[FrankC]

75mm is a normal lens on a FF 6x4.5 format. The 645D has a crop factor to the 645 format. So its a short telephoto on the 645D, no?

The crop factor of a 645D to FF is 0.8x. So the 645 75mm = 60mm on a FF = 37.5mm on an APS-C with a crop factor of 1.6x.

[Kerrowdown]

Hope I'm not the only one who finds the humour in this

No I'm right beside you buddy.

whole generation of Pentax photographers who have never shot anything except APS-C

But hey, lets get a Pentax FF first, then we can all worry about and look after all these poor confused folk.

[FrankC]

I started out using film. I was five years old when I took my first picture with my Parent's Kodak brownie loaded up with B&W 127 film. That year (circa 1972) Santa bought me a Kodak 110 camera. I used that thing to take pictures of everything. I've got the family Grand Canyon documented in glorious 110 color film. Even at such a young age I took a lot of pictures, so many that buying flip flashes for the Kodak was a weekly expenditure (for my Mom, of course). I finally got a flash for it the following year - my parents bought it at JC Penney. It wasn't until high school when I had a part-time job at the sub shop that I could finally save up for a 35mm film camera. I remember the sales guy was trying to get me to buy Nikon, but I liked the digital readout in the Canon T-70 as apposed to the match-the-needle metering method of the Nikons at the time. From there I sold most of what I had just to afford a Canon T-90 which had even more digital technology within it. It was the first camera with an exposure index with a floating dot that would move either up or down depending on if you pointed it at something dark or bright. That was the camera I used during my initial photo classes - along with all primes from 24 - 200mm. I finally grew tired of manual focusing and only having primes, so I sold all of that stuff and got an EOS-1 with a set of L zooms in 1989. I added a Mamiya RZ67 to the mix a few years later. There was even a time when I owned a Calumet 8x10 too - a 35 lbs beast that I sold within a year or two (along with the Canon gear) because my back had decided it wasn't going to behave anymore. The Mamiya was the last film camera I had ever owned.
When digital came out, I had figured that I'd eventually buy one once the megapixel count got to be around 24. I figured a good film camera could make a decent 20x30, so I'd hold out until digital was there AND it didn't cost $35,000 to do it. At the time Canon/Nikons were only 3MP and they cost around $25,000, so I had a lot of waiting to do before things got affordable.
So I actually skipped the whole APS-C format and eventually got my first digital camera - a 645D with four primes lenses. Looks like I'm doing in digital what I had done in my film days. As far as crop factor goes, I don't give it much thought. Using primes forces the user to get very familiar with each lens. I know what my 35 can do and what it can't. The same can be said with my 75, 120 and my 200.
There were/are a lot of pitfalls with film - just loading it can be a mystery the first time, let a lone remembering to load it at all. But it is because of those pitfalls with film that makes the entire process so much more rewarding when you got it right.

[tuco]

The crop factor of a 645D to FF is 0.8x. So the 645 75mm = 60mm on a FF = 37.5mm on an APS-C with a crop factor of 1.6x.

Thanks for that info. Crop factor madness. One more. 1.3X to equate 645D to FF 645 system.

[tim60]

I just find it odd that film is often seen as a mysterious and extremely complex thing to comprehend, where a sensor and all that electrical stuff is simple...

Film: Light hits chemicals, chemicals react, more chemicals used to convert the emulsion into image.
Digital: light hits sensor, sensor converts light to electricity, processors used to convert electricity into image.

Electronic stuff comes from shops (not factories) - just like milk comes from supermarkets (not cows). Modern life, where the item is shipped a long way to the shop disconnects perception of the thing and its origin. Also a reason why most young people in richer countries do not want to qualify to design, develop and produce these products on which our life style depends. A serious issue for our ability to sustain technological advance when most of the production is done by contractors to OEMs and innovation is done by the old and experienced in another country - but where do we get the flow of old and experienced staff from.

I remember seeing darkrooms when I was you - set up in temporary places such as at a primary school camp - so I got the idea of the process and listened enough in chemistry to know what it was about - then tried myself. It was helpful to have an old school mate who was enthusiastic who also taught me a bit. He was the Rhodes Scholar in my year. Made me look mediocre at school - someone else was top of the state in our year at school.

[mikeSF]

The crop factor of a 645D to FF is 0.8x. So the 645 75mm = 60mm on a FF = 37.5mm on an APS-C with a crop factor of 1.6x.

Yes, that was pretty much what point I was making. Thx.

[dagray]

I started with a Pentax "Honeywell" Spotmatic a Vivitar 24mm, a Pentax 50mm 1.8, a Pentax 200mm 1:4, and a doubler. I also had a Vivitar flash. Fast forward a few years and I picked up an ME super in a pawn shop and took many hundreds of photos with it before operator error killed it (I had the cable release screwed in and stepped on it when getting up breaking the shutter button). I then purchased two ME supers. I got bit trying to learn long lenses and shutter speed with the APS-C as I wasn't factoring in the 1.5x crop factor and making sure my minimum shutter speed was the focal length times 1.5. I now have a K20d, K7, K5, and K3, but would love a full frame. I do need a wider lens as I have the 18-55 kit and a 24mm 1:2 (yeah the one that still costs as much used as it did new), but would like to get down into the 11mm range for some landscapes.

[PPPPPP42]

I tried to explain how I feel about my APSC digital vs my 35mm film camera bodies and why but it got long and rambly so I deleted it all.

The magnification on a given angle of view for APSC just doesn't cut it compared to 35mm and never will. That is to say I want 50mm magnification with 50mm field of view, not a choice of 70mm field of view or 35mm magnification.
I do not care for having to choose a landscape focal length that makes one wonder what miracle allowed the lens to still be rectilinear and then get a telescope for my viewfinder so I can see the tiny worthless image to find out what the camera thought I wanted it to focus on. Focus isn't single object based, it requires a carefully chosen center for the given depth of field that frequently isn't centered on the focus point of the image and totally changes the composition. That's something no amount of focus points will ever correct for.
All my crop bodies are going away when the FF comes out. But format is just a small part of it.

What comes out of my various film and digital bodies tells me that either I magically become a substantially better photographer when I pick up a film camera, or else digital for all its image perfection is lacking a critical something (or rather an itemized list of somethings).
Somehow it seems when a person looks at a picture taken with a film camera they look at the image, but when they look at a picture taken with a DSLR the first thing they seem to notice is the image quality.

Maybe I just need to learn to photoshop better but I'll just keep my compressed highlights for now thank you very much.

Drat, that started to get long and rambly again, I feel like a bitter old person.

[ZoeB]

Although I grew up totally in the digital age (I've never known a world without the internet) and shot a lot with point and shoots, shooting film is what taught me to think like a photographer. I only own one automatic lens, and it's probably the one I use least. That being said, I think that the transition (may it be soon) to FF shouldn't be too rough as long as people are aware that there is one!

[Imageman]

What makes digital easy to comprehend and film hard to comprehend is the fact that its modern photographers doing the comprehending.


They don't comprehend what digital is doing, this is all they understand or care about photography:-


1 I pointed the camera thingy


2 I see a picture on the screen thingy on the back of it


3 I pressed the button thingy and its saved me picture - golly


look I can do it again

[Imageman]

I used the word Modern as a label as in a style.


There are plenty of recent photographers who are very capable, but "modern" as I choose to use it is a sub class of recent photographers who only want to see an image. Talk to them about technical matters and they glaze over.


Photographers are photographers old or new, I know a 14 year old who is dynamite on technical matters, I also know an experienced old guy who understands nothing beyond pressing the shutter, never has and never will.


I would argue that this sub class of "modern" photographers care little about the mechanics of what they use, but simply want a picture immediately.


Some Pure Artists who use a camera fall into this class they care nothing for how a camera works and why should they, its a tool.


That's ok too, the result they want is an image, not an understanding of electrons running about on sensors, so how it gets there doesn't matter.


What I said wasn't an indictment, it was an observation, a certain class of "modern" photographer exists who only wants to press a button, and those are the guys I was talking about. The "modern" photographers.


Edward Land the man who invented the polaroid did so because he took a picture of his kids with a Kodak, and the kids said, wheres the picture daddy? they could not understand they had to wait, they were "modern" photographers, caring only to see the result.


And it spawned a revolution.


To a degree they were right, I didn't take up photography to understand emulsions or sensors but to get pictures after pressing a button.
I was simply arguing that the simplistic guys just want to press a button and get a picture, and to them what happens is black magic.

[mikeSF]

strangely, I have even less idea what you mean by "modern photographer" after your clarification. I thought better and deleted my original comment to your provocative statement.
Nevertheless, you seem like an old person.

[ZoeB]

Edit: didn't see mike's comment. So maybe people do disagree with you Imageman. But I don't, at least.

And nobody disagrees with you. What we can hope, though, is that some so called 'modern photographers' get fed up with button pressing and black magic and decide to learn how to use a camera's mechanics to their advantage. That's essentially how I got my start-- I was given a little Olympus compact for christmas one year, and had fun for a little while, but got frustrated quickly. Although I'd get the occasional nice picture, most of the time they'd be grainy, discoloured, out of focus or blurry; not the images I wanted. I remember finding a few rolls of film in the freezer one night, digging out my dad's LX, and taking it off to my friend's farm for the weekend. A lot of the shots I took were rubbish. I was still shooting with the digital mindset. But after wasting a few rolls of film, I started to pick my shots more carefully and wise up about using what I had to take the pictures I saw.
Here's the thing, though. I have no doubt that there will continue to be plenty of photographers who are interested in, and use their camera's mechanics to their full advantage, but probably only a fraction of those people will care about the 'black magic' that goes into capturing and storing digital images. Because no matter how technically good a photographer a person may be, as soon as you start using words like quantum efficiency and photoelectric effect, they'll likely just shut off.

This has been the rant of a physics student.

[Imageman]

I loved reading your comments Zoe, I think we all go as deeply into this artistic endeavour as we feel suits us and that's great.


And Mike there was no need to delete anything your comments were your honest opinion stated without any malice, its what discussions are based on, and were discussing photography.


My original posting may have indeed been inflamatory although I didn't mean it as such. Please feel free to state your opinion in future.


People are interested in what they are interested in and take from an activity whatever works for them, its a broad subject with room for all personalities.

[arnold]

strangely, I have even less idea what you mean by "modern photographer" after your clarification. I thought better and deleted my original comment to your provocative statement.
Nevertheless, you seem like an old person.

It seems to be your style to refer to those you disagree with, as "old person." Ad hominem attacks show an inadequacy in addressing the issues, to put it kindly.