35mm format landscapes

[David A. Goldfarb]

Galen Rowell certainly made some impressive landscapes with 35mm, but having seen some of the prints and acknowledging the limitations that come with combining climbing with photography, and that given his use of grads and polarizers a rangefinder wouldn't really be an option, I wonder what he could have done with an ultralight 4x5". He did shoot some 6x17.

[CXC]

Only with the Widelux. I just enlarged a cityscape to 28"x11.375" and it looks fab hanging on the wall...

[paulr]

" "what do you want to achieve with the photos."

Fine print, mat, perhaps framed. Thanks! "

I have the feeling Darin's asking a more esthetic /substantive question. Different mediums look different ways and serve different visions and purposes. 35mm isn't the best choice is you want your work to look like an 8x10 contact print (did anyone say "duh?") but the contact print look doesn't serve every vision or every idea.

Take a look at some of the 35mm work done by Friedlander and Robert Frank that have strong landscape components. It's beautiful. It's also more about gesture at feeling than about precise description.

If you're trying to get a more large format look out of a small camera, you have to treat it like a large camera. Use a tripod, work carelfully and obseesively, use slow, sharp film, good lenses, etc.. You probably won't fool anyone, but you'll get closer to a large format kind of description than the typical small camera picture. For small prints you can get some very nice results.

[Alan Davenport]

Certainly! I did so for many years, and if I no longer had a real camera I would do so again.

[Mark Sawyer]

"Would you shoot landscapes on a 35mm format?"

I started there, (bet we all did,) but today it would feel like going into a nice restaurant and asking for a day-old Big Mac and a warm glass of Hawaiian Punch with a hair in it...

[Oren Grad]

I certainly would, and do. I agree with Paul R - it's a poor substitute for an 8x10 contact print if that's what you really want, but a small enlargement of a 35mm negative can be beautiful in its own way.

[Paul Butzi]

Horse for courses, as they say.

If I were going to remote places and wasn't wanting to make prints larger than 5x7, I'd have no problem using 35mm.

I have some lovely landscape photos made in Tuscany when I was on a bike trip. They were made with a wonderfully tiny Contax T3.

These days, I might be tempted to use a little digital camera, if I could solve the battery problem.

[David Beal]

Well, will your journey be so rough that you couldn't take a MF folder?

I have a prewar Ikonta (no rangefinder) with a 3 element lens that I keep loaded with TriX and use as my "walkaround" camera. On a "sunny 16 day", stopped down to f22, I can shoot 645 b/w that will print pleasingly to 11x14. With better glass (the Zeiss Tessar lenses in postWar models, or the Fuji GZ645), you could do much better.

Nothing is better than LF. But, if LF isn't practical, get as close to LF as you can.

Good shooting.

/s/ David Beal
Memories Preserved Photography, LLC

[brook]

With perfect technique, sand bagged tripod, perfect focus and exellent glass, and a combo like Pan F / PMK, with great light and superb printing, I bet you could fool anybody that doesnt contact print for a religion.
But if you sold the Lieca/Nikkon/Cannon gear and bought a cheap 5x7 and an ok lens, you could be a bit sloppier and still do better. And use fastrer film, print in platnium or what ever, and be so much cooler.

[Aaron_5037]

"I have the feeling Darin's asking a more esthetic /substantive question".

Thanks Paulr. You hit the nail. I am pondering a little wider now. I shall explore 35mm works by some photographers. Thanks to all for your thoughts. Appreciate it!