Re: Historical Sources for Film Holder Sizes

From: Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>
Subject: Historical Sources for Film Holder Sizes
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 21:43:25 -0400

> I checked in my files to see if I had any information of the type you
> requested regarding historical information on camera formats. Sorry,
> but I could not find anything of use.
[...]
> Hope someone else can help and provide a good lead. The subject is
> also very interesting to me.

Thanks for looking. That's ok, this is not an urgent need but
something of a long term project. Information in this area is
appreciated anytime.

I feel such a project worth pursuing, partly because I see some
overlap betwen around 1880 and today. It was that gelatinobromide dry
plates (Maddox, 1871) rapidly displacing wet collodion plates. Even
then, some people, though very few in number, were said to stick with
collodion process.

> As best I can surmise from my own files the 6.5" X 8.5" format
> appears to have become a standard size very late in the 19th century.
> It may well have appeared about the same time as film on nitrate base
> since all of the film holders I have seen in this size have been
> standard, whereas many plate holders sold as full plate are quite
> irregular.

That's an interesting observation. I get records like which company
started selling dry plates in this place in year such and such, but I
rarely (probably never) saw in what size they were sold. Obviously
plates must fit into the holders so this is another piece of interest.

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"You have to realize that junk is not the problem in and of itself.
Junk is the symptom, not the problem."
(Bob Dylan 1971; source: No Direction Home by Robert Shelton)