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Legs.

Having shot extensively with oue 645Z over the last few months, I’ve developed a new hypothesis: the format – i.e. the physical size of the recording medium – matters to the output, but not in the way that we’d expect. Naturally, we assume that the larger the sensor or film, the higher the image quality. Since so much of that is both subjective and perceptual and thus affects the final impact of the image, perhaps it’s important to understand exactly what’s going on.

All things being equal, yes, larger formats do deliver better image quality than smaller ones. However, what isn’t equal is two things: firstly, technology for say medium format digital has only recently caught up with FX and smaller in high ISO performance, dynamic range etc.; large format really has no options other than scanning backs. They’re no easier to use than film – and perhaps in some ways, significantly more inconvenient. I don’t remember having to carry a laptop, power source and SCSI cables with my Arca Swiss. Even the few visual hallmarks that make larger formats more obvious – depth of field, both amount and transition between in and out of focus areas; colour rendition, projection at the edges vs. the field of view* and perhaps dynamic range as a consequence of larger photosites – can be quickly negated if the presentation medium doesn’t adequately represent them.

*Wides on larger formats have the same horizontal field of view as on smaller ones, but simply don’t look as ‘wide’ because of the relatively reduced geometric distortion at the edges.

I am certain that there are a lot of styles that work independent of format – typically those that don’t rely on extreme angles or depth of field control – and as a result, up to a given size, you can’t really tell the difference easily. Viewer psychology, however, is a significantly different matter and saying something was shot with an iPhone or a Hasselblad or on large format will unfortunately affect the reception of the image, regardless of the composition or whether the technical quality produced actually justified the equipment or not. One sees this online typically as people complaining that MF images look ‘flat’ or ‘boring’ – unfortunately popular trends mean that turning post processing up to 11 is the norm – the simple reality is that the vast majority of screens are incapable of displaying the necessary subtlety in tone and resolution, and especially not at web sizes. I think images should be presented independently of the technical portion wherever possible for this reason: I want my audience to look at the image and the composition and idea, not pixel peep – that’s part of the job of the photographer.

We also need to be highly conscious of the psychological effect that the camera/ format has on us, as the creator of the work; though you might think nothing of using an iPhone to document social occasions or meals, there’s no way somebody would casually handhold an 8×10″ with flash even if film were free and they didn’t have to carry it for the rest of the evening. Why? Bigger is better, of course. I’ve seen this a lot in the reactions of my students and friends after handling my 645Z: there is definitely a perceived level of seriousness to the camera that doesn’t seem to exist with other hardware, regardless of cost. Similarly, I’ve seen very few people employ any shot discipline whatsoever when using an iPhone, but they express surprise at the results I produce – all I do is use the same level of care as I would with a larger device.

This is the crux of the matter: the format makes us as photographers act differently. The larger/ heavier/ more expensive the equipment, the more people tend to run towards caution and formalism; you bother with a tripod and stopping down and using flashes etc. The smaller, more ‘casual’ formats are perceived as being better for experimentation and lacking in seriousness; people just tend to be more careful with larger ones. I rarely see medium format street photography, for instance. I don’t even think it’s a cost thing –

a Leica M240 is about the same price as the 645Z, and I see far more of the former being casually toted around. Of course, weight might have something to do with it – or not, because it doesn’t seem to stop users of large DSLRs, battery grips and f2.8 zooms.

We are somewhat trapped psychologically, and thus creatively, by our preconceptions of what each format should produce. The interesting images come when we use things that are out of place – by which I mean applying serious shot discipline to every device as a matter of course, but at the same time not feeling that only certain formats can be used for certain things. Shooting reportage with medium format, or actually bothering to think about lighting, dynamic range and stability with an iPhone. Breaking convention and pushing boundaries results in different images, and that’s what photography is all about. Sufficiency means that for the most part, the output will be more than enough for most uses anyway. The restrictions created by the different formats force us to be creative and work around them; there will probably be a significant number of failures or experiments that don’t turn out the way we expect, but at the same time, hopefully some encouragement.



Acknowledgement

Personally, I like to mix things up because they help me to see differently: using small formats with infinite depth of field makes you highly conscious of your backgrounds, and thus focuses your attention on subject isolation. In addition, smaller formats tend to have limited dynamic range, which means you are also a lot more aware of the quality of light and metering, and which elements of a scene are shown or hidden as a consequence. Larger formats make you think about tonality, managing depth of field and secondary elements – simply because all angles of view tend to render in a somewhat more compressed manner as the format gets larger. The change in foreground-background relationship as your angle of view changes doesn’t seem to be quite as dramatic as with smaller formats, so you need to be conscious of things that might not otherwise have had quite so much visual prominence. On top of that, we tend to get into larger formats to see improvements in image quality; the further down that path you go, the smaller the diminishing returns and thus the more shot discipline is required to see the difference. That level of shot discipline is helpful for any format – and the difference in image quality can actually be quite significant.

I think bigger also results in better: the reason for this has nothing to do with image quality and is back to psychology again. There’s the shot discipline aspect, which we’ve already discussed; but beyond that, it’s one of effort and the fact that most of us are really quite bound by inertia: the harder we have to work to get a shot, the more thinking we’re going to put into it upfront to make sure that all of that effort isn’t wasted on a dud final product. Though there’s a degree of discipline enforced, one has to be careful not to let it result in limitation of creativity. I think this aspect of pre-curation and pre-visualisation is not at all encouraged with smaller formats; if anything, it’s the opposite: shoot more now, deal with it later. It is certainly many, many times more painful to curate the same number of 80MB DNG files than iPhone jpegs; I’m sure finiteness and restriction play a part there, too: hard drive space might be cheap, but if you’re shooting through a 32GB card in a day (not at all difficult with the 645Z) then you really have to ask yourself how much time you’d prefer to spend curating/ post processing as against making images. Less is more.

That said, there are good reasons to use whichever format – and some things which simply require specific hardware or formats (great depth of field with long lenses, very shallow depth of field with wide ones, tilt shifts, etc.). But it doesn’t mean that we should be restricted by it. In essence, it’s about decoupling the way you see from the gear you shoot – this is tricky, but I think necessary because we don’t want our creative vision to be limited by what we think or expect is possible from a certain format or set of equipment. The two images I’ve chosen to illustrate this article both attempt to do this: the GR (with 21mm converter) is framed and shot like a Hasselblad SWC; the 645Z is shot casually and on the run like the GR. It doesn’t ‘look like x’ – but then again, it wasn’t supposed to. MT

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