Beyond 35mm

To most people, film photography and 35mm are virtually synonymous, and for good reason. As many a photography historian has noted, "35mm won the format war". 35mm was and is the culmination of a long history of progressively smaller and smaller pieces of film used by photographers. And with digital, it could be argued that the trend continues as the cameras and their "film" (digital sensors) continue to shrink in size. It may surprise you to know that even though the mainstream has moved to 35mm and beyond (below?), there are still a significant number of photographers working in those historic larger pieces of film; this is the realm of medium- and large-format photography.

Now, you might have actually seen medium-format photography before and just not realized it. Many wedding and event photographers continue to use medium-format for prints that will need to be enlarged to 11" x 17" and larger. The larger pieces of film allow more information to be stored and for enlargements to be made with out graininess (resolution) bringing significant distortion to the image. Medium-format film comes in a variety of shapes and sizes with the two most popular being 6cm x 6cm and 6cm x 4.5cm (35mm film is around 36mm x 24mm). The film comes in spools similar to that of conventional 35mm film and is readily available in most photography shops. Medium format cameras come in many shapes and sizes the most common being the familiar SLR, yesteryear's TLR and not-so-compact rangefinders.

Large-format, though, is a different beast all together. The film comes in sheets that are individually loaded into the camera. Common film sizes are 4" x 5" and 8" x 10". Setting up a shot can easily take 30 minutes. The cameras themselves are monsters and look like some relic from the 19th century, and to some extent, they are. Take a look look. Hoods, bellows, wooden frames, the cameras in and of themselves tend to be works of art. Believe it or not, these cameras are still actively used by number of professionals that usually have unique requirements that can only be satisfied by this format.

One, if you need resolution, these are the cameras to use. Nothing, digital or analog, comes close. Imagine taking a picture where the negative is roughly the size of a sheet of notebook paper. There is a lot of information stored on that film and the enlargement potentials are incredible. Landscape photographers love these cameras for this reason.

Two, because the film comes in sheets, each individual image can be developed and processed uniquely. This is where the art of traditional chemical photography can shine, an art of which I have virtually no knowledge (more on that later). These first two reasons are what allowed many well known photographers (the most famous being Ansel Adams) to achieve absolutely incredible prints. That and they are all extremely talented artists.

Three, due to the ability to move the film with respect to the lens, to is possible to do some unique things with the perspective and focus of the image. Common applications are making skyscrapers stand up tall instead of bending to the center of the frame and allow long table to food to be entirely in focus. If this doesn't make sense to you or seem that impressive then don't worry about it. Suffice it to say, some photography niches have need of such things.

What does this have to do with me? Well, the other night I had a dream that I was using a large-format camera while in the mountains taking some pretty darn cool pictures. When I woke up and realized I had taken no such pictures now had I ever even used one of these cameras I got to thinking. Wouldn't that be cool to learn all this neat stuff about traditional black-and-white photography? You know, get a darkroom set-up, develop my own negatives, make my own prints. I could get one of these larger-format cameras and even if I didn't do any enlargements still have some great pictures. This would be a great way for me to learn a lot of the basic techniques that my modern digital SLR has allowed me to gloss over. At this point, the do-it-yourself in me was jumping up and down and was encouraging my artistic nature to get in on the fun.

Will this happen? Probably not. A new large-format camera costs $700 minimum. I don't have any place for a dark-room. Medium format, though, holds some potential, as older used TLRs can be had for $100. Not cheap, cheap, but not expensive, either. Seeing as how I'm in the midst of planning a wedding and all right now, I don't think it will happen anytime soon. I would relish the opportunity to live out some of the dream I had and maybe it will happen someday. For now, I read books about the old arts and pretend that someday I too will have images as striking and beautiful as the masters of yesteryear.