}Miss Teen Hawaii-World Gabrielle and Jr. Miss Hawaii-World Alanakai

Beauty Headshots of Jennifer Morihara taken with the Bronica 110mm lens on the Canon 5D Mark II (top) and 50D (bottom)

The lenses attach to the adapter, not directly to the camera so there is no coupling involved. The bummer about this is you have to manually stop the lens down for each shot by depressing the depth of field preview lever on the Bronica lens: the lens fires wide open unless this lever is pushed. It is a pain for me because I am actively involved with my models and often use my hands to direct the shot. There were a few series of images where I forgot to hold the lens lever down! The adapter is supposed to work in Manual or Aperture Priority mode. I used it in Manual mode. I have not tried it in Aperture Priority mode so I don't know how it works.

Jennifer Morihara photographed with the Bronica 150mm lens on the Canon 5D Mark II (Top) and 50D (Bottom).
It took a little bit of playing to figure out the proper exposure compensation for the adaptor.

Exposure was another issue to consider: we have placed an adapter between the lens and the camera so we have increased the distance that light has to travel to reach the sensor. Increased distance equals increased fall-off (darn that pesky inverse square law!!!) The old Bronica lenses stop down in 1/2 stop increments rather than the 1/3 stops that many DSLRs default to. My images exposed spot on were a shade dark, but opening up 1/2 stop was too much. A 1/3 stop exposure compensation should do it!

My third concern was focusing! The lenses in my old eyes aren't what they used to be and the idea of going back to manual focus was a little scary. I was pleased to see that I can still focus a lens--so far!

I heard that the adapter would perform better with a cropped sensor camera than a full frame sensor camera. I heard that there might some softening of the image around the edges of the photographs captured with the full frame sensor. I tried three different lenses on two camera bodies--the 50D cropped sensor and the 5D Mark II full frame sensor. The images used throughout this article show the results: I see no difference.

We shifted to the Bronica 50mm lens on the Canon 50D (top) and 5D Mark II (bottom) for some 3/4 fashion images.

The addition of the adapter got me thinking about lenses in general and raised some interesting discussions among my friends. First of all I would be going back to prime lenses after working with zoom lenses for 10 years. The debate over the pros and cons of prime versus zoom lenses has raged for years and I don't intend to fuel that fire here. It, like everything else in photography, is a creative personal choice. I would, however, like to address a couple of things that relate to lenses in general, but also my "new" system in particular. These issues all revolve around focal length and what that means for your photography.

The 50mm was a little too long to shoot a full length image on the 50D, but it was perfect on the 5D.

There are a couple of wildly popular---and very incorrect--ideas about how focal length effects your image. Myth #1: Changing focal length changes your depth of field. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people say "Change to a wide angle lens if you want greater depth of field!" There are two things and two things only that control depth of field (DOF)--or how much of your image is in sharp focus: your f-stop and the distance between your camera and the subject. F-stops (aperture) are ratios, so while the actual lens opening at f 8 is much smaller on a 28mm lens than on a 300mm lens, the ratio between that opening and the focal length is what determines DOF--NOT the actual lens opening. Distance is the second factor. You'll have less in focus at f 8 at 4 feet than at 20 feet regardless of your focal length.

Where did the idea that focal length effects DOF come from? Focal length does effect the magnification of the elements in your photograph. It has to do with the field of view captured. Wide angle lenses capture more of the scene than telephoto lenses, so the elements appear smaller and seem to be further apart. Telephoto lenses on the other hand magnify a smaller portion of the scene to a larger size. These elements may in turn appear closer together (or compressed). However, the DOF would be identical if you were to blow up a portion of the image captured with a wide angle lens to the magnification of the same area captured with a telephoto--assuming that you did not change the f-stop or distance. Try it for yourself.

Myth # 2: Changing your focal length will change the perspective of the elements in your image. I suppose that this one is a little more subjective because it depends upon how you define perspective. We just discussed the fact that elements captured with a wide angle lens appear smaller and more spread out, and elements photographed with a telephoto lens appear larger and more compressed than what we see with our eyes. If THAT is your definition of perspective, then yes, changing focal length will alter the perspective of the photograph.

I define perspective as the relative relationships between elements in the photograph. For example, are the relative sizes of the components of the photographs in proportion? Changing focal lengths FROM THE SAME distance will not alter the proportions between your elements. Go back to the images that you shot for the last assignment. You will notice that the elements are in the same relative proportion to each other even though their actual size is different at the different focal lengths. However, objects that are closest to your camera appear larger than those further away (regardless of focal length) so you can change the proportions (perspective as I define it) by moving your camera. Get up closer to one of those elements in the previous scene and shoot a picture. Now you'll see a big change in perspective! My online Introduction to Digital Photography course shows some examples of what we just talked about.

This discussion does have an impact on my work because it impacts my choice of lens. I can change the magnification of my subject (say from a 3-4 pose to a headshot) with a zoom lens without changing my distance--and therefore maintaining the perspective. However, I either need to change lenses to change the magnification with a prime lens set OR move the camera--which will change the relative proportions of the elements in the photo. The relative size of the closest elements in my subject is going to change if I move closer with a fixed focal length lens. The difference might not be that dramatic in practice (for my work) but it is something that I need to think about.

Let's shift gears and discuss what focal length is and how it works--and why those old Bronica lenes are VERY different on my Canon cameras then they were on the medium format bodies. Focal length, at it's most basic level is the distance that light travels from when it enters the front lens element to when it registers onto whatever capture medium you are using. The impact on the field of view and magnification of your elements depends on the size/area of your capture medium. For example, a long telephoto lens on a 35mm camera (or full frame DSLR) might be a "normal" or even "wide" lens on an 8"X10" camera. The angle of view is dependent upon the area of the capture medium.

Most of us are familiar with the fact that DSLR cameras come in cropped sensor and full frame sensor models. A "full frame" sensor is roughly equivalent in area to a 35mm negative. Cropped sensor models have smaller areas to capture the information so you have to add in the conversion factor. For example, a 100mm lens on a full frame sensor camera will cover a certain angle of view. The lens will have to fill up the area of the sensor with information. The cropped sensor provides a narrower range or smaller area to capture information so it won't "see" as wide of a view as the full frame sensor. However, it still needs to be "filled up." The elements within the narrower view are magnified to fill the space and the 100mm lens "acts" like a 150 or 160mm lens depending on the conversion factor. That is why your lenses are "longer" on cropped sensor camera models than on full frame bodies.

My "new" Bronica lenses are much "longer" than my "old" Bronica lenses for the same reasons. I used my 50, 110 and 150mm lenses for the images of the ladies in this article (I haven't had a chance to get out to the beach to test the 250mm lens yet!). However, I'll use my Canon 50mm and Bronica 250mm lens to photograph the Ala Wai Golf Course. Granted the golf course is not as pretty as Jenn, Gabrielle and Alanakai, but it will illustrate the point I am making.

Let's start with a Canon 50mm on the full frame 5D Mark II. The 50mm lens is a "normal lens" on the full frame body and provides an angle of view similar to what our eyes see. In this case you can see a good part of the golf course, the hills of Manoa, some sky and even part of my window frame!

The same lens on the cropped frame 50D body becomes about a 75-80mm lens and turns into a slight telephoto. It is still "short" enough to fill the frame with the entire hole from tee to green, but the window frame and sky are gone. The elements are drawn closer and larger because the area of the sensor is smaller.

Here is where the fun begins! I put my Bronica 250mm on the full frame 5D. The lens was designed as a medium telephoto lens to fill a 2 1/4 X 2 1/4 inch negative (the full frame sensor is equivalent to about a 1 X 1.5 inch negative) or approximately 4 times the area of the digital sensor in the Canon. The lens, when placed on the full frame DSLR will attempt to fill an area 1/4 the size of what it is designed to do. We know that lenses become "longer" when filling smaller capture media, so this becomes a very long telephoto lens on the 5D Mark II. Note that the sand trap appears to be much closer to the tree in the telephoto shots, but the relative proportions remain the same.

The same conversion factor applies when we place the Bronica 250mm lens on the cropped sensor 50D! Now we have a huge lens! Kudos to the people at Fotodiox for recognizing this factor and placing a tripod mount on the adaptor so we can center mount the lens on the tripod to add further stability when shooting this monster! Remember, there is no Image Stabilizer here!

Gabrielle was photographed with the Bronica 110mm lens on the Canon 5D Mark II. I suppose I am getting used to manually stopping the lens down because I forgot to do so on only two shots this time around! It will take some getting used to, but I think it is well worth it.

Overall I am incredibly impressed with the extremely sharp detail and color saturation that I am getting from these old lenses. I have never been able to sell or get rid of my old gear and now, thanks to the folks at Fotodiox, I am so happy that I kept all off of my Bronica gear. It's a whole new game!

Hair and Make-up for Jennifer: Nathalie Kim. Thanks to Stacey and Shon for helping in the studio!

Hair and Make-up for Gabrielle and Alanakai: Ruth Ann Aguinaldo. Thanks to Christopher and Ashley for all the behind the scenes help!

PS: I'll include some of the test shots with the 250 lens in my next article.

You can still download a FREE copy of my Making of a Maritime Fashion Shoot here: http://www.photographershandbook.com/2011/03/07/maritime_shoot/#more-526

Check out http://www.hawaischoolofphotography.com for more lessons, live seminars in Hawaii and on-line classes.

© Stephen Dantzig