Since Mike wrote about half frame cameras a few days ago I thought I'd repost something I wrote in 2017. Along with one of my all time favorite portraits..

 

I often hear that one has no real depth of field control with small sensor photographic files. I'm not sure that's right..   

It was a typical Sunday morning back in the film days. B. and I headed down to West Sixth St. to have brunch at 

Sweetish Hill Restaurant. We sat on their lovely patio under a translucent awning and waited for our waiter to bring 

over the most addictive coffee I have ever known.

As has been my habit for well over thirty years I had a small camera dangling off my left shoulder, just in case I saw 

something that wanted to be photographed. I was running an advertising agency back then so there were no external 

constraints on which cameras I carried. On that day it was a small, black Olympus Pen FT half frame camera, loaded 

with Ilford FP4 film and sporting a smart little 40mm f1.4 lens. The same one I own and use now.

I liked the way the light came through the awning so I pulled my camera up, adjusted the exposure from experience 

(the meter in the camera had long been non-functional) and shot two or three frames at f2.0.

The dim finder of that camera (ancient even back then) coupled with the greater depth of field of the frame area meant

that focusing was at it's best with the lens wide open, or nearly so.

I have printed this image onto 11x14 inch paper many, many times in an attempt to get it just right. This is a copy image 

of a fiber based print that I made sometime in the 1990's. The FP4 film contributes to the higher contrast of the photograph 

but at the same time it keeps film grain (analog noise?) to a minimum.

The film frame is hardly any bigger than today's micro four/thirds sensors but the lens does a good job carving out 

lots of detail while delivering good contrast.

To my eye the background areas are well out of focus and have a pleasing out of focus characteristic to them.

I couldn't have gotten a "better" image with any other camera. I might have gotten a different image; a sharper image, 

a more detailed image, an image with more dynamic range, etc. but this is the image I ended up with and have come 

to love over the years. As long as my subject matter is highly captivating to me no other metric or feature of 

photography matters.

The Pen F series of film, half-frame cameras of the late 1960's and 1970's were the precursors to a whole niche of 

current cameras. They are no less valid now than the Pen FT was to me back in the 1980's.

I never made a habit of dragging around a Hasselblad or motorized Nikon f4 when we were heading out to have a 

nice meal, just as I would never take a cellphone into a nice (or any) restaurant today. A small and sleek camera is

acceptable, a giant, noisy power tool is out of place. And a ringing phone or a loud and loutish conversation is never 

welcome.

I love small cameras with big capabilities. Thinking about Sony RX100's today.... Nostalgia or practicality?

Original link: https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2017/12/i-often-hear-that-one-has-no-real-depth.html

There are many articles about the half frame Olympus cameras on the blog and there is a search box 

with which to find them....

Here's a favorite about a half frame lens: 

https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2022/05/re-visiting-equally-ancient-olympus-pen.html