What is large format?

[clay harmon]

If the shot will be ruined because something moved during the exposure, it is large format.

[rdenney]

I like it too, but I use "large format" to reflect the general catagory of cameras regardless of the film since you can duplicate the film on several different types of cameras, but you can't (fully) duplicate the camera controls on view camera with other types of cameras. Or not?

It's not as if there is a distinct boundary. Some would class a Polaroid 110 as a large-format camera, and with Type 55 it would be hard to disprove it. There are 4x5 cameras of generally the same form factors as medium-format cameras. I remember Peter Gowland showing me his new invention--the Gowlandflex 4x5 TLR--at a lecture of his I attended in the 70's. Are those large-format cameras? Probably, yes, even though they don't have movements.

But I resist declaring my Pentax 6x7 as a large-format camera primarily because it's not intended to be one, and in the same breath seem at peace with declaring my Sinar with a 6x7 back to be a large-format camera. As Bill said, it's not about film size. The difference is in how I approach the photograph. The Pentax, like most medium-format cameras, is a compromize between the portability of small format and the negative size of large format. A view camera with a rollfilm back, or a rollfilm view camera, doesn't make that compromise--it takes as much effort to make a view-camera photo with rollfilm as with sheet film, especially when comparing to sheet-film products such as Quickloads. Portable large-format cameras such as press cameras make a different compromise. At the end of the day, wherever one draws the boundary will alienate those who draw it--with equal justification--in a different place.

So it becomes a matter of how the photograph is approached.

Rick "leaving it at that" Denney

[panchro-press]

Sorry, but I have to jump in again. I have never met anyone other than a photographer who even knows that there is such a thing as 'format' Mention 'large format' to a client and you'll get the blank stare to end all blank stares.

[Kirk Gittings]

Traditionally on this forum, large format has been defined as 4x5 or larger film or anything shot in a view camera.

[rdenney]

Traditionally on this forum, large format has been defined as 4x5 or larger film or anything shot in a view camera.

Thank you. Looks like my intentions just slide me into acceptability.

Rick "who now just needs images worth sharing" Denney

[Duane Polcou]

Large Format is any format where an onlooker exclaims
"That's a big camera"

[soeren]

Large Format is any format where an onlooker exclaims
"That's a big camera"

That just qualified my F100+85/1,4

[ImSoNegative]

I agee with the above. Anthing shot with a view camera. Love some of the other answers too : ))

[Ben Syverson]

Anything shot with a view camera? Just to play Devil's advocate... If I use an adapter to shoot 35mm with a view camera, I'm shooting on large format?

I think I'm probably the jerk referred to in the first post, who defined LF as anything bigger than 60mm in both dimensions. It's tricky, because it seems fair to call 6x12 LF, but where do you draw the line? The Fuji 680 is basically a little view camera that shoots 6x8. And they make 6x12 Holgas.

Personally I don't care if a frame of 6x8 was shot in a sheet film holder by Ansel Adams using a Deardorff -- Large Format it ain't.

Either way, I don't think it's too big a deal. Everyone has their own feeling about what LF is/isn't, and as long as they don't try to hold other people to that definition, all is well.

[Paul Kierstead]

Sorry, but I have to jump in again. I have never met anyone other than a photographer who even knows that there is such a thing as 'format' Mention 'large format' to a client and you'll get the blank stare to end all blank stares.

True enough, but I'm not seeing many clients here. Although I've sometimes criticized material here as being photography-for-photographers, I think in a technical discussion amongst photographers, the client is pretty much irrelevant. I don't think this discussion is about marketing.