This has come up a few times recently, mainly in relation to using preloaded fil ms in a non-dedicated holder. Elsewhere it was mentioned that 1/8 of an inch of bowing had been seen. I'm curious as to what effect this actually has. If the de pth of field is very small then the centre of the film will be out of focus, so for product photography you should probably be using the film holder made specif ically for the film you're using. For larger depths of field however, the only p roblems can be distortion effects caused by the shape of the film, and I wouldn' t have thought that 1/8 of an inch would cause much of this type of distortion a t all. Does anyone have any photographic examples of what actually happens? I kn ow that seeing your film bow by 1/8 of an inch may look pretty damning, but perh aps this isn't a big deal at all; instead, it could just be something to be awar e of and try to correct if the type of photography you're doing could be affecte d. For landscapes and architecture the convenience of only having one holder to carry may offset the problems caused by film flatness, given the nature of the w ork you're doing. There's an argument for saying "why compromise?", but from an purely engineering standpoint it would seem that flatness will have an acceptabl e range of tolerance based on lens length and depth of field, and I'm sure some mathematically endowed person could work out what it is...
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