Size Used To Matter; Part I

35mm Nikon FE2 on the left and the 6X7 Pentax on the right (click to enlarge)
The Nikon has a 35mm f/2 AF-D lens attached and the Pentax has a 55mm f/4 lens attached.  The 55mm f/4 lens
roughly tranlates to a 28mm lens in 35mm terms.

Back in the film days....  Oh no, here we go again...  Bear with me.  This will be short and sweet.

Right at 1 lb. weight for the Nikon versus about 6 lbs. for the Pentax. (click to enlarge)

Back in the film days, photographic quality was dictated by the recording medium—film, just as it is today, to a lesser extent, with digital sensors.  The more film surface you have to capture those photons, the better quality your silver halide prints would be.  Kind of sounds like the sensor arguments we hear today.  The larger the sensor the better the quality.  I won't go into film emulsion formulations for brevity's sake.

For example, here is a size comparison between two popular film formats of yesteryear.  The Nikon FE2 is a 35mm film camera and the Pentax 6X7 is a medium format camera.  Medium format was sort of a generic term that could represent multiple formats of 120/220 film, as well as small sheet film, all larger than 35mm but smaller than 4" X 5" or 5" X 4" for those of you on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean.  

In the case of the Pentax 6X7 (6 cm X 7 cm* or 2 1/4" X 2 3/4" frame size), the image area was about 4X the size of a 35mm frame (24mm X 36mm).  Not exactly but close.  This sounds similar to the difference between a full frame digital camera and a micro4/3 digital camera, again, about 3X the difference in area.  

I was never quite satisfied with the quality I attained with 35mm cameras.  For shooting slides, 35mm was the norm and that quality was okay, but for negatives and prints, the resolution, sharpness, smoothness of tonalities, lack of grain and color reproduction never quite rose to the level of my liking.  Because of that, I started experimenting with medium format cameras as a compromise between my 4" X 5" camera and a 35mm camera.  I started with a Mamiya C330F, which produced 6cm X 6cm negatives, them moved to 6X7 because I liked the rectangular format, close to that of an 8" X 10" print.  I liked my Pentax cameras enough that I carried one along with 4 lenses, all over the country for more than 25 years.  Talk about bulk and weight!  Huge and heavy.  Did I mention cumbersome?

I am thankful now we don't have this huge size and weight difference as the latest mirrorless full frame digital cameras are about the same size as APS-C and micro4/3 digital cameras.  Even lens design is changing and full frame lenses are slightly shrinking due to new formulations and weight reduction is being met with new materials.  Look at the new Canon R 70-200mm f/2.8 lens they are introducing.  It looks about 2/3 the size of the their previous iterations.  Much smaller than we've known in the past.

We don't have to deal with these size and weight difference any longer.  That is a good thing as to carry around my 20+ lbs. of medium format gear was a real commitment to photography and a real commitment to quality.  Would I do it today?  No way.  I'll stick with my small, lightweight and very high quality Fujifilm and Olympus gear.

In today's digital world, size doesn't matter much any more.  Technology is the great equalizer.

In the next post, I'll give you an idea of the differences in the latest micro4/3, APS-C and full frame digital cameras.

*actual size of image area was 56mm X 70mm or 3920 sq. mm.

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Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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