Re: Medium Format

[P3D Greg Erker <erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Crowell wrote:
>I'd like to hear some discussion of this...how much more expensive is
>medium format to work with?  Are there clever ways to reduce the cost?

  For me the film costs seem to be about twice that of 35mm.
With Kodachrome 25 in my Realist a 36 costs $20 (processing
included) and gives me 29 shots for about 69 cents Canadian each.
In MF I shoot Velvia which costs about $6 plus $7 for developing.
In the Sputnik you get 6 shots which works out to $2.16 CDN each.

  Joel's MF mounts are cheaper than the Albions I use for
Realist slides so the mounted prices approach the ratio of 2
in cost.

  For cameras you can buy a new Lubitel TLR from Samy's for
$39.95 US. So a pair for 80 bucks or just one on a slidebar
for 40.  I have seen shots Joel took with these and they are
decent. They have similar 3 element lenses to those in the
Sputnik so are reasonably decent at f11 and up. Joel did
report a problem with the focusing gears not working between
the taking and viewing lens on one of the cameras. So build
quality is not great, but hey MF stereo for only $80.

  If you are near sighted you don't even need a viewer!
Just take off your glasses and freeview from close up.
My first MF viewer used a pair of glass magnifier lenses
(2.5x) which were okay but naturally suffered from
colour fringing since they weren't achromats (cost was
about $8).

  My present viewer has a pair of Edmund experimenter
grade achromats which cost $35 each.

  So if you are handy you can get into MF for under
$200 for camera and (build your own) viewer. Film and
processing costs will be higher than 35 mm but you are
getting more image area.

Regards - Greg E. (uses a pair of Ricohflex's that cost
about $100 US total)




------------------------------