Advantages of 35mm over MF/LF

[TheFlyingCamera]

Well, maybe at the cash register I'd be ok with someone mistaking my work for a Gursky or a Wall or a Crewdson, just so long as they didn't realize their error until the return privilege expired.

[PentaxBronica]

one problem is that people are too busy
trying to copy other people's style instead of
using a camera, any camera, and finding their own style.

i certainly couldn't care less about someone else's tripod holes
or techniques or gear to make images " just like them "
it isn't the equipment that makes the images, its the thing under the hood.

and forums and online communities don't help much.

its kind of laughable ...

Much the same reaction as I have when someone says they did a photography course at school. They often come out with some very odd ideas about exposure settings and with a style which is pretty much the same as the teacher's.

I'd like to think that I could get a reasonable image from a field camera, but it definitely wouldn't suit my style. As an example, I was in one of my favoured locations yesterday. It involves a roughly half mile walk from the car to a dam with a couple of hydroelectric power plants at the base (the whole lot built in the 1890s-1900s so the architecture is worth a good long look, you notice more details every time you go). Ok with a Bronica ETRSi and 50mm lens on the shoulder strap and a tripod over my other shoulder, but there's no way you could have set the field camera up in the middle of the stone bridge just below the dam to get a shot of the looming stone monster, or moved in seconds when someone else wanted to cross it!

[cliveh]

The following is a post by Mark from the thread - Advantages of MF over 35mm -

A medium camera will communicate to the opposite sex a level of confidence in your abilities that could never be gotten with a 35mm, no matter how long and wide the lens is. So if you are looking to pick up chicks or land a guy the MF camera will do better than a 35mm.

LF is the REAL chick magnet.

I think not.

[baachitraka]

why not?

[cliveh]

why not?

I think from the 60's onwards the statistics of use re 35mm/MF in fashion photography will show this not to be the case.

[Dave in Kansas]

I'm not so sure about that. I was in Colorado in about 1985 and had my new 4 x 5 field camera set up in a ghost town. A young guy and his attractive girlfriend rode by on their mountain bikes and we talked a bit. They couldn't resist looking at and feeling my camera. I sometimes think if the guy had not been there she may have followed me home.

Dave

[cliveh]

I'm not so sure about that. I was in Colorado in about 1985 and had my new 4 x 5 field camera set up in a ghost town. A young guy and his attractive girlfriend rode by on their mountain bikes and we talked a bit. They couldn't resist looking at and feeling my camera. I sometimes think if the guy had not been there she may have followed me home.

Dave

You or your camera?

[Dave in Kansas]

They were fondling my camera.

[cliveh]

They were fondling my camera.

Then I think you had a lucky escape.

[Diapositivo]

The following is a post by Mark from the thread - Advantages of MF over 35mm -

A medium camera will communicate to the opposite sex a level of confidence in your abilities that could never be gotten with a 35mm, no matter how long and wide the lens is. So if you are looking to pick up chicks or land a guy the MF camera will do better than a 35mm.

LF is the REAL chick magnet.

I think not.

I think probably Mark was making a pun saying "Bigger is better"... no matter how long and wide the lens is... small format... large format... that stuff.
Maybe I'm pervy...