Speculation: Hasselblad H lenses or Contax 645 Lenses on S 007

[John McMaster]

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Depends on subject, you would get sharpness but doubt the same tonality as LF...

john

 

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[BernardC]

4 hours ago, John McMaster said:

Depends on subject, you would get sharpness but doubt the same tonality as LF...

You could get medium format or large format tonality out of Tech Pan, but it was extremely difficult. The film was inherently high contrast, so it was hard to "pull" it to N or N- contrast (in Zone System terms). You ended-up with under-developed negs that were very prone to unevenness. Under-development also meant shooting at single-digit ASA values.

You also needed to shoot very carefully, with a good tripod, at optimal apertures: 4.0 to 8.0. The same level of care was required in printing; immaculate dust control, the best enlargers and enlarging lenses, and perfect alignment.

After all that, the best you could hope for was a print that wasn't any sharper than what could be achieved with medium format and Pan-X. Or 4x5 and Plus-X.

I could say that it "wasn't worth the effort," but it was fun to play with, and it instilled a level of technical discipline that enhanced other aspects of your photography. It certainly made me less sloppy in the darkroom, which led to consistent negs.

[John McMaster]

I was happy shooting medium format rather than 35mm

john

[Stuart Richardson]

Yeah, I also tried tech pan back in the day and found that it was not as enjoyable or as practical as just shooting medium format. But Lewis Baltz was fantastic, and the photos look great, so I am not going to argue! I did stop shooting 4x5 for awhile because I found the results with the Mamiya 7II were nearly as good, at least with the imacon scanners. These days, however, I believe there is no substitute for film area. 4x5 and 8x10 just look so lovely and there is an ease to their image quality...precisely the opposite of something like techpan. While the process of shooting and developing/printing/scanning large format might be demanding, the low enlargement ratios make it very forgiving in terms of films and lenses. A 40x50 inch print from 8x10 is only a 5x enlargement, which is something like a 4x6 from 35mm. With such a low reproduction ratio, film grain is essentially invisible and the tonality and sharpness are sublime. You can get great results from something like a 50-150mp digital back, but the whole imaging chain is being stressed a lot more, and there seems to be some way in which it is visible...

[davidmknoble]

Interesting discussion.  I started in 35, went to the S and back to R 35mm because I loved the R8/R9 system and then picked up in the last 4 months, the Hasselblad 500 c/m system with some CF lenses. I love the 6x6 format and started using the S with the square crop just to keep training my eye.  I love the tonality of the S / 120mm film.  The monochrom seems like the best 35mm in terms of tonality for smaller format, but the enlarging is just more fun in terms of keeping more of the image quality. 

Nice discussion to read…

David.

[Milan_S]

S lenses are way better compared to the Contax and Hasselblad lenses but there are two Contax lenses which are very much worthwhile the 80mm f2 (because of it's look) and the 120mm macro which does 1:1