle stories about the canon.
But..... after the first shoot i saw that the 5D2 not even came close to the image quality provided by the back, and not even close is actually not in a zillion lightyears. OK the high iso is great but all the rest is just as it was 4 years ago with the 5Dmk1.
ifr you really want to enjoy great images, get yourself a back. You are welcome to visit me and try it yourself Feppe.

Well, as said, MFDB is out of the question as I'd have to sell my Harley just to be able to buy a used back - let alone lenses. The only medium format(ish) offering even remotely affordable to me might be S2, if the wildest claims of it being 10,000 EUR or so are true. I have economic education, and the law of diminishing returns is always in my mind. The law is already evident in 450D vs 50D vs 5D, and MFDB pricing takes that law to new extremes - extremes which I can not justify even though I could technically afford it.

Then there's the opportunity cost, ie. that 40k EUR I'd spend on an MFDB system would be 40k less I'd be able to spend on trips and studio time. It might be justifiable for a working professional who can write the back off - although I'm skeptical many pros have the financial expertise to do a proper return-on-investment analysis, let alone Economic Value Added calculations.

[ixpressraf]

Well, as said, MFDB is out of the question as I'd have to sell my Harley just to be able to buy a used back - let alone lenses. The only medium format(ish) offering even remotely affordable to me might be S2, if the wildest claims of it being 10,000 EUR or so are true. I have economic education, and the law of diminishing returns is always in my mind. The law is already evident in 450D vs 50D vs 5D, and MFDB pricing takes that law to new extremes - extremes which I can not justify even though I could technically afford it.

Then there's the opportunity cost, ie. that 40k EUR I'd spend on an MFDB system would be 40k less I'd be able to spend on trips and studio time. It might be justifiable for a working professional who can write the back off - although I'm skeptical many pros have the financial expertise to do a proper return-on-investment analysis, let alone Economic Value Added calculations.

645 with a couple of lenses and a 22Mp back goes 4000 euro.

[mmurph]

The cheapest option by far is to get a portrait lens for my Mamiya C220. That camera produces absolutely outrageous results with scanned Provia, and it would be great for studio work with Portra. With the 2k I would save I could take a nice vacation for more photos, or a whole bunch of studio sessions.

How much do you shoot?

Pro film and developing costs about $1 per frame for 6x6 or 6x7, about $5 a sheet for 4x5.  Then add in the cost for a good scanner, plus the value of your time to scan.

I used to spend $5,000 a year on film for 6x7 - about 5,000 frames for personal work.

Figure about $500 a year in depreciation for the 5DII over 4 years.  Are you going to shoot more than 500 frames a year?

I wouldn't take too seriously his critcisms of Canons lenses.  As you said, you have the 135 prime.  Canon's longer primes have the highest MTF ratings of any lenses tested on some boards, like Photodo.

Cost benefit analysis and diminishing returns? Try the Canon with prime lenses. You can also use it for your current travel work. When  you are doing enough studio work to bill the rentals to the client then rent the MFDB's.

Just don't buy them on Ebay.    

[LumiWill]

From a cost and versatility I would also try the Canon 5dII first. Rent it if possible. If not, buy and try it for a few months, sell it later and consider the depreciation as the cost of renting for the few months.

If Canon 5dII doesn't do it for you. used backs are priced very low with much room for bargaining.

[TimG]

35mm digital is a tough road once you go down it, especially for professional work.

Sure, you may only be out $2-3k for a 5DMK2 NOW, but what happens 18 months down the road when the MK3 come out, and you have to upgrade to keep up with your competition?

If you can technically do a MFDB, it's a better investment.  Depreciation isn't nearly as severe as it is with 35mm gear, and once you've bought into a system, upgrades are offset by trade-in values.

Of course, you could continue to shoot film, invest in a scanner, and just stay the course.  

Your only upgrades would be lenses as-needed, and perhaps a new scanner every 4-5 years.  Simple, reliable, and consistent.

[Brady]

35mm digital is a tough road once you go down it, especially for professional work.
Sure, you may only be out $2-3k for a 5DMK2 NOW, but what happens 18 months down the road when the MK3 come out, and you have to upgrade to keep up with your competition?

Who says you have to upgrade?  just because it's there doesn't mean you have to.....all this keeping up w/ the jones is BS....plenty of ppl shooting jobs w/ 4 yr old aptus 22's and 5dmkI's and 1ds II's. if it's good enough now why is it suddenly rendered useless when a new one comes out? answer: it's not!

sorry but, i'm big believer in buying something and using the F*** out of it til it breaks.  takes too much energy to swap crap out all the time...not to mention it's a waste a money most of the time.

[Kirk Gittings]

I agree with much of the below. The 135 is an extraordinary lens. Also, are you going to scan the film? The scanning workflow is very tedious compared to full digital and I would take a 5DII file any day over medium format film scanned on a prosumer Epson 750 (which I own and use). I also still own and use 4x5 and 6x9 film cameras, but make my living with a 5dII and CANON lenses.

How much do you shoot?

Pro film and developing costs about $1 per frame for 6x6 or 6x7, about $5 a sheet for 4x5.  Then add in the cost for a good scanner, plus the value of your time to scan.

I used to spend $5,000 a year on film for 6x7 - about 5,000 frames for personal work.

Figure about $500 a year in depreciation for the 5DII over 4 years.  Are you going to shoot more than 500 frames a year?

I wouldn't take too seriously his critcisms of Canons lenses.  As you said, you have the 135 prime.  Canon's longer primes have the highest MTF ratings of any lenses tested on some boards, like Photodo.

Cost benefit analysis and diminishing returns? Try the Canon with prime lenses. You can also use it for your current travel work. When  you are doing enough studio work to bill the rentals to the client then rent the MFDB's.

Just don't buy them on Ebay.  

[TimG]

Who says you have to upgrade?  just because it's there doesn't mean you have to.....all this keeping up w/ the jones is BS....plenty of ppl shooting jobs w/ 4 yr old aptus 22's and 5dmkI's and 1ds II's. if it's good enough now why is it suddenly rendered useless when a new one comes out? answer: it's not!

sorry but, i'm big believer in buying something and using the F*** out of it til it breaks.  takes too much energy to swap crap out all the time...not to mention it's a waste a money most of the time.

Consider yourself lucky!  The guys I assist HAVE to upgrade every 12-18 months to keep up.  When you're at the top of your game, there's a lot of people at the bottom just waiting for you to take a fall.

[feppe]

I agree with much of the below. The 135 is an extraordinary lens. Also, are you going to scan the film? The scanning workflow is very tedious compared to full digital and I would take a 5DII file any day over medium format film scanned on a prosumer Epson 750 (which I own and use). I also still own and use 4x5 and 6x9 film cameras, but make my living with a 5dII and CANON lenses.

I'm quite familiar with the MF film workflow vs digital - and it is indeed tedious and expensive. I'd be scanning with my photolab's Imacon 848 which is quite capable scanner - or perhaps getting drum scans from a service.

As to keeping up with the Joneses, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. While the 5D MkII sounds like an enticing camera, I'm not convinced it's a good upgrade for its price. Perhaps buying one and selling it later if it doesn't make sense is the way to go. If I could only find the damn thing for sale somewhere...

[mmurph]

As to keeping up with the Joneses, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. While the 5D MkII sounds like an enticing camera, I'm not convinced it's a good upgrade for its price.

The cost of using a camera is the depreciation that you will incur by holding it and using it for a year.

When a new camera comes out, the correct comparison is between the depreciation you will incur on your existing camera during the coming year, vs. what you would incur on the new camera over the smae period.

For example, I bought my Canon 1DsII in January 2005 (I think).  Bought it for $7,800. Sold it for $4,800 2 years later (I think - a bit fuzzy, but the numbers will serve as examples.)  So the cost was $1,500 per year in depreciation.

The 1DsII is selling now for about $1,800 (rounded down a bit for ease.) So holding it the next 2 years,. from 2007-2009, would have cost $3K, again about $1,500 per year.  

When the replacement 1DsIII came out, the real question would have been the depreciation I would have realized on the 1DsIII vs. the $1,500 on the 1DsII.  Based on history the cost may have been about the same, so that upgrading would have a net incremental cost of $0.  

If I had replaced the 1DsII with the 5D in January 2007, the cost would have been Purchase Price ($2,600) - Sales Price in 2009 ($1,000) = Net Cost ($1,600) / Holding Period (2 years), or $800 per year.

So Moving from the 1DsII to the 5D would have saved me $1,500-$800 = $700 per year.  Net cost for owning these digital cameras would be:

$1,500  2005
$1,500  2006
$800     2007
$800    2008

The correct question, then, when a new camera comes out is: how would my depreciation over the next year compare with the new camera versus my existing camera?

With the 5DII, I imagine depreciation will run about the same as the 5D has, say $800 a year. Holding the 5D for another yaer, in comparison, might cost about $350 ($1,000 to $650.)  So the real question is whether the upgrade is worth an incremental $800-$350= $450  Or if you already have a 1DsIII, selling might save you $1,500 - $800 = $700 a year.

Based on the historical prices of MFDB's, your depreciation cost is likely to have been much more than the $1,500 a year in the 2005-2006 time frame.

[harlemshooter]

i have a d3x, 5d2, 4x5 and 5x7.  if you are making your living with photography, i'd say stick with medium/large format.  but if this is currently your hobby, and you don't print larger than 20x30 (for which both dslrs mentioned above are suitable), the 5d2 should do the job fine.  i've seen beautiful images from all these cameras.  medium and large format, imho, really shine in large prints.

[mhecker*]

I just bought a 2d 5Dmk2 body at Pictureline.com in SLC, Utah.
They have more if you need a body....

[AlanG]

If you shoot portraits with the 135 and the 5DII your problem may be too much detail not too little.

Have you ever shot with a 4x5? Portraits with one? It's real tricky and very static. That's why Gowland made his Gowlandflex and why Halsman had a special twin lens reflex 4x5.

If you get a 4x5, you are still going to need 35mm digital.  Two top pros that I know used MF digital for a while but found it too slow for their style and now just shoot 35mm digital.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

The need to upgrade is essentially caused by the perceived need for better image quality. The equipment doesn't deteriorate in absolute image quality with time.

At this time it seems that lenses are more of a limitation than sensors, so image the improvements on image quality will probably slow down quite a bit. The Canon 5D has been around for a long time until it was replaced by the 5DII, that of course depending on lack of competition. There will of course be some room for improvements in high ISO noise, dynamic range (DR) and also some development on megapixels, but I would expect development to slow down. 2009 was the year of the almost affordable full frame, high resolution SLR. Prices may go down further, or not.

One advantage of digital is that developments in processing may be reapplied to "raw" images at any time. So I can just reprocess my 5 year old images with a set of brand new raw-processors.

That said, there are issues with digital. Raw formats are not for ever and not all raw converters accept DNG (DxO and Bibble, do you listen?!). You also need a reasonable backup strategy, the disk containing your images is guaranteed to crash sooner or later. On the other hand, bits don't deteriorate and images can be copied and duplicated without loss of quality.

If you are taking very few images the film route may be a feasible one, but costs will be very high on a per frame basis. Film users are also dependent on film makers and labs, either may lack some consistency. Films may disappear for different reasons. Velvia 50 was taken out of production for a long time because it used chemicals which were rare on not very environment friendly but taken into production again once replacements were found.

Best regards
Erik

I'm quite familiar with the MF film workflow vs digital - and it is indeed tedious and expensive. I'd be scanning with my photolab's Imacon 848 which is quite capable scanner - or perhaps getting drum scans from a service.

As to keeping up with the Joneses, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. While the 5D MkII sounds like an enticing camera, I'm not convinced it's a good upgrade for its price. Perhaps buying one and selling it later if it doesn't make sense is the way to go. If I could only find the damn thing for sale somewhere...

[Anders_HK]

I'm quite familiar with the MF film workflow vs digital - and it is indeed tedious and expensive. I'd be scanning with my photolab's Imacon 848 which is quite capable scanner - or perhaps getting drum scans from a service.

As to keeping up with the Joneses, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. While the 5D MkII sounds like an enticing camera, I'm not convinced it's a good upgrade for its price. Perhaps buying one and selling it later if it doesn't make sense is the way to go. If I could only find the damn thing for sale somewhere...

Hi Feppe,

I am also an amateur. One of the key reasons I stepped over to digital was that one of few labs near where I lived in Korea three years ago put fine scratch over all frames of three Fuji Velvia 50 slides. Also because of all raving of Nikon D200 at the time, of it being better than film. Nonsense. I bough it, and did not like it, but I also have a sensitive eye to color etc. Well, had D50 two months and then D200 15 months. DSLR did not cut it to my eye. I went to ZD which has fault (just search 'ZD has problem' here on LL and you will find my post on that), then as last resource I spent $$$$ on a Leaf Aptus 65 digital back, or... I would have been permanent back to FILM. I like my Leaf Aptus, although it is heavier to carry than my Mamiya 7. Digital versus film has become two medias for me. They are different, but... it also means more equipment which is a clear downside. At current I do not wish let go of either. I am new to 4x5 and find it very nice. I bought a Shen Hao TFC45-IIB about three months ago.

People are different. Many in these forums are sold on digital. Some because they have to because their photographic work requires the turn around of digital, and because of film cost versus digital cost. Others because they are frank hooked on technology. As amateur we can make our choices freely, as bound by our $, or rather what amount of sacrifice of $ we are willing to do. My Leaf digital back was like investment in a car to me. Yet... I can enjoy photography with it. As an amateur though, for very sure FILM is CHEAPER!!!!! Or is there someone here with a Nikon D70 still? (one of my friends actually have one, and she is good at photos...)

There is difference between DSLR and medium format film. DSLR lends you to photograph more machine gun like. Will it yield you better images? Will it lead you to spend more time in computer processing files, because MANY? (or does it not take much time because your eye perhaps is not so critical... or only jpgs?) And... there is a gigantic mountain of learning to climb in stepping into digital. Film is still great. I still enjoy it! It is in many ways very simple compared to digital, because when you make the capture you have it. Although sometimes I wish I shot more film than I do. With medium format digital, it can be slow too. I like that! Slow can be good. I used my Mamiya 80mm f/1.9 the other weekend. Somehow I do not get it to meter well on my AFDIII, thus I used spot meter when photographing my girlfriend. And... guess what... that slow led to by far the best photos of her I have captured... because slow, planned ... thinking of photos and light more than other times, making sure I got good captures!.

Large format will give you more of that. Perhaps it all is based on what you are after in your own photography.Perhaps this is what you should ask yourself. And in current times we can still shoot film for many years more, if we can process them somewhere. I buy my 4x5 Velvia from USA because I use Fuji Quickloads. I process here at a lab in Hong Kong. Those Quickloads feel really simple to use... far better than sheet film which I do not want to try.

You might also wish to post similar question also here http://www.apug.org/forums/home.php and here http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/ to see what replies you will get.

Best of luck!

Regards
Anders