Square

[pentaxuser]

As DT has said about chopping off, it is unfortunate that square shooters can't get square paper. At almost any rectangle size you waste a lot. At 8x10 and assuming you want at least a quarter inch border all round you end up with only a 7.5 x7.5 print. That's a big wastage. Yes you might want a couple of test strips initially but I find that once I have nailed down exposure, most other prints are acceptable with my B&W Phillips analyser. Certainly not a need for a test strip per print.

You'd imagine that current paper producers would run some square paper. I have in the past only seen AGFA paper listed at 10x10. Mind you 5x7 ought to be 5 x 7.5 for 35mm negs and that's been another thread, I've contributed to.

pentaxuser

 

[kraker]

You'd imagine that current paper producers would run some square paper. I have in the past only seen AGFA paper listed at 10x10.

Agfa indeed! Although I'm a fan of Ilford, I'm very happy I bought 8 boxes of 100 sheets 10x10 (or, as I would put it, 25x25) when Agfa had their big sell-out on Ebay.

 

[rjas]

I've always wanted to make films so I love working in 35mm format but I think all of my square shots are a lot more up close and personal than many of my 35mm shots. Either way, I don't prefer one over the other. If a great situation presents itself a square or a rectangle won't ruin it (unless your totally incompetent )

 

[wiseowl]

I try not to limit myself to square compositions when using the Brony, but I do find that I gravitate towards square the more I use it. Having said that, some of my square compositions work better as rectangles.

 

[catem]

I've never used a square format, I use 35mm and 6x7.

However, I have noticed recently that I've wanted to crop some of my photos to square.

Hmm maybe that means something. I do think there is something refreshing about the square format, and it's another discipline to get to grips with, another way of looking...

Cate

 

[benjiboy]

To me the beauty of 6x6 is the choice it gives you of printing square, portrait ,landscape format, or indeed any proportion you want without having to turn the camera vertically, and although I always try to use the full frame if I think the composition can be improved later by changing this I do so. I shoot quite a lot of 6x6 M/F slides and if they can be improved by cropping I mount them in 6x4.5 slide mounts for projection

 

[catem]

To me the beauty of 6x6 is the choice it gives you of printing square, portrait ,landscape format, or indeed any proportion you want without having to turn the camera vertically,

Ah - but we RZ/RB users get around that by our nifty revolving backs, and then you can crop to square or get a larger neg. for rectangular than you would shooting 6x6 and cropping ...

sorry, I don't usually get into one upmanship with gear, but the revolving back really is a great feature......

Which is not to say, either, that a purpose-built 6x6 might not go amiss with me (more pics per roll for one thing)
Cate

 

[André E.C.]

...
sorry, I don't usually get into one upmanship with gear, but the revolving back really is a great feature......

Yes it is, but the weight of that "thing" in front of it, isn`t!

Cheers

André

 

[arigram]

Square simply rulez bitches yo

 

[srs5694]

it is unfortunate that square shooters can't get square paper. At almost any rectangle size you waste a lot.

Have you ever considered buying paper in rolls? The selection isn't as great as with boxed paper, but several manufacturers do offer it, in both RC and FB. If you're cutting down rectangular formats into square formats, it shouldn't be much (if any) less convenient to cut from rolls, once you've put together a reasonable cutting station (a dowel with supports and paper cutter is all it takes, and in a pinch you can do without the dowel and supports). In January I picked up a roll of 8-inch by some-huge-amount roll of color (RA-4) paper for a very low price, and I've been cutting it into whatever sizes I need, including square formats. Being able to use peculiar sizes without throwing away paper is nice. I'm thinking of getting some B&W paper this way, too, but for the moment I've got a hefty supply of B&W paper, so I've not bought any yet.

 

[dpurdy]

Square composition and Rectangle compositions work differently. It is hard to get much side to side or top to bottom motion in the square composition. A square is much more center oriented. I never center anything in a Rectangle.

Personally I can't help but compose full frame with whatever camera. So when I get tired of the square with the Rolleiflex, I switch to the Pentax 67 and go with the rectangle. I have cropped the 67 down to a square far more than cropping the 66 down to a rectangle. When cropping significant parts of my negative I feel like I failed to see what was going on in the camera.

 

[dancqu]

To me the beauty of 6x6 is the choice it gives you of
printing ... any proportion you want without having to
turn the camera ...

The square format always projects on the easel
a correctly oriented image for easy viewing, portrait
or landscape. Not so with 6x4.5 and 6x7. Those two
benefit from a revolving negative carrier.

On an 8x10 basis the 6x7 negative has 50 + percent
more area; 8x10s vs 10x12. On the same basis the
6x6 and 6x4.5 have nearly the same area with
square having the advantage.

I'd be interested in a 10x10, 4 inch square, SLR
with two or three of the basic view camera
movements. Dan

 

[srs5694]

The square format always projects on the easel
a correctly oriented image for easy viewing, portrait
or landscape.

Not necessarily; it depends on whether the camera runs the film through horizontally (like a folder) or vertically (like a TLR). With my enlarger, positioned to work with it "head-on," the latter produces images that are always projected with 90-degree rotation.

 

[bjorke]

Square simply rulez bitches yo

I take it you're speaking of my former employerz?

 

[dancqu]

Not necessarily; it depends on whether the
camera runs the film through horizontally
(like a folder) or vertically (like a TLR).

Too much focused on the horizontal. I the owner
and user of the Mamiya C2 in the early 60s. Dan

 

[nworth]

I usually shoot 645 and 6X9 - very rectangular. But I do shoot some 6X6. I usually intend to crop these to rectangular for printing - the viewfinder on one of my cameras even has some guidelines for it. It seldom works out that way. I've been too well trained to fill the viewfinder frame. My square shots usually come out either very square or nearly so. This is not a bad thing. (I just get a slightly weird and guilty feeling about printing 11X11 on 11X14 paper - like I'm wasting some paper. I'm not really being wasteful, but habit and training make me feel that way.)

 

[Philippe-Georges]

About square on 4"x5", I recently made a kind of mask out of a rigid black plastic sheet (unexposed colour slide) and mounted it in my Linhof between the back standard and the focussing screen, now I have 4"x4" on the film, the Polaroïds and on the prints with a very nice black border...
It might be a little odd but I like it this way!

 

[JJC]

About square on 4"x5", I recently made a kind of mask out of a rigid black plastic sheet (unexposed colour slide) and mounted it in my Linhof between the back standard and the focussing screen, now I have 4"x4" on the film, the Polaroïds and on the prints with a very nice black border...
It might be a little odd but I like it this way!

I had been wondering if there was a cheap & easy way to get square format LF. Thanks for writing in about this.