Why 35mm is Film Photography

A squall over the North Sea. There's a little bit of dramatic licence in the print but not too much. All of the images in this post, except the Mamiya Press shots at the bottom, are scans of prints made on Ilford's MGV resin coated paper. It's very good stuff.

Over the last few years, a strange thing has happened to me. I genuinely think I prefer the look of 35mm prints to those from medium format negatives. That never used to be the case. I previously used 35mm mainly for its portability and versatility and certainly not for its image quality which always seemed to lag behind 120.

Now, I think there's something about a 10x8 print from 35mm that just seems to sum up film photography for me better than any other negative size can manage. Yes, sharpness, grain and tonality may all be superior when working from larger negatives - but so they are, too, when shooting digitally. Let's face it, if the image is what matters then we should all be using digital cameras as, short of 5x4 and larger film formats, that's where the quality now lies.

So 35mm, I'm happy to concede, is very much the poor relation in the quality stakes - and that's really become it's unique selling point. Whilst all larger formats can be mistaken for digital output courtesy of their sharpness, fine grain and smooth tones, the visceral look of 35mm leaves nobody in any doubt that they’re looking at the “real deal”. That position might well change once digital photographers add "grain" to their super smooth pictures but when they head down that road then all bets are off: a photograph can be anything you want it to be.

You've got to love roadworkers with their white paint. I've got a few images based on
 little other than their handiwork.

When I first realised that I preferred the 35mm look I said as much in an email to my pal Phil Rogers. Then, just a few weeks ago, when I was looking at some of Phil's actual prints in my hands - some lovely 6x6 shots first of all and then somewhat more humble Leica pictures taken on HP5 and developed in Rodinal - it really brought it home to me: I definitely liked the 35mm shots more.

I can't say this realisation bothers me much as I'm getting to the stage where big, hulking 120 outfits are too much hassle to lug around anyway but it's good to know that my decision to stick mainly with 35mm wasn't based solely on light-weight functionality.

It was a challenge capturing this gentle autumn day in a print. The temptation was to print it with more contrast. It's one of those shots that will always be more significant to me than anyone else as it rekindles my feelings around that beautiful day in Perthshire, one of the last drives I took in the countryside with my late mum

Another epiphany I had - probably the most important - was simply that I take better photos with 35mm than with medium format. This was fairly obvious when I was leafing through some negative folders recently. I'd actually misplaced them and it must have been about a year since I'd last seen them - no great surprise really since they were at the bottom of a box in the shed with stuff piled on top. I really need to get myself sorted out better than that.

Anyway, I started looking through them with a view to setting some of the sheets with interesting negatives aside for perusal and possible printing later on when I had more time. Well, the collection of 35mm candidates started to grow but there was hardly anything amongst the MF negs to catch the eye from a "print me!" point of view.

A very quick grab shot on the Konica Hexar AF. There are four crows in the pic in case you're wondering.

My preference for the smaller format has developed alongside my ability to extract sufficient quality from my own 35mm work. There was a time when I wasn't entirely happy with the results, viewing them as overly grainy and somewhat lacking in sharpness. But as my technique improved and enabled me to make more of the inherent qualities of 35mm, I began to feel more and more comfortable concentrating on the smaller format. It helps that I seldom print bigger than 8x12 inches. At that size, I find 35mm to be very satisfactory. If I were regularly knocking out 16x20 inch prints then it's entirely possible I'd be in the 120 camp.

But there's still plenty of room for me to improve my technique further. I once considered HP5 in Rodinal to be a "no-no" - big grain and a rough look put me off. Then I saw one of Phil's aforementioned 35mm shots - yes, HP5 in Rodinal - and was surprised how nice it looked. There was grain, certainly, but good grain, refined grain. The type of grain that asks, "Got a problem?" 

Phil attributes his Rodinal mastery to a near mystical agitation regime. Science says it's largely bollocks but Phil's results say otherwise so, like Phil, I've added some Rodinal to my darkroom and will get used to very gentle agitation with St Paterson's holy twirling stick. I've dubbed it Mystic Meg Agitation for those Brits who remember the launch of the National Lottery.

Finally, there is, for me, a pleasure from using 35mm equipment that stems in part from it’s long history and the photographers associated with it. Other formats may well stretch much further back in time but my favourite photographers nowadays are mostly from a 35mm background and it’s quite a tradition to uphold in whatever small way I can.

An all-Leica effort. 50mm Summicron lens, Leitz 1C enlarger and Focotar enlarging lens. The band down the right hand side is from a defective shutter which was fixed by a repair man but has since come back. Leicas, in my experience, may be infinitely repairable but, bloody heck, 

they need attention far too often.

I’ve even resurrected the prospect - long-time readers might remember previous mentions on this blog - of using an all-Leica “workflow”, from cameras and lenses to enlargers and the Leitz Focotar enlarging lens. This time it’s going to happen as I've picked up some daily disposable contact lenses so that I can use the M2’s viewfinder the way it’s supposed to be used with my eye right against it and not held back by glasses.

Will the "all-Leica" approach make any real difference? Well, it's unlikely, isn't it? However, there's a certain romance behind the idea that Leitz designed the semi-condenser light source of the 1C and Valoy II enlargers to work with Focotar lenses which, together, found a certain symbiosis with the 50mm rigid Summicron and the 35mm Summaron. Look, there's no point going on at me about science or logic: I've already signed up to Mystic Meg Agitation.

Storm Cloud, West Sands, St Andrews. This pic and the others below were all taken on the Mamiya Universal and 100mm f2.8 Sekor.
The film was Tmax 400 developed in Rodinal at 1:50 with Mystic Meg Agitation (see text)

Kincaple Fishery

Woods, Kemback

I can’t see how it can get more 35mm than that and I’m really looking forward to it. That's not to say that I'll be giving up medium format. I'll still be using 6x9 and 6x6 when I get the urge but the mainstay will be the smaller format.

For some reason, I've never really bonded with the Rolleiflex SL66E outfit I have but I have taken - again - to the Mamiya Press camera. I used a 1960s Press extensively in my late 20s and 30s and I've enjoyed a couple of outings with its successor - a later Mamiya Universal - where I sling it around my neck and pretend I'm Don McCullin for the day. So, 35mm with the occasional foray into the fairly heavy realm of 6x9 photography would appear to be the way ahead for me.