Origins of 4x5?

[ROL]

The '4' is Hindu–Arabic (same with '5', I believe), the 'x', probably Latin.


We're a helpful bunch, aren't we?

[jnantz]

My British made Sands & Hunter Exhibition 5x4 plate camera is from 1882-83. I suspect that the 5x4 (4x5) proceeds that be a bunch.

I found this reference to 5x4 . . .

Notes and Queries - 1853 - London
Will photographers who are chemists turn their attention to obtain sensitive dry glass plates ? For I think there can scarcely be any doubt of the advantage of glass over paper for small pictures (weight, expense, &c, are perhaps drawbacks for pictures larger than 5x4 inches) ; but the desideratum is a sensitiveness nearly equal to collodion, and a plate that can be used dry.
Thos. Lawbesce

i heard / read something similar.. it was 16x20 and 8x10 and 4x5 because of glass sizes and then it was quartered ....
very much like whole plate half plate quarter plate

[Drew Wiley]

It all started in the Precambrian when little molecules of silver nitrate were floating around. Then the earth got bombarded for hundreds of millions of years with
asteroids composed of pure gelatin, and all those little silver nitrate molecules started coming together. So the first films were actually microscopic. Then eventually
bigger formats came along, which ate the smaller ones, until still bigger ones arrived and ate them. During the Jurassic and Triassic ultra-large formats were worldwide. But then a massive asteroid made out of pixels collided with the earth, and only little whiskery diggiroos living underground in burrows managed to survive....

[ic-racer]

First described in the Lyaw of Æthelberht

[Brassai]

So, nobody really knows. Here's what I think. It (4x5) did exist before film, but was not as popular a size. And really, format size wouldn't have mattered much when you were coating your own glass or paper. After the invention of film and pre-made plates, there was a need for standardization. Maybe the new people who were attracted to photography found the odd sizes such as 4.25 x 6.75 (or whatever it is) to be confusing. Something simple such as 4x5 is easily understood. It looks like early one 5x7 was more popular, maybe for two reasons? First, it makes a bigger contact print. Second, the holder can fit half plate cameras. So, my guess is that 4x5 existed before ~1880, but got a big boost as film/plates became standardized. After all , 4x5 is a nice usuable size and existing half plate lenses easily cover it, and quarter plate lenses barely will. Maybe it just caught on after 1900 because of its convenience and simplicity?

[jnantz]

here is a list of a few sizes to help fill in the blanks
http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Plate_Sizes

[Brassai]

Another thing that puzzles me a little are the three common "survivor" sizes-4x5, 5x7, 8x10. I can see how 4x5 (20 sq. inches) and 8x10 (80 sq. in.) fit together, but 5x7 (35 sq. in.) seems like it should have been 5x8 instead. Maybe it was made 5x7 because that allowed the holders to fit the popular half plate cameras when all of this was falling into place around 1900?

[Leigh]

Being familiar with inches rather than metrics - and having one hand with a finger missing after an accident -
4x5 was a simple matter of counting fingers to come up with the new film size.

I've heard of old wives' tales, but...

That wife was old before the Civil War.

However, if it's true...

I'd hate to meet the dude who invented 16x20.

- Leigh

[Teodor Oprean]

It's just a historical accident that 4x5 became popular enough to endure to the present day whereas many other formats of similar size were discontinued long ago. A look at the wikipedia article linked to in this post shows some really crazy and seemingly inexplicable choices of aspect ratios and dimensions in the baffling list of film formats that were invented over time. A perennial component in Kodak's strategy aimed at increasing sales volume was to introduce a confusing mess of new film formats all the time. They kept doing that all the way til the end of the 20th century with APS, 110, Kodak Disc etc. It worked for that purpose for a while, but eventually things settled and the variety of film sizes matured into a few enduring formats, with lots of dead formats littering the path.

Here's another point of view about 4x5: I started photography with the 135 format. When I first started reading about large format photography, my reaction was: "Why it is 4x5 and not 4x6?" If the idea is merely to scale everything up in size, you could easily build a camera that produces a 4x6 inch negative, and you'd feel right at home if you got comfortable with 35mm cameras.

There was a Kalart press camera specifically designed for the 3x4 inch format. Given that press photographers frequently cropped 4x5 inch negatives down to 3x4 or even smaller, the reduction in weight and size makes a lot of sense. So why is 3x4 dead while 4x5 is invincible? Just because that's how history worked out.

So in short: Why is it 4x5? Just because. Someone picked those dimensions arbitrarily at one point and the product survived over the long term. If there are rational justifications, they are probably just trying to make it seem logical after the fact when in truth it's just a matter of convenience. Either it was easy to manufacture initially with existing factory equipment or there were previous products already on the market that were close to that film size, so it was not an overly disruptive new product.

[jnantz]

I've heard of old wives' tales, but...

That wife was old before the Civil War.

However, if it's true...

I'd hate to meet the dude who invented 16x20.

- Leigh

allegedly ... 16x20 was a regular size for large glass sheets
around the time of wet plate was when the non metric sizes
came about ... the whole plate half plate &c were from the daguearrian-times
based upon the 6.5x8.5 "plate" and the "newer" sizes were based on pane glass ...
(one industry fed the other) ...
and the current film sizes were spin offs of the glass-plate sizes
but a teeny bit smaller because of the septum they had to fit dry plate holders in
to be able to use sheet film ... and even though fewer and fewer people were using dry plates into the 20th century
the film companies made the smaller than plate sizes because they really had no reason to stop since new film holders were
constructed with the smaller than 4x5 ( for example ) dimensions.
i still kind of remember a handful of years ago when j+c had a whole bunch of film for sale that didn't fit in holders
because it was 1/32" off, like when people forgot to tell photowarehouse to cut+notch film for film holders
and the buyer had to trim it all in the dark themselves ...

but the other sizes ... cabinet cards ... who came up with that size and why ?