Rivaling large format?

Having never owned an analog camera, I cannot really compare. My only advice would be to contact your local vendor to see if you can try before you buy. High-end stuff doesnā€™t come cheap.

My answer hasnā€™t changed since @okieman asked last February: Does new-camera tech 'rival' old-camera tech?

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Stitching multiple images together would work too, at least for static scenes.

Donā€™t think there is a true medium format yet. There are digital backs though. All definitely outside of my budget! :sweat_smile:

Fuji has four medium format digital bodies on the market.

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Could have bigger sensors. Getting there I guess.

Not clear what you mean, but theyā€™re literally already on the market: Fujifilm Medium Format Film & Digital Cameras - Buy at Adorama

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Plus Hasselblad, Leica, Pentax, PhaseOneā€¦

More info here

I told myself I had mapped out a new question. But perhaps the two are mostly the same?

From what little I have stumbled across, this has been done with a slightly longer lens such as 90mm? And somewhere there is a specialized tripod that facilitates the multiple exposures?

Yes, I would call the Hasselblad H6D-100C and Phase One industrial cameras medium format. Some would coin them as ā€œfull frame mediumā€ format. I left them out because they arenā€™t something that people would buy. Fuji and Pentax are much more reasonably priced, though their price tags arenā€™t easy either. :sweat_smile:

In recent memory, I Googled Hasselblad prices. I saw a medium-format body for $40,000. These are fine cameras, but I have some skepticism about the price. In the 1980s, I saw Hasselblad marketing material that bragged about camera parts being polished in a machine using organic rice, or some such silliness. However, the market has tolerated this.

Marketing toward the 1% is inscrutable, but hey, organic rice is better than any cafeteria food I know! :wink:

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Yea, Iā€™ve taken pictures taken on equipment polished with that crappy GMOā€™d rice, and they just donā€™t taste the sameā€¦ :slight_smile:

At least for me the most noticeable difference is the look of the images due to the larger image surface, and the Fuji ā€œmedium formatā€ sensors donā€™t even get close to a 6x6 medium format negativeā€¦

The main point is to get the imagefield of a shorter lense eg. 50mm fullframe equivalent while having the compression dynamics of an 80mm lense. Replicating this with a smaller sensor is possible but really cumbersome, e.g. you need to take a series of detail shots and stitch it afterwards.

Of course this is even more difficult when comparing to large formatā€¦

What he means is that those are ā€œpseudo-medium-formatā€ cameras with a sensor somewhat larger than FF, but not anywhere close to traditional MF.

Nearly all MF film cameras use 120 format film, meaning roughly 60mm for at least one image dimension.

Fujiā€™s sensor is 43.8mm in its largest dimension. So pseudo-MF and significantly smaller than even 645.

There are also Mamiya medium format cameras. They were always attractive to me (as in, interested in their capabilities), but other than that, I donā€™t know much about them. They are from a Japanese company that has been in camera equipment since 1940.

I think the PhaseOne cameras almost reach the 645 size with 53.4 mm in the longest dimension. But of course you can buy a house for the price of that cameraā€¦

Yup. Phase One is very close to true MF (the 60mm was nominal, in many cases actual usable image area was around 54-55mm, so P1 is pretty much right there), but as you point out, $$$$$$$.

Similarly the Pentax 645D wasnā€™t really 645 - it was heavily cropped. Fuji and Pentax MF digital is to MF film what APS-C is to full frame film.

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Not wishing to fan any flames here, but I think it largely depends on the print size you are working towards. Iā€™ve been shooting for well over 50 years on film gear ranging from 35mm to 8x10, and now shoot m4/3. I have many prints in my house ranging in size up to 24x24". The m4/3 pretty much hold itā€™s own, dependent on the light levels when shot. I just replaced a 24"sq print from a Rollie 2002 6x6, Zeiss glass shot on a tripod with a cable release and printed with a $60K durst enlarger, with a 24"sq cropped handheld m/43 image. The m4/3 was printed at a commercial lab on Lamda gear, and it looked sharper and clearer then the optical print from the 90ā€™s.

I think that too much attention is paid by photographers to the (theoretical) performance of their gear, and not enough to the aesthetics and content of their images. Just the rantings of an old manā€¦

Iā€™d also say that unless you shoot at least 200 images a week, and edit and process the best of them, youā€™re missing the opportunity to improve the most important equipment you own, which is your brain. Practice is very important.

I do have to add that Iā€™ve been reprocessing and reprinting images in darktable that had originally been done in PS/LR, and the software has made a a big improvement in the final results.

Happy shooting!

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A M4/3 is already fancier than my camera. Such a camera is much more versatile than the digital medium format camera, one that you wouldnā€™t need to bubble wrap and place in a safe. :stuck_out_tongue: The bigger question to the title Rivalling large format? is, How so?

The tools and software donā€™t make a photographer but a quality photographer would definitely be able to do more with quality gear.