LF "look" on 35mm

[John Cook]

If your only definition of “the LF Look” is shallow depth of field as seen in images on the web, you can easily achieve that with 35mm and a super fast lens. I have viewed head shots taken with an f/1 lens wide open where only one eye was sharp.

But there is a great deal more to “the LF Look” than that. It is difficult to explain with words. You really need to hold a print in your hand. It doesn’t show very well on a monitor.

There is an image deterioration which occurs when a small negative is enlarged. This is quite apart from the normal, expected apparent loss of sharpness and increased grain. The image actually seems to begin to come apart and take on a harshness. Almost like the raw enlarger light is leaking between the grains of silver.

In stark contrast, an enlargement from large format negative seems to somehow hold together. The print takes on a creamy, almost luminescent quality. Like the difference between stereo and mono music.

The first time you see a really good LF print you may not recognize it as photography. Certainly unlike anything you had ever seen before. I still recall, forty years later, holding an original Ansel Adams print in my hand. I was awestruck.

[paulr]

"But there is a great deal more to “the LF Look” than that. It is difficult to explain with words. You really need to hold a print in your hand. It doesn’t show very well on a monitor."

This is more of what I'm getting at. LF for me has nothing to do with selective depth of field but a lot to do with that look.

Some aspects of the look come from the size of the film; you're not going to duplicate that. But some of it comes from the inherent deliberateness of the image making. This is something you can achieve with small format. You won't fool anyone who's paying attention, but you'll be able to get a bit of that elusive something.

Incidentally, I've spent years trying to put my finger on the mysterious quality of 8x10 contact prints. I shoot 4x5 myself, so I haven't made any. But there's something unique about them, and it has nothing to do with sharpness. I looked over a friend's shoulder at a bookstore and saw he was flipping through a book of handheld color photographs. Stylistically, they were hand camera pictures. But I knew instinctively, at first glance, that they were 8x10 contact prints. Neither of us knew the photographer, but the introduction confirmed it: the guy shot handheld 8x10. Whatever it was that triggered that response still eludes me. It had nothing to do with sharpness, depth of field, tonal qualities, etc.. I couldn't see any of that in the book over my friend's shoulder. It was something more general about how the world looked. Still trying to figure it out.

[Ralph Barker]

Paul - I'm convinced that our eyes "perceive" detail well beyond what we can theoretically "resolve". So, while we may not be able to make out the microscopic detail in a contact print, I think we can sense that it is there, and respond accordingly. I think that is part of the richness of detail in LF, the "fidelity" of recording, to which we are attracted.

[Bryan Willman]

The "what causes the LF look" is a much studied question. All the comments about more film area, the care of use required, and so on, are surely correct.

I don't know that using a Noct wide open will give you the LF look, but it does yield many interesting pictures, at least for me.

Physics dictates that simple image area (never mind the amount of silver) will be an advantage. Thus, a 4x5 sized camera will have an advantage whether the capture medium is film, digital, or carefully arranged chicken feathers.

The other side is print size. 35mm images often look utterly amazing as slides on a light box, or as 150x100 previews on my 1600x1200 monitor. They really only look "less than perfect" when you enlarge them to some sensible size.

Remember that a 4x6" print is a 4 diameter enlargement from 35mm. The comparable enlargement from 4x5 is a 16"x20".

Contact printing's advantage probably comes from being a less lossy process than using an enlarger, even at 1 to 1.

The practical outcome of this is to shoot very carefully, then print pretty small. Your 35mm images are more likely to "amaze" or "be magic" like LF images when they are printed at 4x6 or 5x7. (But that might not be the size those images want to be.)

[John D Gerndt]

I love this forum.

Bryan Willman has already made the best practical suggestion: try smaller prints. My personal target is 3x and smaller for enlargements.

I'll second the call for a tripod. It is all over anything written about sharpness, even in Lieca's own publications.

Finally, I believe lenses for 35mm and large format to be from different camps, that is, the designers make different compromises/decisions in their design and manufacture.

I have 8 or 9 35mm cameras around that I try to keep excercised and ready to shoot but rare is the occasion I reach for one when there is a chance to use larger film. Big film wins!

Cheers,

[JanE]

"It was something more general about how the world looked. Still trying to figure it out."

There's a difference in spatial relationships that makes 8x10 look totally different than the same picture taken at same angle with smaller formats. It's obvious already between 5x7 and 8x10, not to talk about 4x5. Why it's so, I don't know. Maybe the combination of longer lenses, wider apertures and larger areas does it. Free for theoretical physicians to come out..........

I have a friend that can say immediatly with only a glance at any picture if it's done with 8x10 or bigger. Mostly I can myself too see the differences, and just this inherence character, not the question about resolution, has made me an 8x10 photographer.

The very seldom beautiness you can see in old historical pictures rises from this phenomen, as most of them are taken with larger plates.

Jan, Finland.

[Øyvind Dahle]

One difference I see, is with wide angle lenses, the LF photographer either let the vertical lines be vertical like we see them, or distort the sky to an extreme level.

You can also have vertical lines by using a bit shorter focal length on your 135, let the back of the camera be vertical (using either horizontal or vertical framing) and crop afterwards, or move the camera so it can shoot stright on.

Øyvind

[David A. Goldfarb]

Yeah, it's kind of like the silk purse "look" from a sow's ear.

[David Mason]

You can treat 35mm like a view camera to a certain extent. For example solid mechanical SLR bodies like the Canon FT/QL are so cheap on EBay that you could affordable carry around bodies for N-2 through N+2 development. Using the finest grain (not necessarily sharpest) film you can find may give you smoothness comparable to medium format, if not large format. You can use a tripod, compose level, and focus carefully. The tripod will give you all the sharpness you lens/film can deliver and you can optimize the aperture.

Ultimately LF will still have an edge, but you will probably learn a lot and have a better idea whether the LF way of doing thing suits you