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Do you reckon MF has changed you as a photographer And if so in what way

"New" guy chimes in....

I just retired a couple of months ago from over 40 years in photography at several institutions. Before I went to art school, and before that I was a kid interested in making pictures.
I started with folding MF cameras, and graduated to 35mm slrs, then stepped-up to LF and my own Hasselblads. I really love the square format! It has always represented stability and leaves the mind to compose the picture in a neutral space. The ground glass inside the viewfinder was a canvas waiting to be composed and sharpened, it is so contemplative, and it makes me feel like I am creating! The Hasselblad was/is my favorite photographic tool, even in this digital age. I cannot get connected with the 6x4.5 format in the H series, for me it will always be the square.
 
Dinosaur

I've first migrated to medium format in 1999 after going to an art show in Arizona and seeing medium format images go head to head against large reproduction 35mm. I was heading to Easter Island, and that was the tipping point for me to make the leap. I picked up a Mamiya RZ67 as I liked the rectangular format.

How has it changed me? Well, it slowed me down. It forced me to think about all the little details that go into making a photograph. Obviously the first part was the order of operations to set up and physically work the camera, but secondly, because it takes so much just to get the camera set, it forced me to be very critical in what I was photographing.

As such, I take very few photographs, however the ones I take are more often than not, 'keepers'.

The RZ67 also taught me that zoom lenses cannot hold a candle to prime lenses for performance and edge to edge sharpness. The RZ Sekor lenses for Mamiya have excellent optics in that regard.

It forced me to carry more glass, have a bigger backpack and become more laboured and tired after a day of shooting. I have since lugged my camera to every corner of the globe from Patagonia to the Arctic. Asia, to Africa - India to the west Indies. Pros laugh when they see me pull out my big heavy studio camera out of my pack after hiking up a mountainside or wading chest deep thru a creek, but it has been worth it. The image quality I get far outweighs the convenience of digital, for me, at least.

But don't get me started on the film vs digital thing. It won't end nicely...
 
MF and Photography.

My first camera was Canon A-1. and I was iniciated into photography through it. Then the journey started and bought my first Medium format Bronica Sq and Sqa. I became a serious self taught amature. and tried some LF high end Canon and Nikon. and then Leica R system. which dosen't convince
my ability to do better images.

Insted when I started first with my Manual and anlog Leica M6 all my relationship and my ability changed and I felt I was getting into a different spirit of cocept of making images. My intentions of preparation were well planed and could managed to work. I had more time in between focusing composing, framing ,and meatering so I could decide in between to select out of what is best.

At the same time I thought to buy my first Blad as I wanted to see the best quality of lens. thus I became a proud owner of 203fe as it had more controlls of medium format and better resuls of Blad. I felt better and very comfortable on on seeing the world throughh 6x6. I always feel better when I keep my hand on focusing manually and click the shutter and getting my focus attention to the composing as well. And I feel all these eliments are comprised in a good image and believe it should come form the same orientation otherwise there is some thing missing always on a image that is done on a Machinegun genarated vitrtual copy of a visualisd image
 
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