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Can I get medium format quality from 35mm?

from Roseblood (Kyller@annex.com)
The answer is "almost yes."

You will have to use APX25, Kodak Tech-pan, or Illford Pan-F.

What will be required to get the most out of your 35mm films is a camera with a sharp prime lense (that's right, no zooms, they compromize optical quality for convience.)

The next thing you'll need is a very sturdy tripod. Nothing will hold your camera better. Even a 1/1000th of a second exposure handheld can show degredation due to camera shake.

Finally, you'll want to use a cable-release or a self timer on the camera to trip the shutter....the camera needs to be totaly isolated from any source of vibration that can degrade the image quality.

I have some shots I've taken at the beach... 135mmF2.8 on a Minolta 400si, threw on a red filter, a polarizer, set F22, and got my wonderfully sharp 30 second exposure (did I mentioned I used a tripod that was big enough to use to launch a small anti-tank missile from?)

The neg shows no grain at 8x10..at 11x14, it has the quality of grain I expect in my ISO125 8x10 prints, at 16x20 (the largest I printed it), the quality was equal to that of Illford's ISO400 films.

A MF camera with ISO25 film will still blow this away. But, with an ISO25/50 film, you'll have the quality in your final prints of a 2 1/4 inch ISO 400 negative. If you really want MF quality w/o the hastle of working hard with a 35mm, find yourself a good 120 folding camera. I hear great things about Kodak Retina's (I think that's what they're called.)

(posted 9174 days ago)

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