Oh yes, the
changeover from
35mm photography to
medium format/
6x6 (as in
cm)
photography is an amazing experience. The
level of detail is ASTOUNDING.
The very first thing I noticed about printing from a 6x6 negative is the incredibly fine grain of the filmstock. I blew up a small portion of a 6x6 cm negative to a huge 22x28 inch print, and only then did I see granularity in the print. For comparison's sake, I looked at the 5x7's I printed from my 35mm filmstock, and was startled to discover that the grain from a print of an entire negative onto that tiny rectangle of paper was actually larger than that of the huge blowup I had just printed.
It's the thinness of the plastic emulsion sheet that allows medium format film to be so fine grained. it's about 1/3 as thick as stock 35mm (by my eyeball guess). Therefore, the silver halide grains embedded in the emulsion substrate, which react to the light from the lens to create the negative, are much, much smaller to fit inside it.
I have a small collection of medium format cameras, from my first Yashica TLR's to my crowning jewel, a brand new Hasselblad SLR. I was a bit leery at first of switching over from my trusty Nikon 35mm, but now that I've done it, I've never looked back.