Unless my memory is deceiving me, the ancient Greeks found that when a line was divided into parts, the division that was most pleasing to the eye was when the ratio of the large part to the small part was the same as the ratio of the whole to the large part. This leads to the so called "golden ratio," which is mathematically equals 1 to (1 + sqrt(5)) / 2, or about 1:1.61. The Greeks incorporated this ratio into a lot of their works. For example, the height to width ratio of the fronts of the major Greek temples is at this ratio.
Bearing this in mind, I looked at large format photography, and found that there was no format that was near this ratio, but there was one that could be. Take an 8x10 sheet of film, and cut it in half the short way, producing a 5x8 negative. That's 1:1.60, which is really close to the 1:1.61 that the Greeks found so pleasing.
Note that 35mm is 1:1.5, 5x7 is 1:1.4, and 6x12 is 1:2.
So has anyone out there played around with 5x8? Deep in the memory archives, I remember reading about some 8x10 camera that had a half plate option so that you could shoot a 5x8 portrait on each half of the 8x10 film. I know that there probably isn't a lot of equipment out there, e sp as 5x8 is just a smidge bigger than 5x7. But if anyone out there has some 5x8 stuff, could you comment on it?
Regards,
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