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Are you a 4x5 or 5x4 guy?

Posted: 25 Mar 2015, 16:40
by Alastair Moore
Just been having a discussion with someone about whether it's 4x5 or 5x4. They thought it was 4x5 only in the US and 5x4 everywhere else. I said in my experience, with the exception of a handful of older large format shooters I've met, it's all 4x5.

How did the naming come to differ? Anyone any ideas? Do the poms only shoot portrait?

Re: Are you a 4x5 or 5x4 guy?

Posted: 25 Mar 2015, 19:15
by Walter Glover
Well, to add to the confusion: 4x5 is portrait, 5x4 is landscape.

Re: Are you a 4x5 or 5x4 guy?

Posted: 27 Mar 2015, 06:50
by Maris
If it's confusion you want try this:

My last Ilford catalogue lists 4"x5" film. My last Kodak catalogue lists 10.2cm x 12.7cm film and is resolutely metric throughout with no mention of inch sizes.

But the actual film is neither of those sizes from both makers. I measure it to be 10.0cm X 12.53cm!

Finally, the international convention for describing the size of art objects insists the vertical dimension in centimetres is given first and the horizontal dimension in centimetres is second. So 10.2cm x 12.7cm is landscape format and 12.7cm x 10.2cm is portrait.

Re: Are you a 4x5 or 5x4 guy?

Posted: 30 Mar 2015, 08:14
by smbooth
Im 4x5 guy, dont know why.