What do you consider large format?

[Bruce Watson]

Donald,

5" roll film, and roll film adapters, for 4x5.... interesting. Where can I learn more? And where can I learn more about this 116 postcard format and roll film for it? Not that I have an actual application for this information, but it's interesting stuff, and you never know....

[Bill_1856]

Large Format means negatives large enough to make effective contact prints. I'd say 6x9 cm for color and 3.25x4.25 for B&W.

[Robert Skeoch]

For me it would be 4x5 or larger..... ULF is larger than 8x10 in my books.

[Jay DeFehr]

Donald,

you wrote:

"One might make a sensible argument that quarter plate, aka 3x4 format should be included in this reckoning -- though smaller than postcard, it's still a good bit bigger than 120 (about double the negative area of 6x9), and many of the cameras were functionally similar to the 9x12 plate cameras of the between-wars era -- but to me it's just not that much different from 116 (postcard format, OTOH, is actually a larger negative than 9x12 cm, and it was common for postcard cameras to accomodate both roll and sheet film)."

One important differnce between 3x4 and 116 is that 3x4 is currently available in a variety of emulsions, and nearly every type of camera that was made in 4x5 format was also made in 3x4 format, ie, Graflex SLRs, Graphic press cameras, folding field cameras, etc. For me, 3x4 is unquestionably LF, and I can think of no good argument to be made against its inclusion in that category. Where the question gets sticky for me, is with large area rollfilm formats, like 6x12, and 6x17, which use MF film, but are used with LF cameras. I suppose that my resistance to considering rollfilm formats, Large Format, is inconsistent, and should be revised. So, since 6x12, and 6x17 formats require the use of LF camera equipment (mostly), and LF enlargers or contact printing, I do consider those formats Large Format.

[Mark Sawyer]

To me, it's large format if it's sheet film, as opposed to roll film. So if you shoot 6x9, it could be either one. (6x9 film holders are just so darn cute!)

Then again, I shoot 8x10, so maybe I consider everything smaller a "miniature" format. (You guys with your little toy 4x5's just aren't serious about your negatives. Hmmph...)

[Gem Singer]

Hi Michael,

Ebony is one of the major producers of large format cameras in the world. They manufacture both a folding and a non-folding camera in the 2.25X3.25 inch format. Although they are primarily designed to be used with double sided sheet film holders, these cameras are also capable of accepting adapters for roll film. Ilford makes Hp-5+ sheet film in the 2.25X3.25 inch format, and Fidelity still makes double sided film holders for that size.

Therefore, I have to conclude that cameras that are capable of taking 2.25X3.25 inch (and larger) sheet film, are to be classified as large format cameras. However, cameras that only take 2.25 inch roll film are considered to be medium format.

[Kirk Gittings]

Large Format and View Cameras are obviously not the same thing. I shoot alot of 6x9 roll film in a view camera. That is shooting medium format film in a view camera. That to me still is simply not large format. 4x5 and larger is large format. However shooting 4x5 in a Graflex is large format but not view camera. I think anything related to view cameras or large format is proper to be discussed in this forum.

[Mark Sawyer]

Which raises the question, what is a view camera? Is your graflex an slr or press camera? Is a press camera a view camera if you use the ground glass and a tripod, but not if you use the rangefinder/viewfinder and hand-hold it?

[Donald Qualls]

5" roll film, and roll film adapters, for 4x5.... interesting. Where can I learn more? And where can I learn more about this 116 postcard format and roll film for it? Not that I have an actual application for this information, but it's interesting stuff, and you never know....



There were actually more than one format for 4x5 roll film -- one goes back to about the turn of the (20th) century, when Kodak made one of their 4x5 folding cameras to accommodate both 4" wide roll film and 4x5 glass plates in holders. The Graphlex adapters came in 3x4 and 4x5 format, and used film that was as wide as the large dimension of the plate/sheet it replaced -- I can' t imagine them getting more than eight shots on a roll, possibly as few as six, and it would have been a lot slower than a Grafmatic, but there was surely a lot to be said for being able to reload in daylight (or at least in the shade). I don't recall the format number for the 4" and 5" film widths, but there's a chart somewhere on the web with all the format sizes -- film width, frame dimension, number of frames per roll, and spool dimensions.



Postcard format wasn't the same as 116 -- 116 (and its sibling 616, which came on a thinner spool, same logic as 620 vs. 120) was 70 mm unperforated film with paper backing, otherwise pretty much the same as 120; originally 6 exposures, but with advances in film allowing thinner base, eventually gave 8 exposures, 2 1/2" by 3 3/4" (barely larger than the nominal 6x9 on 120). Postcard format (122 film), and 124 were the same width, 90 mm (a couple mm wider than a 9x12 sheet, which is undersize to allow for a film sheath in a glass plate holder). Production of 116 continued until the early 1970s. The 124 had framing marks for six exposures of 3 1/4" x 4 1/4" (nominally same as quarter plate, though the film was a few mm wider), while 122 had framing for six of 3 1/4" x 5 1/2" -- the largest roll film format that was ever common or popular with consumers. Postcard was so called because it was commonly contact printed on standardized precut paper printed on the back as a postal card -- you could literally make postcards in your home darkroom if you had a 3A camera.

[Ralph Barker]

My opinion falls in the "4x5 and larger" column. Anything smaller is either medium format (both rolls and sheets) or miniature format, whether exposed in a view camera of some sort or a rollfilm camera.