Origins of 4x5?

[Brassai]

I've been doing some google searches but still haven't come up with the history of 4x5 format/film. Near as I can tell, it was an American invention and probably from somewhere around 1898. Was this a proprietary size by Kodak that took off with the Graflex cameras? Or, did it just sort of appear, out of the mist of time? I assume that going into the 1890s the sizes were mostly the old English plate sizes (half plate, quarter plate, ....) or the European metrics (9x12 etc.) But then again, I'm not finding anything telling me when the metric sizes got started either. I'm guessing that when sheet film began getting popular then these new sizes began to appear, around 1900? Only the English kept the plate sizes for another ~50 years? Was there a first 4x5 camera?

[Leigh]

It started around 100 BI (Before Internet), and thus there is little surviving documentation.

- Leigh

[Richard Johnson]

5x4 is an even greater mystery....

[Brassai]

It started around 100 BI (Before Internet), and thus there is little surviving documentation.

The 4x5 would be older than 1914 because I have a Century cycle camera using 4x5, made around 1905. And, Petzval started well BI but there's tons of stuff on it (lens) and him (Josef.) How did 4x5 seemingly come from nowhere around 1900 to very common by 1920? There's a story here somewhere.

[Brassai]

5x4 is an even greater mystery....

The 5x4 comes from dyslexic people, the ones who like to add a lot of extra "u"s to their words. They were too busy making half plate cameras to have invented 4x5 anyway. Probably didn't start using 4x5 until they ran out of wood to make their half & full plate cameras, around 1950.

[Leigh]

There's a story here somewhere.

It was a marriage of convenience.

8x10 was too large to use outside the studio, so it was drawn and quartered.

- Leigh

[DannL]

My British made Sands & Hunter Exhibition 5x4 plate camera is from 1882-83. I suspect that the 5x4 (4x5) proceeds that be a bunch.

I found this reference to 5x4 . . .

Notes and Queries - 1853 - London
Will photographers who are chemists turn their attention to obtain sensitive dry glass plates ? For I think there can scarcely be any doubt of the advantage of glass over paper for small pictures (weight, expense, &c, are perhaps drawbacks for pictures larger than 5x4 inches) ; but the desideratum is a sensitiveness nearly equal to collodion, and a plate that can be used dry.
Thos. Lawbesce

[Bill_1856]

It was a marriage of convenience.

8x10 was too large to use outside the studio, so it was drawn and quartered.

- Leigh

To the GALLOWS for that one. In fact: Off with his head!

[Harold_4074]

To the GALLOWS for that one. In fact: Off with his head!

Oh. So that is where the use of of pyro-gallol in photography comes from...

[Kirk Gittings]

It was a marriage of convenience.

8x10 was too large to use outside the studio, so it was drawn and quartered.

- Leigh