>Ken , sorry I meant medium format (MF) for quality. The people I know who
>do weddings use both Bronica (for formal poses) and 35 ml for reception
>shots. I thought many magazines needed medium format for advertising or
>general stock pictures, not for reportage obviously. I thought that many
>stock agencies only wanted MF.
Later I realized that you might have meant medium format instead of manual
focus. It's rather fascinating that I can blow up a 35mm shot to 8x10 and
a 6x7 shot to 8x10 of the same thing and you are very hard pressed to tell
the difference. At 11x14 you can tell the difference if you are holding
them in your hand, but by the time you mount, frame and hang the prints on
the wall any difference disappears. I am shocked at how well the latest
Fuji 400 speed wedding film holds up at 16x20 from 35mm. I haven't tried
Kodak's new offerings yet.
It is true though that medium format is considered to be "the standard" in
wedding work, but the fact is that 645 ain't that much bigger than 35mm.
You don't start really seeing a difference unless you compare 35mm to 6x7.
In fact compare a 645 (or 6x6) to 6x7 or 6x9 and you would realize that 645
isn't any better than 35mm! Many wedding pros today would go 35mm if they
didn't already have such a huge investment in Hassies.
For commercial use, you can usually get away with 35mm IF you have a good
relationship with the art director. (The magazines could care less, since
they only get finished comps anyway). But most art directors are expecting
6x7 or 4x5 these days. On a side note though, most scans from 35mm exceed
the quality of scans (non-drum) from 6x7 and 4x5 anyway. At this time, I
am still planning on keeping the Mamiya (with 6x7 back) and expand the lens
selection a bit for the commercial work and use it for the occasional
wedding shot that I know will get blown up to 11x14 or greater.
Stock agencies receive the bulk of their images on 35mm trannies. (manual,
not automatic <g>). If I went 645 for my stock submissions the advantage
is that they would stand out more from the crowd and get a higher chance of
selection BUT since most images are now getting digitized it doesn't matter
anyway.
Whenever I am having a problem with an art director who is giving me fits
about 35mm, I ask him what the final print size will be (usually the
equivelent to a 5x7) and how many colors will be used (usually five color:
CMYK and either clear or grey). I then ask him what size screen will be
used (usually 110). I can shoot any 800 speed film in 35mm and still be
sharper than what he will ever need. As far as tonal ranges are
concerned--they are lost or screwed up in the printing process anyway. A
good lower speed transparency such as Velvia, Provia, Kodachrome 64, etc.,
can easily be blown up to a full-bleed double-truck spread without showing
any grain or loss of image quality. After all, it's done all the time in
National Geographic. Those really grainy shots in NG? Those are sometimes
slide films pushed to 1600 or greater.
Ken
Kenneth E. Norton
Image66 Photography
image66@xxxxxxx
(217) 224-5004
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