Advantages of M/F over 35mm other than bigger enlargements

Depends on what you shoot and how you do your printing. I use both and like both. When I used to scan and print digitally, I never found medium format all that compelling. I used a mid-range 35mm scanner and a high end consumer flatbed for medium format. Now that I've switched over to the wet darkroom entirely, I see a substantial difference. I suspect that I would have seen a similar difference with a dedicated medium format scanner, but I personally prefer the wet darkroom so I never went down that path. I can see a difference even at 8x10 and it is fairly obvious. I'm not even sure I could nail down exactly what the difference is (other than grain).

Are you scanning? Even 645 will stand out from 35mm with a half decent scanner. Less grain with better detail and tonality. My Epson V 700 does a respectable job with MF. Pentax 645's are selling cheap now and are fine cameras.The lenses are also affordable and are of good quality. That or a Mamiya 645 are great deals. You can get a TLR for cheap money but despite their charm and appeal they can be clunky to use and most have a fixed normal lens that can be limiting at times.

As I use both 35mm and MF, my feeling is that if your prints will be 8x10 or smaller, any noticeable difference will be primarily a function of your printing skills. I've seen work over the years in the range of 8x10 prints which blows away 35mm...obviously done by master printers from well composed, exposed and lighted subjects. I've also seen lots of truly outstanding 35mm work printed at 8x10 which rivals MF work. I doubt I could personally print sufficiently well to get discernable differences at 8x10, but certainly others could. If you're not really dedicated to mastering a new format, it seems that as a poor grad student (at this time), you might better spend your time (and money) to mastering the equipment you presently have. Later you can tackle the MF.

Medium format just looks different. Similar angles of view have less depth of field, and this, along with the greater tonality and sharpness can lead the images to have more of a 3D pop than 35mm images. You generally have less depth of field (unless you stop down all the way), the tonality is better, and obviously it is sharper. The most noticeable differences at small sizes are the tonality and the smaller depth of field.

My personal opinion on M/F vs. 35 mm is that the M/F gives me significantly improved results, actually, astonishingly improved results.

I attribute this to the following:

a. I use a tripod with M/F not with 35mm.

b. I use shutter prerelease/mirror lockup with M/F and not with 35mm.

c. I use a cable release with M/F and not with 35mm.

d. The above slows me down a lot with M/F and encourages me to actually compose the picture and think about the exposure things I don't do as well with 35mm.

So you can read this as saying that the astonishing improvement is probably more due to the lousy 35mm photographs I take than to any real skill I have with my M/F camera. I suspect that in most cases I would do just as well with 35mm if I would just treat it like I treat m/f and I suspect I would do just as poorly with m/f if I treated it the way I treat 35mm.

That said, I do like the waist level finder on my m/f. It provides a larger image than the prism finder on my 35mm and when mounted on a tripod gives me the ability to precisely compose my poor photographs. On the other hand I find the waist level finder less well adapted for action shots than the prism finder, possibly because I haven't done enough of them to adapt to the reversed image.

Keep in mind that I don't do large enlargements, I am not a professional, or even a particularly skilled amateur.

There are two major advantages to M/F over 35:

1. M/F equipment is expensive enough that I don't have much money left to waste on other things.

2. M/F equipment is heavy enough and bulky enough that I frequently leave it behind thus saving me a lot of processing time and expense.

The difference in depth of field options/controls is what keeps me from selling my MF gear!

For me the biggest advantage in going from 35mm to 6x7 was in the way it completely changed how I approach photography. It's an entirely different ball game really. It requires a slower more deliberate technique then 35mm or digital. With only 10 shots per roll, I find that I pay more attention and therefore when I press the shutter it's because at that point I really really want to. To do otherwise is to have to sit down and reload another film back every few minutes which I've had to do when I start getting carried away.

This is not to say one cannot blow through several rolls if the situation calls for it. This weekend I was shooting at Santa Monica 3rd St. Promenade which I keep returning to occasionally. At one point I noticed a woman dancing to the music of one of the street performers. I sat down and before I knew it, I had shot the remaining 5 rolls of just her dancing around. I changed lenses from normal to wide and back again and had to keep reloading film after each roll but it was such a amazing experience that when I looked in my bag for another roll and didn't find any I was really disappointed.

So I would say go ahead and pick up a MF camera. Even if you only use one back and lens, I think you will soon wonder why you didn't make this move sooner. Good luck.

With a TLR, the obvious advantage is the HUGE bright focusing screen.

"Is that something that would be apparent at 8x10?" David, try and get to a museum or a gallery to look at an 8x10 print made by contact with an 8x10 neg. The quality will astound you yet it's still an 8x10 print. Although not quite the same as large format cameras, medium format produces 8x10's that sing with a level of grain-free, tonal smoothness and sharpness that will take your image making to a different level from 35mm. Go for the Bronica 6x6 system-lightweight and the PS lenses are excellent. The equipment is so affordable now. I picked up a really clean SQ-A basic system (body, metered prism,back and PS 80mm) for $300! I wish this gear was this cheap when I was coming up ( it was closer to $2K back in the 80's). If you are interested in making a jump in photographic image quality....on a budget.....the question isn't IF you go medium format, the question is WHICH medium format system to buy. IMO, Bronica offers the best bang for the buck...Good luck!..............................Lou