What is large format?

[rdenney]

I'm hoping to avoid stepping on toes in what can in my experience become a religious debate, and I have seen at least one case where someone complained of an image posted from a "small format" camera on this forum as being inappropriate.

Other than the thread devoted to posting small-format images, which is itself presented as a guilty pleasure, what constitutes formats too small to post on this forum? I have assumed that view camera images would be acceptable, even if made on roll film. So, a 6x7 image made using a view camera would be acceptable, but a 6x7 image from, say, a Pentax 6x7 would not.

But I saw another opinion expressed that both height and width should exceed 60mm.

So, what's the convention? Will I be frowned upon if I post, say, a 6x9 image made using a view camera? What about 6x12, which I've always considered large format? I expect my images to attract enough frowns for reasons unrelated to the format.

Rick "with no large-format images in the digital domain at present" Denney

[BrianShaw]

Sorry... I don't discuss religion, sex, politics, or rock-and-roll in public forums.

[darr]

Fanatics/purists will say that even a 6x17 cm made on a 4x5 is still a medium/small format piece of real estate. So, to be safe, large format is described by most starting at 8x10".

[Sevo]

There is no hard definition. Once upon a time, 4x5" and quarter plate were the most common "small formats". My soft definition would be "any view or optical bench camera, or any camera using sheet film". That places small sheet film cameras, like the Mamiya Press, Plaubel Makina or 6x9 plate cameras in general, in the LF domain where they historically did not belong. But as far as communicating on their proper use and maintenance is concerned, the LF community nowadays is the only one which still is capable of talking about such a camera...

[William McEwen]

I have a homemade pinhole camera that uses 8x10 sheets of film.

Does that count as LF? It uses LF film , but it's not a LF camera. ..



A group photo with my 8x10 pinhole camera (curved film plane!):

http://www.ddonovan.net/99-06-13sw-crew2wme-.html

[Bill_1856]

"Large Format" is a state of mind, not a film size.

[panchro-press]

Sheet film: large format
Roll film: medium format
Weird ribbon film with holes on the edges: mini format

-30-

[rdenney]

"Large Format" is a state of mind, not a film size.

I like that answer.

I don't like the answer that it divides on sheet film versus roll film, since it's my plan to mostly use roll film, and I can't shake the notion (call it a state of mind) that dragging a monorail view camera around constitutes large-format photography. The answer seems to be that there is no convention.

Rick "whose approach to religion can at times be pragmatic" Denney

[Lachlan 717]

Sheet film: large format
Roll film: medium format
Weird ribbon film with holes on the edges: mini format

-30-

Does that mean that these shots by Jim Galli were made on medium format?

He quite clearly states that the images were from 5" roll film...

And what about 6x24cm panoramic? Even though shot on 120 (i.e.roll) film, the images are bigger than 4x5 sheet film.

I guess the point is that there seems to be no agreed standard as far as I can tell.

Lachlan.

[Scott Knowles]

"Large Format" is a state of mind, not a film size.

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?