Half can be Enough

[Olypen]

I have an occasional project to photograph courthouses in my home state of Minnesota.  A few weeks ago, I was in Gaylord, the county seat of Sibley County, which has an impressive courthouse and took this photo, here converted to black and white, with a Yashica GSN and Kodak 400 film.



I converted the photo above to b&w because I was getting a color cast on the stone columns.  As I tried to figure out what was going wrong, I remembered that I had taken a similar photo with a Pen half-frame (the original one that came out in 1959) and tracked it down.  Here is that photo (taken on T-Max 400):



The comparison really doesn't prove anything, I guess, considering different times of year, one of the originals is in b&w, the other is in color, etc.  But I was really struck by how well the HF stands up in comparison to the FF version.  I've printed it out at 6x9 and it looks pretty good as a print, too.  I don't think I'll try to do the whole project in HF (though one 36 exp roll and one 12 exp roll would be more than enough for the 87 counties of Minnesota !); but, I guess it could be done.

[jamesmck]

No question which is better, Bill.  Was the b/w from color a simple grayscale conversion, or did you mess with channels, etc.?

James

[Philip]

Ah, my favourite format is half-frame.  It IS half-a-frame so -- all other things being equal -- it'll never be as detailed as full-frame.  But for the right picture, it can be the right format.  Your picture shows that it can be a good choice;  I like the picture's graininess.

HF is my favourite format because I like taking pictures of people, and the portrait orientation that most HF cameras have is ideal.    Kind of circular reasoning, ennit?

[Julio1fer]

Nice comparison. Often, HF is really enough.

Those little Pens are very handy cameras. Thanks for reminding me to use mine more often.

[br1078lum]

Still working on getting my Mercury II back together.  I painted the interior, and have been putting it in the window to bake the volatiles out for the last few days.  Gonna be cloudy tomorrow though.

PF

[Olypen]

Thanks for the comments.

James:  I used a "canned" conversion in PE 6.  I may not have done any service to the negative in that process.
Philip:  Exactly my thoughts, too.  People, trees, plants etc. are pretty vertical. 
Julio:  If I recall, you have posted photos made with one of the later (battery-powered meter) Pen D cameras?  IMO the Pens are all so good it's hard to choose among them; but, the D line is very capable.
PF:  It will be good to see your photos from the Mercury. 

Bill

[LarryD]

Dang it I just loaded a 1/2 frame camera.... The Canon Demi I got from Pete.


Bite by inetjoker, on Flickr

[Murphy]

I think half frame may make a comeback as the price of film goes up. The same with the 645 medium format size.

[br1078lum]

PF:  It will be good to see your photos from the Mercury. 

Bill

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjyFpQWq

PF