The Digital Video Camera Guy

Medium Format: Do You Need It?

If you’re like many photographers, you’re always looking for the perfect image. In addition to being aesthetically and compositionally flawless, you also crave perfect representation of color, texture, and the finest of details. You want your photos to be as detailed as possible, showing on the subtle colors and sharp edges of your real world subjects. You’re looking for the best possible image.

Medium format photography can help get you this image. Medium format, in contrast to 35mm, uses a much larger film size. By using a larger film area, medium format cameras, such as the famous Hasselblad 500 series can capture significantly more information, and therefore a much sharper, more vibrant image. The large a slide or a negative is, the better image it will give, since the larger area allows for so much more photographic information.

Medium format gear is “professional” gear, meaning the quality is very high. In fact, some of the highest quality optics in the world can be found on the front of medium format cameras. You’re not going to find much cheap, low quality consumer grade glass in the medium format world, though TLR cameras like the Rollei TLRs can be a little cheaper. The best lens makers in the world have made som awesome medium format lenses. Most of these lenses will create images of the highest quality possible.

All these factors add up to give you an amazing quality image that will blow away any 35mm image taken under similar conditions. If you look at a medium format slide (or negative) through a magnifier, you will be amazed at the level of detail you’ll be seeing. It’s hard to describe, but the difference is immediately visible and striking. This is not a small quality improvement that is visible to only an elite few, this is a radical change in the quality of your photos.

Indeed, it is this quality that leads many professionals to deal with the added cost, size, and weight of medium format gear. To be sure, its not the most convenient and affordable of formats. The larger negative requires a larger, more complex camera to deal with. A larger lens is required to focus enough light to expose the medium format film pane. These larger, more complex cameras and lenses are also significantly more expensive than 35mm cameras. For the amatuer, medium format is not ideal. Rather, it is for the professional or advanced photographer who demands the best looking images possible at the cost of portability.

So, should you go out and buy a medium format camera today? Typically not, given the way medium format is so complex. If, however, you demand only the best, medium format is the way to go.