Half-Frame (and Other Half-Baked Thoughts About New Film Cameras)

I think it's great that my readers schooled me about half-frame after I put it down the other day, citing people who used it and books made with it, and even W. Eugene Smith appearing in ads for it.

Y'all rock.

You have to remember I used to be a custom darkroom printer. One of the constant battles custom printers had to wage was educating clients as to how large their prints could be. Imagine someone coming in wanting a tiny little section of a 35mm negative made into a 20x24-inch print, and you can see the nightmare. I don't believe I was ever hired to print large prints from half-frame negatives, but I know I wouldn't have liked it.

Furthermore, I don't agree that liking APS-C or Micro 4/3 ought to translate to liking half-frame. Consider that prior to 2000, six megapixels was considered the magic number at which digital sensors would draw even with 35mm film. (The parity was approximate, but will do for comparison purposes). Compare that with modern APS-C cameras with 24 megapixels or current Micro 4/3 cameras with 20 MP. Both have much more information than half of a 35mm negative, especially if you're using fast film, which you probably would be.

I'm sure some people will do good work with them.

I do agree that Pentax is approaching the problem of new film cameras in an enlightened way. I only hope the products don't fall victim to the "novelty" syndrome that sports cars seem to: that is, lots of pre-release enthusiasm, a surge of sales when they're new and just released, diminishing into lack of interest within a pretty predictable, and pretty short, span of time. I hope that won't be the case. Long live film! Long live photography!

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Simon: "I can understand the appeal of half-frame for young people. My daughter is now 20 and she and some of her friends are enamoured with lo-fi film photography and the novelty of instant and film-based images and prints. Lens sharpness and big prints are not what she and her contemporaries care for; they like the imperfections, the fuzzy corners and skewed 'retro'-style colour palette. I'm sure Harman's new Phoenix film is aimed squarely at people looking for those qualities. I told her it would be a lot cheaper and far easier to use an Instagram filter to get the same kind of result. But I'm also a little pleased that their generation are helping to keep 35mm film sales alive."

Stephen S.: "When film was all their was, medium format was desirable because it was less grainy than 35mm. Now, if you want an image without grain, digital does that perfectly. One of the reasons people enjoy shooting film these days is because of the grain, and the imperfection. For many, 35mm is more desirable than medium format, because medium format looks too perfect—too digital. Therefore, half-frame will actually give them more of what they want from film, in comparison to digital!"

Mike replies: A similar thing happened in furniture-making, as explained by Prof. David Pye in The Nature and Art of Workmanship, one of my favorite books. Prior to machining, a high degree of perfection in finish was prized. But as soon as machines could create a high degree of regularity and perfection of finish, roughness (such as tool marks), the imperfections of the materials, and the telltales of manufacture by hand started to be valued increasingly highly.

Kye Wood: "I have no dog in this fight, so having used half-frame Olympus Pen or Trip or whatever it was for a number of years...half-frame is crap. And trust me, I'm being kind. Yes yes yes. Someone over there did this or that with it and blah blah. Just like you can make a billboard print from an iPhone. But...given a choice, why would you? As soon as I found out about the half-frame decision, I lost all interest. Unless Pentax can change the laws of physics, it's going to be a dog.

"I'm hoping that as Pentax is not a person who posts here, and that my lack of grace and circumspection will not preclude my post from being considered acceptable.  :-) "

Comments

[Terry Letton]

It’s a different world now matey. Scan that negative,let software have its way with it and who knows how big you can print it.
I have an example, I bought a used Leica IIIf in 1970. Threw a roll of film in it and wandered around looking for things to shoot. All hand held with an unfamiliar camera. Had the film developed and put the results away and never looked at them again for many years. Then I bought a fairly high end film scanner. Just to see what my new toy was capable of I ended up pulling those very negatives out of the box where they had been stored and scanning one frame at the maximum res the new toy said it was capable of. I took the resulting file to a friend who was the a professional photographer with a 24” Epson printer and poof instant 24”-36” print. I never could have approached that size in a conventional darkroom and who knows how big it could be with modern resizing algorithms

[Greg Heins]

If I'm not mistaken, Gene Smith did a certain amount of work with half-frame and might even have appeared in Olympus adverts.

[Stephen S.]

When film was all there was, medium format was desirable because it was less grainy than 35mm. Now, if you want an image without grain, digital does that perfectly. One of the reasons people enjoy shooting film these days is because of the grain, and the imperfection. For many, 35mm is more desirable than medium format, because medium format looks too perfect - too digital. Therefore, half-frame will actually give them more of what they want from film, in comparison to digital!

[Daniel]

Are Cell Phones the new "half frame" for many?

[Joseph Kashi]

Whether half-frame would be adequate depends, I believe, upon whether one intends to actually print film negatives.

Half-frame can probably be used to print a satisfactory 8x10 exhibition-grade fine art print but I suspect that most photographers would nheed full-frame negatives to make exhibition-grade 11x14 prints with proper tonal gradation.

There have been many incredibly compact full-frame film cameras over the years from Rollei, Olympus, and Pentax/Rioch, so I don't really understand the rationale for making a new film camera a half-frame format.

[Thomas Mc Cann]

My first camera at age 16 used 120 film for a 2 1/ x 2 1/4 negative. My sisters cameras all used 620 film for 2 1/4 X 3 1/4 negative. Standard prints from chemists shops were contact. I envied them their larger negatives.
I got seduced into buying a 1/2 frame camera when I was 20 years old (60 years ago). Transparencies were minute to my eyes. I loathed the camera and switched to full frame and started developing and printing myself.
Later I had a Nikon dslr and switched to a Sony full frame. I became disenchanted with that as the camere bag was as big and heavy as ever even if the body was smaller.
I now use a Panasonic G9 micro 4/3 with which I am very content. 'C'est la vie'

[Malcolm Myers]

As a definite film fan I think the bubble may have burst. The renaissance of the last few was largely driven by low prices. You could get high-spec film cameras that cost hundreds in the 1980’s and 90’s for cents on the dollar (or pennies on the pound) as people offloaded their film gear to go digital. I have loads of film cameras now, most of which I got for easy money. Film was also relatively cheap and so the bubble grew. There were also loads of podcasts and online communities to make you realise you weren’t the only retro person out there. Problem is they are very thinly spread out. I know film photographers across the world, but I don’t know any in my own city. That’s a very low potential customer density.

Also, things have changed. I (and presumably most other people in middle-age like me) have satisfied their need for cameras. I now have so many that I simply don’t use them very often. Film has increased in price and the podcasts are running out of steam because it’s all been said now. My children are now growing up and I don’t need to take as many pictures of them, nor do they want me to (I’m only really interested in portrait photography). And the camera in my iPhone is so very good and so very convenient and so very free!

I hope that Pentax make a success of their camera but, unless young people buy into it, then I think that ship may have sailed.

[Robert Roaldi]

From what I hear, the Pentax K-3 based Monochrome is selling very well. What if they put a full-frame B&W sensor into a body the size of an MX or LX and release it alongside a new film body of similar size. They need not be weather-sealed like the K-3, not the first models anyway. How many of the old K-mount lenses in people's drawers are weather sealed anyway? Monochrome and film may be niche markets but that doesn't mean they can't be profitable for Pentax, especially if no other manufacturers jump on the bandwagon.

[Luke]

Yes, we rock, when you slap us out of our apathy.

Thank you for that.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

” I only hope the products don't fall victim to the "novelty" syndrome …”

I’m afraid it’s virtually inevitable for any film camera product today, Mike. Despite all the “film craze” heat on the Internet film ain’t coming back to anywhere near the levels that would break it out of “niche” as a photo medium. I still salute Ricoh for abetting this craving, but it’s not a bellwether action by any means. Film can only be, at most, a niche in imaging today.

[True that. I was mostly talking about the shape of the demand curve. Many books, for instance, have a low but constant demand, so books that are quite cheap when they're still in print gradually rise in price after they're no longer available; they weren't popular, but that slow, steady demand keeps on coming, putting upward pressure on prices as the supply dries up. The sports car curve is different--sell well on introduction and in the first year while it's the hot new thing, tapering off quickly (for sports cars the window is thought to be about five years) until they're not moving enough to justify themselves. I don't know how it will be with new film cameras. It could be that there's a low demand that will stay constant, or it could be more like the flash in the pan that peters out. I suppose a low, constant demand would be best for the manufacturer that takes on the niche, but it's not something I know about. --Mike]

[gary bliss]

Mike --

A spot on comment on frame size -- in any medium -- and information capture. There is another implicit point: our collective appetite for resolution has surged in your (and my) adulthood. Making a reasonably satisfactory 11x14 from an uncropped 35mm color film frame was an adequate goal forty years ago, but beyond that 16x20 was the absolute outer envelope.

These days we can get that from a cell phone but, again, no more from that tiny sensor. I have four lovely 20x30s on my living room wall: two full frame, one APSC, one m4/3. All are quite fine . . . and i cannot recall how i might have cropped them.

This appetite for large images (and implicitly resolution) is partly driven, one suspects, in the consumer mind from video (and cheap digital storage). We are used to six-foot diagonal video displays that look crisp (all glorious 8mp on a 4k screen).

But half-frame film very definitely would be disappointing to the modern consumer, while m4/3 is capable -- as I believe that Ctein will attest -- of quite satisfactory prints to reasonable sizes. And, sigh, i have a lovely FM3A (and a shelf full of AIS primes) that I haven't picked up in 15 years due to the hassle of getting an excellent print from film.

Yet I cannot seem to sell the body either . . .

-- gary ray

[Kenneth Tanaka]

BTW, Watching "Bill Cunningham: New York" (for the umpteenth time)I was just reminded that his first camera was an Olympus Pen gifted to him by photographer David Montgomery. According to Cunningham, Montgomery told him to just use it as he would a "pen" to take visual notes.

--
* The late Bill Cunningham was a fabulous style and fashion photographer for the New York Times for over 40 years. I think many TOP readers will find the doc from 2010 worth a watch! Cunningham died in 2016.

[s.wolters]

Soon available: pre-scratched dusty 35mm film.

[David Cope]

Modern digital sensors in 20-25Mpx range all fall within a narrow peak of the bell curve in terms of “enlarge ability”. Film, on the other hand, is spread further across the distribution due to different characteristics-more variables in terms of resolution and grain.

The answer to half frame, for me, may be 20 ASA Adox CMS II and AdoTech developer. It’s a combination I have been thinking about for a while in conjunction with a Pen F and it’s low inertia shutter. I may wait until more is known about the Pentax.

[Bob G.]

I use several cameras of film and digital of various formats and technological mileposts in the photographic timeline. I like to experiment with images, whether intentional, or not, using the camera at hand at that moment, for its understood capabilities. That being said, I have used half frame knowing what its limitations and possibilities are. If I had only one camera, I would be more sensitive to what it lacks, and accept it for what it is, moving on if I needed something better. They’re fun tools, and no tool is perfect.

And by the way, I used to make billboards from small files all the time, with the accepted resolution being 30-50dpi, but sometimes slightly higher. One doesn’t see them close up, and even then, usually at high speed. Want to see what your billboard would look like? Make it the same size as the average 2 or 3” web banner on your computer. Same thing with prints… you print for the conditions, distance, lighting, etc. for the best perception of your message.

[Dennis Ng]

No one interested in my 907x or Z9, ... whatever lens I attach to it (and not even 28-400 odd balls). But my successful camera is a Fuji Evo camera-cum-printer-with-SD-card. From 80+ granny to 8+ kit, all good.

Hence, the argument with 1/2 frame, full frame, ... is nothing in this generation. That does not mean we should not past around silver or pre-silver processing. Just there is a starting point, a gateway drug in nasty speak. ... That does not meant I will get that though. Not of my age group.

BTW, I wonder whether the civil war will start the Nikon FE2 camera. For Americans, there might be more to it. For me, it is just the camera (and OMG will she run out of films during the watching). And the bit about Hong Kong.