5x4 camera

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photographerKK

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Kirsten
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Hi, wondering if anyone can help me:D

I have been searching the internet for ages trying to find out when 5x4 cameras became most popular and nothing appears to be helping me with this :( boohoo !!

If anyone knows I'd really appreciate the help :thumbs:

Thanks

KK

:help: :geek:
 
Are you specifically looking for 4 x 5 cameras, or cameras of that type.

Showing my age now, The iconic 4 x 5 camera must be the Speed Graphic. I remember stories of sports Photographers covering Football matches with these and only having 6 sheets of film

This link may help
http://graflex.org/speed-graphic/

Overall I would guess that the late 60's early 70's would be when these cameras were at their peak. Many were used in commercial studios around this time.

Hope this helps.
 
Chappers said:
Overall I would guess that the late 60's early 70's would be when these cameras were at their peak.
Click to expand...
I was making a living from photography in the late 60's right through to a few years ago. There may have been a few speed graphics in studios in the early 70s but they had long since disappeared from other types of photography. Even for studio work they had just about disappeared - at least they had from the studios I visited. They looked too old fashioned for portrait work, customers were much more impressed by one of the cherry wood Japanese cameras that were beginning to come on the market.

We used MPP for situations where limited movements were needed eg landscapes. and Wista for studio work when extreme movement was often necessary.

MPP are often overlooked in spite of being British made and tough as old boots. They are technical (sometimes called field) cameras and don't have as much movement as a studio camera but I never found it a limiting factor in either landscape or architectural work. They will withstand a howling gale that would render a studio camera useless as the bellows flaps in the breeze. The RAF had hundreds of MPPs which were used to photograph wrecked and damaged aircraft. The last MPP 5x4 I owned had "camera 37" painted on the back in yellow. Anybody know if its still going?
 
As well as the good old speed graphics, during the late 60's and 70's loads of studios had Sinars, Cambo's were just starting to bee seen in quantities, and even Kodak supplied a twin rails studio camera.
 
I can't answer your question, but I started using 5x4s in the late 60's. Before that it was half plate, whole plate and 11" x 14", using glass plates not cut film.

From memory (never used them myself) the first 5x4s were press cameras, which were later replaced by Rollies, which in turn were replaced by 35mm.
 
It depend which country you are talking about..

5x4 was pretty well universal in the uk from the 1940's, though 1/4 plate 1/2 plate and wholeplate were still used as was 10x8 and 12x10.
On the continent the metric sizes were still popular into the late 50's I have used 13x18 , 9x12, and 18x24

America standardised on the 5x4 in the mid 30's but use all the larger sizes as well.

I do not know when the First 5x4 camera was made but I suspect it was not much before 1930.
 
The earliest reference I have found for photographs taken on 4x5 glass plates was in 1894
( Americans stated the short dimension first in those days) I suspect they must have been available well before this ) Graflex were offering other sizes as well as 5x4 into the 1940's
so it was by no means the only size used even then.
 
Have found early references to 4x5 cameras in the USA ...

1881 Rochester optical co
1884 E & H T Anthony
1884 Blaire Tourograph dry plate co

I have also found references to cameras 4 1/2 x 5 1/2 during this same period, so it seem 4x5 was by no means a fixed standard, but one of many.

I suspect its pre-eminent position was attained in a gradual process between that date and say 1940 when sizes like 1/4 plate and 9x12cm were still to be around for perhaps another decade, but very much in decline.
 
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