LF, VLF, ULF: What's Your Definition of Format Sizes?

[Heroique]

I just left a thread that said LF is a state of mind.

All this talk about film or camera size contradicts everything I just read.

Guess I’ll just be tolerant of ambiguity and move along. ;^)

[Kodachrome25]

I consider 4x5 to be "SLF" or Small-ish Large Format or more accurately "ULMF" as in Ultra Large Medium Format. I can't run, jump, snowboard or mountain bike with 8x10 or larger but I sure as heck can and do with my 4x5...

[Vaughn]

I just left a thread that said LF is a state of mind...

Creating with LF is a state of mind...the film and cameras are just the tools.

[Lachlan 717]

Try posting a 120 roll film format print anywhere other than on "Safe Haven for Tiny Formats" and see what sort of reaction ensues...

This is where the water gets even muddier. You can, in fact, post 120 images anywhere here, as long as they are a) 6x17cm format and b) shot with a Technical-style/non-P&S camera (eg. Shen Hao 617, Pan 617, 4x5/5x7 et al camera with 617 roll film back).

Please don't get me wrong; I am not pushing any conclusion here. Unless, of course, the conclusion is that there is no conclusion is possible.

[John Kasaian]

I've always thought that an ULF is an ELF with arthiritis

[evan clarke]

If you have a 20x24, everything else is small format unless you run into a 40x48!!

[Drew Bedo]

As long as it is *LF who really cares what the first letter is.

I propose leaving the size of the ground glass paramater out altogether and use a functionality based metric instead:

Any shooting kit you need dolly wheels to cary around is ULF.

Anything that must be transported in a utility trailer is [B]Just Too Freaking Big Format[/B].

[Farside]

Haven't the boundaries shifted over the past century anyway?
I have a 100 year old pocket camera (nothing special) that uses 4x5 and back then I don't suppose it was considered LF, just fairly normal to compensate for its cheapy lens and give decent-sized contact prints. Until the advent of 35mm, sizes below 4x5 were Small Format, were they not? 35mm was thought of, disparagingly by some, as 'miniature'.
From what I can make out, it was only after 35mm became commonplace that format designators, elastic though they are, sort of shifted a bit, and anything above 6x9 on 120 became 'LF'. This kind of left 9x12 as an odd size - big enough to get the benefits of LF, yet not that hugely different from MF.
I'm glad 9x12 is still around; I rather like it.
Then, of course, after 35mm became the de-facto everyman's film size, there was a new miniature - courtesy of the 16mm fiends and their dastardly small cameras.

[Emil Schildt]

Haven't the boundaries shifted over the past century anyway?
.

Sure

I have seen an advertizing booklet from about 1901 and there it states that:

ALL formats up to 10x8 are small formats...

From 10x8 to 20x24 is medium format....

And above 20x24 they are large format...


so simple.. so I am mostly using small formats, but do have a couple of medium format cameras....

[IanG]

Coming from another angle Miniature format once covered 35mm 127 and 120 in many pre-WWII books, hand holdable formats like Quarter plate, Postcard, 5x4 etx were medium format and 10x8 and over Large format.

Times have changed and with the explosion of 35mm cameras perceptions cnaged elevating 120 to Medium format and 5x4 to large format, so the way we think of formatn size has changed from Gandolfi's example through an interim phase and finally our usual modern definitions.

Ian