Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/16

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Post WW2 Japan and History
From: Jem Kime <jem.kime@cwcom.net>
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 19:42:29 +0100

The disparity between negative formats and paper sizes has been a strangely 
held relationship.

The original papers were made the sizes of the films that were 
contemporaneously manufactured for their contact printing, so 12x15, 10x12, 
10x8, whole plate (8 1/2 x 6 1/2), half and quarter plate etc., all came to 
be standardised sizes and have remained so with the exception of 12x15 
which has turned to 12x16 in England (and something else in the USA?).
There were no square papers introduced (to the best of my knowledge) when 
120 film's 6x6 format came along. Presumably most then current thinking was 
that people would still enlarge a picture to a more aesthetically pleasing 
rectangle.
But 35mm has to have been the most strangely ignored format ever! Since 
1926 the 2:3 format has had only one real paper size introduced to very 
little commercial success, that of A4.

Perhaps now, with computer printing geared up to A sizes (at least in 
Europe) there will exist a better compatibility between formats of negative 
and positive.

Jem

P.S.	Where does the 'legal' come from in the US 'legal' paper size? Marc?

- -----Original Message-----
From:	Kotsinadelis, Peter (Peter) [SMTP:peterk@lucent.com]

They could fit 40 exposures on a roll and have nearly no cropping for an
8x10.

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