Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/03/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Mark, > > Are you admitting to, in the past, using one of your despised "cropped > sensors" in your Hassie, albeit film? > > If so, why do you hate 4/3s digital versions of the same approach? This > inquiring mind wants to know. ;-) > > Jim Nichols > Tullahoma, TN USA Now when you shoot medium format digital of any kind there is no such thing as not cropped. But why crop in the days of film? The A16 back slices your film into 16 portions not twelve. If you have 16 hungry pix to take than that is real nice. Plus it is possible to get sick of squares on odd days. Its the A16S superslide back which gets raised eyebrows and I've only had them in the very last years of film in the end of the 90's. 1. its great to get short tele results from a compact 80 or 100 lens. And a short tele is my bread and butter for portraits and fashion. A Hasselblad is a handy camera you can hang off your neck all day as long as you don't put big stuff on it. 2. you see around with frame when you are shooting like a Leica non SLR. A 150 or 180 turns your camera into a bit of a monster otherwise so you don't need to do that. 3. the results you get with Hassy 6x6 is way overkill anyway I did make at least one fiber darkroom full frame black border print from the superslide 4x4 format of a model in Sauvies island and nobody thought it looked funny or lacking and it was in a stack with all the rest of my prints. The V you get from the back border if its a Hasselblad appears deeper that's the only giveaway. 4. you get 16 on a roll instead of 12. That means after shooting 8 shots you get another 8. Not just 4. So no panic. Believe it or not that's the way I think when I'm out shooting with it when I don't have another loaded up back.. I bet I'm not the only one. 5. I printed full frame black border in the darkroom with most my shots. The clear edge on the end of medium format film is very thin. Say 4 mils. When you file out your neg carrier its got precious little to grab onto your film. Its hard to manage. It can slip and flop around. So when you shoot 4x4cm instead of a nominal 6x6 you get some room on the sides for the neg carrier to grab your film. Its much easier to deal with in the darkroom. You can use a piece of tape if you want to to make sure its in there securely. So it really doest feel like a waste at all of silver going down your drain. Becaue it isn't. Its like the space you get with 35mm film but no sprocket holes. 6. no one I've ever met has done it. I like that. I like anything to give my shots a look so it doesn't feel like everybody else's. As I'm taking a bit of a different approach they cant quite put their fingers on. A rare film or developer or camrea is nice but a rare format you don't run into all that often. 4x4. You like it. It likes you. 7. my very first pictures I ever took in my life when I was ten years old and which I of course have not surpassed since were done with a Brownie Starlet which took 4x4cm 127 film. Would shooting 4x4 again bring my MOJO back? 8. its great practice for when I start shooting digital with my Hasselblads. 9. you can project your slide film with a normal slide projector totally blowing any 24x36 stuff right of the screen. The light bouncing off the screen lights up the audence. They think its 70mm. They think its Tod AO. They think its Star Wars. [Rabs] Mark William Rabiner