[szs]

I don't care about the picture itself, but I love to peek through those "reality windows"(...)

I have never heard that from a photographer. Food for thought....

[rdenney]

(Yes, you can use the screens for the N and NII in the 645 digital cameras. I’m using the microprism screen on my 645z and everything works perfectly—autofocus, metering, etc.)

For me, larger formats are about subtlety of color and tone. A given piece of a print of a given size simply contains a larger sample of light. Larger samples are more accurate.

I’m not taking about pixels. Let’s construct an example independent of pixels, using a print size small enough to fall within the technical capabilities of both 24x36 and 33x44 formats: 8x10”. With that print size, we will use 24x30mm of the small format and 33x42mm of the (smallest) medium format sensors.

Each of the 80 square inches of that print is fed by 9 square millimeters of small format image, or 17 square millimeters of medium format image. That means each unit of area in the print has twice the information feeding it. At this print size, pixels are arbitrarily small, and cease to be relevant in the comparison.

This is not about resolution, which is based on linear dimensions, but about color and tonal accuracy and richness, which is about area.

40 years ago, I viewed photographs made using a Nikon F and Nikkor 50mm lens, and a (lowly, by comparison, but still excellent) Yashica Mat-124, with its 80mm Yashinon. The medium-format image showed noticeably greater subtlety. The print wasn’t big enough to exceed either camera’s ability to make a very sharp image, and neither showed grain, but the greater tonal smoothness and subtlety was obvious.

We worship at the altar of sharpness and resolution, but that is only one attribute and maybe not even the most important. With smaller prints, resolution is effectively unimportant. That’s also why lenses aren’t as important as people think, and why even vintage lenses are good enough for the prints most people make.

Rick “still hoping for an affordable 4x5 sensor that can be mounted in a Graflok back someday” Denney

[VellMerlot]

I have never heard that from a photographer. Food for thought....

I wish I had not disappointed you :P
I never claimed myself a photographer, I'm on this hobby because I needed an excuse to share something with my daughter after a divorce, and she liked to "steal" my Oly E-420 and return it to me only when the card was full or the battery empty, so I asked her if she liked to take pictures, she said yes, and I bought a pair of Pentax to be able to share lenses (the Oly 4/3 were failing into oblivion, and about quality/price ratio, none beats a Pentax set).

I must admit I begun to "watch" things (look them in a different way... some sort of "mental composing") after using my K-5, and because that, maybe someone would call me "photographer", but I have not the love for the image I see people here has, I'm just happy watching how the picture itself is formed in a viewscreen when I turn (manually, always manually) my focus barrel. I enjoy it far much more than to see the pictures I took. Once the click has sounded, I lose all interest on the image

[johnha]

40 years ago, I viewed photographs made using a Nikon F and Nikkor 50mm lens, and a (lowly, by comparison, but still excellent) Yashica Mat-124, with its 80mm Yashinon. The medium-format image showed noticeably greater subtlety. The print wasn’t big enough to exceed either camera’s ability to make a very sharp image, and neither showed grain, but the greater tonal smoothness and subtlety was obvious.

My first MF experience was similar, a comparison of an 8x12 from Ektar 25 (Pentax MX with M series lenses) and an 8x8 from a Lubitel 166 (this was before Lomography helped brand these as 'toy' cameras). The Lubitel blew the MX away, not in sharpness, but tonal graduation. That set me off along the MF road, first a C330f, Mamiya 645, Bronica SQ and finally P6x7 (and ultimately why I bought a used 645D over a new K-1ii).

Once I started using MF, 35mm was relegated to 'snapshot' status or where MF was too big/heavy/expensive to carry. Anything of any significance went through the Mamiya 645 Pro (my pride & joy, a very expensive camera at the time). I built a reasonable system and shot everything with it. It became normal to shoot MF, very soon 35mm simply didn't cut it anymore.

With mainstream MF manufacturers there's hardly anything that's bad, poor or mediocre, most gear is very good or better and able to withstand day to day pro use. With Pentax's magnesium bodies and weather sealing it's easy to forget how fragile a lot of the '90s AF 35mm cameras were (few were cheap and many were very expensive). Spending a similar amount on used MF gear gave you a much better built camera which offered more versatility and gave better results at the expense of more weight & effort.

I prefer the weight, size and handling of MF cameras, whether it's eye or waist level shooting, exactly why I can't say. The 645D really fits in with this, a smaller, lighter mirrorless simply wouldn't interest me. I tried a Fuji G690, expecting it to be smaller/lighter than my P6x7 - it was but not enough to compensate for not being a system SLR (size is more important to me than weight and it wasn't that much smaller).

[rdenney]

I used a Mamiya C-3, for which I paid $100 with a 80mm Sekor, from the early 70’s until the late 90’s. I replaced it with an old C-33, which cocked the shutter automatically when winding the film. Amazing! I had a Rolleiflex also, and it is remarkably compact and light. But it is also inflexible.

Mostly to get access to a 45mm wide-angle lens—the widest I could do with the Mamiya was 55—I bought a Kiev 60 with a Mir 26 lens. It was flaky and I bought two more. Lens and finder diversity was the reason.m, and I couldn’t afford the quality stuff.

The Mamiya was the only twin-lens system camera, and I have always used and wanted a wide selection of lenses. Finders, too—I even have the high-eyepoint speedfinder for my old Canon F-1. The Kiev led to a collector’s interest in Soviet stuff, and I ended up with an 88CM box SLR and an Exakta 66.

Those were always fun but scary—they didn’t always work. I couldn’t do commercial work with them and the Mamiyas were worn out. Also, my wife wanted to do weddings with bigger film (having seen my results), but needed high levels of automation. So, we bought a 645NII with the 45-85 zoom and a flash. I added a 645N with a 75LS as a backup and many inserts and other accessories.

Soon after that she went digital and never looked back.

The 645 negative was feeling constricting and in 2007 I bought my first 6x7 (in Fairbanks, as it happens). That became my go-to kit for serious work when large format was infeasible, and I expanded it to 3 bodies and a full complement of lenses, plus folding and chimney finders.

The only thing more exciting than a 6x7 Velvia transparency on a light table is a 4x5 Velvia transparency. And so I maintained a 4x5 capability throughout.

The 645z is changing my patterns, to be sure. It may be the best compromise yet between image quality, system flexibility, and portability.

But I have never second-guessed the decision to go bigger as much as possible.

Rick “like Adams: the biggest camera I can carry” Denney

[szs]

I wish I had not disappointed you :P
I never claimed myself a photographer, I'm on this hobby because I needed an excuse to share something with my daughter after a divorce, and she liked to "steal" my Oly E-420 and return it to me only when the card was full or the battery empty, so I asked her if she liked to take pictures, she said yes, and I bought a pair of Pentax to be able to share lenses (the Oly 4/3 were failing into oblivion, and about quality/price ratio, none beats a Pentax set).

I must admit I begun to "watch" things (look them in a different way... some sort of "mental composing") after using my K-5, and because that, maybe someone would call me "photographer", but I have not the love for the image I see people here has, I'm just happy watching how the picture itself is formed in a viewscreen when I turn (manually, always manually) my focus barrel. I enjoy it far much more than to see the pictures I took. Once the click has sounded, I lose all interest on the image

You did certainly not disappoint me, all the contrary! It is interesting to see how different the joys are that everyone draws from a seemingly so similar activities. I liked you comment because it made me think about what *I* enjoy while making photos. And I guess it is two different things, sometimes separated by days or weeks: For one, similar to you, I enjoy handling the camera and the lens, composing, kneeling down, lying down, trying different angles etc. And that is satisfied as soon as I feel that I got the shot I wanted. A totally different joy comes from opening (or rediscovering) photos on the computer and postprocessing them. And also sharing them and finding out what others like or dislike about them.

Finally, coming from a divorced father, maybe your daughter just needed an "excuse" to share something with you. And it worked....

[tuco]

... Not to mention super low light performance. Portraits at iso 18,000????

MFD has decreased dynamic range and tonal scale the higher your ISO just like small format. A stop better DR or so over small format is not going to salvage the poor tonal scale you get at ISO 18K compared to base ISO. For me, tonal scale is one of the most important attributes of a portrait. YMMV