Where does 'large format' start?

Petrochemist

Petrochemist

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In other places I've seen different answers to this. Some say 4x5 & bigger, others take more or less any single sheet/plate cameras.
I've just received a vintage quarter plate SLR (that's 3.25x2 4.25") would that count for this forum or should I just shut up about it! :)
 
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Quarter plate is 3¼"x4¼", it's probably the smallest LF size, although some might say it's 9x12cm.

It sounds like you have the smaller TP reflex which fakes a 6x9 Rollex (or Rada) roll film back, and possibly 6.5x5x9 plate holders. I have a nice fully working Ruby reflex this size.

Ian
 
Ian Grant said:
Quarter plate is 3¼"x4¼", it's probably the smallest LF size, although some might say it's 9x12cm.

It sounds like you have the smaller TP reflex which fakes a 6x9 Rollex (or Rada) roll film back, and possibly 6.5x5x9 plate holders. I have a nice fully working Ruby reflex this size.

Ian
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Thanks Ian
I guessed you'd have one, as you clearly love TP.
I think it was actually 3¼"x4¼" though the ground glass is slightly smaller (nearer 3x4") so maybe not. Sadly no plate holder so I cant check there.
If I'm not mistaken the lens that came with it will cover 5x4. It's a Taylor Hobson 6" f/4.5 Cooke Anastigmat which normally sells for a good bit more than I paid for the camera and is more respectable than many of my LF lenses. So if the lens is the only thing usable out of the deal I won't feel too upset.
 
The Taylor, Taylor, & Hobson 6" f4.5 Anastigmat lens is a Cooke Triplet, while almost certainly sold with the camera it's not the usual T-P Cooke 5¾" Luxor which was the standard lens, for the QP reflexes. They were just marked (re-branded) T-P Cooke Luxor instead of T.T.& H. Anastigmat when factory fitted, but some larger dealers offered a choice of lenses.

A 6" Cooke triplet will cover 5x4, edges will be soft at f4.5 wide open on 10x8 and larger prints but when made few enlarged more than half plate, unless using much larger formats.

Any ground glass back may not be original, it's an SLR so that's the screen that's important.

Ian
 
I assumed it was just an early implementation of live-view :D
I'd better measure the top screen tomorrow then, as well as the opening for the plate holder.

I did see the 6" triplet listed in the 1926 TP catalogue as one of about half a dozen 19 options, but it's a lens I'd heard of before hearing to Thornton Pickard. I'll have to give it a go on one of my monorails sometime if the mounting flange comes off the Ruby eaisly. It's surprisingly hard to track down RPS flanges now. I've probably seen a few on e-bay but just listed as 'lens flange', often even without an internal diameter!
 
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I’ve seen a similar question about where Ultra-large format starts. Generally the answer is “over 10x8” but there are dissidents and pedants who have reasons for placing it higher.
In general, I’d guess that today, LF begins around 5x4, but the difficulties of definition have been caused by camera-makers. Endless ingenuity has generated all kinds and sizes of camera, so there can be no absolute limit based on size alone.
It might better to list the features of large format and score the camera in question. If it matches enough criteria, then it’s LF.
We might include items like using sheet film, bellows, adjustable standards, free choice of lens, ground glass and so on. Any one of these could be absent and we might still say it was large format.
We might even imagine a tiny Gandolfi, using (say) one frame of 35mm film in a tiny holder. If it worked, it would be churlish not to include it in the family.
Compare this to how we recognise a friend. We might say he was tall, red-faced, limped and had a moustache. Remove the moustache and we’d still recognise him.
 
Cooke Triplets are great portrait lenses, the design was copied by many other manufacturers, including Zeiss - Triotar, Meyer -Trioplan, Lack Rathanaow -Pololyt, etc.

The last LF Cooke triplet type lenses were the Rodenstock Geronars, small, light weight, MC lenses, this was a budget range ideal for portraits at wider apertures but as sharp as modern plasmat lenses like a Symmar S or Sironar N at f22.

In older books 35mm and 120 formats are called Miniature Formats, Quarter, Half, and Whole plate, as well as Postcard size, are Medium format. 10x8, 12x10, & 15x12 were Large format. Times change and with it our perceptions.

Ian
 
Petrochemist said:
I assumed it was just an early implementation of live-view :D
I'd better measure the top screen tomorrow then, as well as the opening for the plate holder.
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The top glass has framing lines at 103x76.5mm (roughly 4x3")
The rear opening for light to get to the plate/film is 99.1x77.1mm, and the film holder width seems to be 97.6mm

I've certainly come across references to 35mm as miniature, but haven't seen the other historical classifications.
The Repromaster I used back in my teens for copying artwork could manage films to A3 & bigger. It almost certainly needed substantial dismantling to move it so I feel reasonable justified in classing that as ULF, even if I never used it for images larger than A4.

Looking at the list of features provided by @David M above early portrait cameras with large film holders often didn't have bellows or adjustable standards being basically two boxes that slide one within the other, many more modern LF cameras can accept roll film adapters. While my APSC DSLR, has a much wider choice of lenses, has ground glass (viewed via a lens & pentaprism) and has been used with bellows even with movements. Perhaps to a phone user APSC would seem a large format but I doubt anyone here would consider it so. The classification is perhaps even more difficult than I initially thought :)
 
There is another LF group who define LF as larger than 100cm². This also covers MF panoramic formats like 6cm x17cm
 
Joanna Carter said:
There is another LF group who define LF as larger than 100cm². This also covers MF panoramic formats like 6cm x17cm
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Well that does exclude quarter plate (~89cm²).
The large format Photography podcast has apparently allowed 2.25x3.25" into the definition, but only because one of the hosts mistakenly brought a small version of the Speed Graphic. Overlap is perhaps inevitable.

Interestingly the original 110 format from 1898-1929 would be large format (negatives being 4x5") as would the original 126 format from 1906 to 1946 (roll film giving 4¼" × 6½" negs)
Any ideas why kodak started reusing historical format labels - surely they hadn't run out of three digit numbers? I've only seen about 50 roll/pack film formats, so they should have hundreds left.
 
Clearly, 6x17 is roll film. Some might say that made it medium format. That’s only one item on my rather incomplete list. I’m in favour of tolerance in this matter.
Obviously, my excellent iPhone isn’t a large format camera, despite having a focusing screen. It is, however, digital. Presumably we’d exclude digital cameras, but then we must recall that it’s possible to attach a digital back to a Gandolfi. Does that transform the combination into non-LF? That doesn’t seem logical.
I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion: dunno. This might be as long a debate that other one: is it Art?
 
Kodak re-used many names, Kodachrome and Verichrome for instance. The original Kodachrome film was a two colour motion picture film based on John a Thornton patent. Verichrome was a Wratten & Wainwright emulsion devised by Mees & Sheppard before they joined Kodak, Mees was involved in the new products as well..

Well when it comes to 126 and 110, the previous new format was 828, I guess they wanted to go back to lower numbers, 126 is essentially a variation of 828 in a light tight cassette.

The US/International LF Forum argued that 6x17 wasn't LF and eventually disallowed it. However, you need a 7x5 or larger enlarger as the 17cm width is 6.7" too long for a 5x4 enlarger. Sensible compromises are needed.

Ian
 
Petrochemist said:
In other places I've seen different answers to this. Some say 4x5 & bigger, others take more or less any single sheet/plate cameras.
I've just received a vintage quarter plate SLR (that's 3,25x2.25") would that count for this forum or should I just shut up about it! :)
Click to expand...

I thought it was made quite clear by Ian Barber in this thread:

https://www.5x4.co.uk/threads/can-pictures-shot-with-other-than-5x4-here.1457/ post #12

Our sister site is an excellent forum for the smaller cut-film/plate sizes:

Black and White Photography Forum

Film and Digital Black and White Photography Learning Forum
www.digitalmonochromeforum.co.uk
 
Studying the terms themself a tiny format can't be large format.
Checking seller's descriptions and further following language logics rollfilm/medium format means exactly this: The medium between a small 35mm film and large film.

In Germany's LF Forum we had defined 6cm rollfilms as medium format and so is a plate/sheet of 6x9cm (2,36"x3,54").
But we also accepted medium format film - if used with rail cameras or field cameras both including movements - as being allowed to show the images from which makes sense in this special case of using these camera's possibilities but it also is a nicely broken rule in the sense of "large", too.

Concerning the TO questions, no, we don't define sheets or plates of 6x9cm being large format.
But we see this lovely rail and field cameras in the same league as "real" large format cameras, all being possible doing wonderful things others don't master.
All this we decided years ago where only large format negatives have been accepted to our forum which is not the case of today because of the existence of a section called "other formats".

Traditionally german professional photographers for decades kept shooting film from 9x12cm (3,54"x4,7"), but mainly 13x18cm and 18x24cm (5,2"x7" and 7"x9,45") doing so in the studio.
In this sense 9x12cm clearly is large format and of course the first definition as large format to german LF photographers if the camera has movements or not.

A special case:
Linhof's Aero camera has had a format of 9x12cm while using rollfilm only.
But in spite of being a rollfilm this film wasn't called medium format so rollfilm surely can be large format if the format is large :)

Since 9x12cm hasn't been of importance for the angloamerican's world I understand that large format to the LFF group starts with 4x5" but with 9x12cm being accepted if i remember correct.
Having followed the discussion around new definition of medium/large/ULF some years ago I have seen everything beyond 8x10" being defined as ULF.

Using 30x40cm (12"x16") cameras I personally don't feel lets say 10x12" as an ULF but so is the international definition coming from LFF and I can follow both the german and the international wisdom coming from the folks.
 
My Ica Nixe camera is a folding camera that takes both 122 roll film (8¼×14 cm) and 9x12 plate holders and has only front rise/fall and shift movements. 122 roll film is now obsolete but with 3d printed adapters, one can use 120 roll film on this camera. So I guess Nixe is a large format camera when used with 9x12 holders and a medium format panoramic camera when used with 120 roll film. :)

[Edit: 122 format film is apparently available occasionally through Ilford's ULF campaign. So, not exactly obsolete, but relatively harder to find. Would 122 roll film qualify as large format?]
 
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@Reginald S. the major German LF format was 9x12cm.

Yes it was not so common in the US, but Kodak Ltd's Nagel subsidiary exported huge numbers to the US, and they are some of the best pre-WWII 9x12 cameras, and there were others. Here in the UK 9x12 cameras were very common.

The term ULF only came into use after manufacturers stopped selling plates/films over 10"x8"/20x24cm, and it was quite a few years before companies would custom cut film. This is something that need research, it coincides but lags with the revival of wet plate photography.

Ian
 
Keith Haithwaite said:
I thought it was made quite clear by Ian Barber in this thread:

https://www.5x4.co.uk/threads/can-pictures-shot-with-other-than-5x4-here.1457/ post #12

Our sister site is an excellent forum for the smaller cut-film/plate sizes:

Black and White Photography Forum

Film and Digital Black and White Photography Learning Forum
www.digitalmonochromeforum.co.uk
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That answers the question of can you post images that aren't taken with LF, but not where the boundary of LF is. Unless you go with the title's 'other than 5x4' which would rule out 10x8...

I was specifically interested in does quarter plate count as LF, which seems to vary depending on who's defining LF.

It seems to me that LF can be defined in multiple ways:
Features of the camera (ground glass, movements etc) this might include some smaller sizes, and rules out the largest ever camera ('The Great Picture' 9.75m x 33.83m but no lens, no movements & no ground glass).
Area of the film
Minimum dimension(s) in one or both directions on the negative
Sheet film/plate use (this rules out obscure roll film cameras with negative bigger the 5x4).

I've not checked out the sister forum yet, but to me generalist forums often aren't too helpful dealing with questions on loading dark slides, adjusting movements etc which are very much LF issues even if on formats below a defined size limit.
 
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I don't think the original question was about criteria for excluding content from this forum. In the past we've made no objection to pictures of equipment and suchlike made on phone cameras. That seems entirely reasonable to me. Ian's point about testing seems valid too.
In reality, I suggest, we all have an intuitive idea of what a large format camera might look like. The aircraft hanger pinhole camera will cause us no problems as it was being demolished after the Most Boring Picture in the World was made. If anyone involved in that enterprise wants to post here, it would be an interesting read for us all.
A rigid-bodied 120 panoramic camera seems to me to sit on the boundary.
But nevertheless, I wouldn't want to exclude anybody for want of a millimetre here or there. So far our lords and masters on the forum have shown commendable tolerance and wisdom.
 
Ian Grant said:
@Reginald S. the major German LF format was 9x12cm.
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Ian, I know about the millions of this wonderful 9x12cm Plattenkameras, the Mentors or Bentzin Reflex cameras and this stuff from an early Epoche.
But beeing young with 60years in age I never have seen a 9x12cm camera in photographer's studios but I remember seeing lots of either 13x18cm or 18x24cm cameras there.
From the (meanwhile mostly retired) photographers I know 13x18cm has been the major format whereby later selling 8x10" to print media and advertisement customers has gained more profit.
No wonder that they called 8x10" being kings size.

Mr. Heidersberger exclusively produced tons of 13x18cm glasplates during his lifespan, and I was taught by a lady that retouching every negative in her studio was her job. 13x18cm glass, later in the sixties mostly 13x18cm films.

Maybe I'm wrong.
But these are the instruments I am aware of, being 13x18cm and 18x24cm, and giving me the idea what must have been the major size:)

Globica.jpg
Pentacon Globica 13x18cm
 
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