135mm or 150mm (4x5) for a first time LF shooter?

[Jac@stafford.net]

What a bunch of silly nonsense. What does whether you are getting paid or not have to do with aesthetic cropping choices?

We can crop the square anywhere. Art directors like that.

[faberryman]

We can crop the square anywhere. Art directors like that.

It's an aesthetic choice. Non-professionals can crop the square anywhere too.

[Jac@stafford.net]

It's an aesthetic choice. Non-professionals can crop the square anywhere too.

Of course. That's the point. Aesthetics transcend social appointment.
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[Pere Casals]

Unfortunately, you are wrong. 135 film, or whatever you call it, is the same width it was in 1889 and 1933 --- 1 3/8" -- as mentioned in Dickson's article. Measure it yourself. Some manufacturers might "fudge" a tiny bit, but the width of the film was establsihed in 1889, NOT 1892.

Read ISO 1007 norm that specifies present manufacturing standard for 135: 1.377" (with 0.001" tolerance), not 1.375". This is a fact. It is not about manufacturers fudging, it is about an industrial standard that's in force now: 1.377"

Then you will know if you are wrong or not about these two 1/1000".

[faberryman]

I wonder why the 1889 standard changed from 1.375" to 1.377"? And why would ISO be specifying anything in inches anyway? I would have expected the standard to be expressed using the metric system.

[Pere Casals]

What a bunch of silly nonsense. What does whether you are getting paid or not have to do with aesthetic cropping choices?

It has sense. What I was pointing is that while Pros and Amateurs both can crop or not (of course), it happens that (IMHO) Amateurs and Artists are more prone shot exact frammings than Pros, because a Pro needs to be more practical to earn his living, while an Amateur may challenge himself to make exact frammings for fun, and if a limitation arises from that there is no problem, while Pro has to sell images.

It happens the same with film usage, today it is more difficult that a Pro uses film because practical and economic reasons, while an Amateur just searches fun.

[Pere Casals]

I wonder why the 1889 standard changed from 1.375" to 1.377"?

I've no idea, also I don't know when the XIX century specification changed, single fact I know is that ISO 1007:2000-06 specifies in page 3 the film width at 1.377"

[faberryman]

It is particularly odd since we refer to it as 35mm film, which would seem to indicate that the original standard was metric to begin with. And 35mm equals 1.37795" or, rounded to three decimal places as was specified in the ISO standard, 1.378", not 1.377". I have a hard time believing that film manufacturers outside the US have designed their machinery using the imperial system. I didn't want to cough up 158 CHF for the 38 page standard to find out more though. Why should finding out what the standard is be so darn expensive?

[Pere Casals]

It is particularly odd since we refer to it as 35mm film, which would seem to indicate that the original standard was metric to begin with. And 35mm equals 1.37795" or, rounded to three decimal places as was specified in the ISO standard, 1.378", not 1.377". I have a hard time believing that film manufacturers outside the US have designed their machinery using the imperial system. I didn't want to cough up 158 CHF for the 38 page standard to find out more though. Why should finding out what the standard is be so darn expensive?

Perhaps a bit like ammunition, .38 ACP and .357 Mag are same 9.1mm... cameras and firearms all are shooting devices... just joking

35mm is specified 34.98 ±0.03 mm, so in metic units it is specified to be 34.95 to 35.01mm.

Then 34.98 / 25.4 = 1.377", with the tolerance this is 1.377" ± 0.001" (in fact ±0.00118" ).


Germans are allergic to imperial system, clearly the 35mm film was born as 1 3/8", but it was brought to still photography by germans who perhaps named it 35mm because it is very near to that. As for still photography it was named 35mm then Kodak released the 135 format (in 1934) that includes the cassette specification. This is my guess...

Same film size can have different film format names, as 120 and 220 shows... but both 120 and 220 may be used in 645, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, 6x12 and 6x17 cameras. Some confussion arises about format meaning as format can be referred to a commercial film format or to a camera format. We can say 120 (film) format or 645 (camera) format.

[fredfoto]

Hi m00dawg,
My standard lens for 4x5 is a 210 process lens. G Claron. They are excellent quality, have a huge image circle, and tiny.
I have 3 lenses for 4x5, none of which are a 150. I don't like the focal length- neither here nor there. YMMV.
Look through the metadata on your computer on any work you've done on small format cameras, and you will find out your favourite focal length from the average focal length of all your shots. Go with that as your first lens equivalent on 4x5, bearing in mind things are more square on 4x5 regarding the ratio than most small formats.
With a 150, first you'll want something wider, then something longer, and then you'll never use the 150 again.
Good luck with your choice.