Hobby Revisited

Stopped deer hunting last year and re-found my interest in medium format.  Just bought a very good, near new Yashica Auto TLR, exposure meter, camera strap, and some ISO 400 color print film.  Wife says it about equals one hunting rifle.  Holy Moly have prices gone out of sight since my Yashica 44LM and bulb flash I used in 1962. Been reading all about f stops, speed, depth of field, lens, film, and stuff.  I realize TLR are not the most popular camera type, but Salk was yet to come up with his vaccine when I was 9 months old, so physically I am limited to using a TLR. 

Needless to say I'm no young chicken, I am 81, in reasonably good health, but am eager to learn and relearn photography.  Any help in TLRs, especially, and photography in generally will be greatly appreciated.

My tag here is TLRNut so drop by and say hello please.

Welcome back to film photography!  Photo.net has been revamped recently and I don't know where this subheading, "Medium/Large Format" came from.

I would encourage you to post this exact Topic here: https://www.photo.net/forums/forum/8-medium-format/

It has been around a long time and I am sure you will get some responses.

No Minolta/Sony DSLR and SLR so hears my input using DSLR and old Minolta lens - the 300mm AF f/2.8:

My neighbor across the street asked if I could take a picture of 2 Barred owls in Holly trees in his driveway. I had the 300 f/2.8 with Sony A850 already set up, so I pointed at the owls hiding in the trees. Put it on automatic and it exposed at 1/320 at f2.8 at ASA 200. The resulting images were dark. Only had one with both owls looking at camera. Lightened it in Photo.

24 minutes ago, john_cooper9 said:

I had the 300 f/2.8 with Sony A850 already set up

Nice camera! I have an A900. No 300/2.8 though (well, not in A mount).

You needed to dial in plus 1.5 or so exposure compensation, or spot meter off the owl body, in the backlit situation. But sometimes you just have to "plump" before the subject flies away. I shot a sparrowhawk in my garden, using a 300/2.8 manual focus Nikon on a D7100. No time to fiddle with settings, the results were underexposed, easily corrected:

I had trouble even seeing the owls, let alone able to spot meter. It was getting darker by the minute so I let the camera take over. I should have used my A99II but it is set up for wide angle use with my Minolta lenses: 16,24.28(f/2), 35(f/2).

Sorry, but in what way does a Sony a850 and Minolta lens qualify as Medium/Large format? 

I know this is a recent addition to the DSLR fora, and that whoever restructured the site appears to have no concept of a sensible taxonomy, but let's not make this a dumping ground for random posts.

30 minutes ago, rodeo_joe1 said:

Sorry, but in what way does a Sony a850 and Minolta lens qualify as Medium/Large format? 

To be fair the OP who is fairly new to photo.net, started the thread with an open ended question about TLR's, and seems to want to get involved in discussions about photography in general, hence the A850 post.

7 hours ago, John Seaman said:

To be fair the OP who is fairly new to photo.net, started the thread with an open ended question about TLR's, and seems to want to get involved in discussions about photography in general, hence the A850 post.

But still... it's a random post in a forum where it doesn't belong.  The OP correctly placed his topic here, which is one of now two Film, Medium Format forums.

17 hours ago, Bettendorf said:

The OP correctly placed his topic here, which is one of now two Film, Medium Format forums.

I think the intention of the medium/large format additions here was to provide a specific forum for digital MF/LF, but that's not at all clear. Nor are many of the other categories that have now been moved or created. 

Basically the taxonomy of the whole site needs a rethink and restructuring, but the opportunity for that seems to have been missed and a lot of sticking plasters applied where drastic surgery is needed! 

Could I also politely direct the OP here, where they'll find a more visited, lively and more appropriate forum. 

On 3/1/2023 at 12:54 AM, rodeo_joe1 said:

Sorry, but in what way does a Sony a850 and Minolta lens qualify as Medium/Large format? 

I know this is a recent addition to the DSLR fora, and that whoever restructured the site appears to have no concept of a sensible taxonomy, but let's not make this a dumping ground for random posts.

The small/medium/large format developed over the years as descriptions for film cameras.

I don't know that it makes sense to use the same names for the same size frames in digital photography.

Are we really expecting some day 8 inch by 10 inch silicon sensors?

The cost of making film, not counting packaging, is pretty much proportional to area.

For silicon sensors, cost grows much faster than area, as they increase.

One answer is to use a whole new description system.

We already have DX and FX, so need new descriptors for larger and larger sizes.

I won't try to come up with new names for them, though.

In any case, I do wonder about the discussion of TLRs, which started here.