Half frame – you don’t know the half of it.
One of the common complaints you hear about half frame and recently about the new Pentax 17 is that because the image area on the film is smaller than the nominal 36mm image width of most 35mm film cameras the image quality is going to be worse. “Half frame is too grainy” And yes using the same film and an equally good lens you will potentially get an image that can be enlarged further with a camera covering the full 36mm width. However if the intended use of the images is to utilize them on a digital platform or enlarged them up to about 8×10 your not going to get to see much if any difference. Of course if you are the sort of person who hears complaints like this and thinks well hold my beer while I reach into the back of my fridge for some Adox color implosion, have I got some pictures for you.
I think the subject matter suites the film giving a pictorial look to them.
On the flip side shooting a fine grain film like Fuji Across II in the Pentax 17 yields some fantastically detailed images that can be printed quite large. And honestly who doesn’t like a little film grain anyway.
The side be side comparison above was an interesting test. I was able to get a more detailed image into the computer from a darkroom print I made on Ilford Multigrade paper than directly off the negative. Although I could have increased the resolution of the scan 3200 seems to be the limit any higher and you just get a bigger file but not with more detail. The long and the short of it is there is more information in the Pentax 17 negative than I can get out of it with my scanner. While not an optimum set up I also had a go at using my digital camera to import the image. I think there is the potential with a little more care to get an image to rival the print this way.
I didn’t maximize the amount the negative covered in the digital capture, In fact it took up only about half the frame 🙂
