Why Ilford printing paper has not the 3/2 ratio in dimensions like of a 35mm film

DREW WILEY · Mar 8, 2023

35mm film might get shot a great deal. But traditionally, machine-gunning sports, journalistic, and street types, many with auto-winders, would sort through hundreds of shots to find just a couple worth printing. And unless some special exhibition venue was involved, the resultant prints were likely to be small and not involve any great quantity of paper square footage. And in fact, over much of the era, sheet film and medium format roll film was the predominant commercial mode, and not 35mm.

For example, to do justice to my 8x10 color shots, I buy my paper in big 30 or 40 inch wide rolls. Anything 35mm can be printed using trimmed-off margins, which also serve as test strips, but would otherwise just be minor waste. That's maybe 300 times the surface area of paper in a single roll purchase than an entire hundred sheet box of 8x10 paper. An if even I'm just printing black and white 16X20 FB paper, its four times the price than the same amount of 8x10, let alone 5x7 better proportioned to the 2:3 35mm ratio, and therefore more profitable to the manufacturer too.

But yeah, I get it; I shoot a lot of 6x9 RF work, and there's often a bit of waste on the width of 16X20 paper, unless I crop the image to something more like 6x7 proportion (I do shoot 6X7 too). But we crop images for all kinds of reasons; so no paper proportion is ever going to be ideal for everything. One has to standardize their purchasing power to a degree.

MurrayMinchin · Mar 8, 2023

cliveh said:
I have also asked this question in the past. 35mm is the most common film format on the planet and paper manufacturers have never bothered sell paper in this aspect ratio. Marketing people are not photographers.

*The following is to be read with only the snoottiest of attitudes*

Well, if one ascribes to the Aaron Spelling business model where one plumbs the depths of the lowest common denominator. Those with more refined tastes would be using 4x5 or 8x10 cameras.

(Ducking under the chesterfield, now!

Pieter12 · Mar 8, 2023

cliveh said:
Marketing people are not photographers.

Maybe so, maybe not. But it would cost Ilford to cut papers to all the different sizes they would think marketable and proportional to the 35mm frame because of the waste involved. Would you be willing to pay as much for an 8x10 sheet of photo paper as for a 6-2/3x10" sheet? Because, for Ilford it would cost the same. Maybe more, because they'd need to set up equipment to cut that size, too.

MattKing · Mar 8, 2023

cliveh said:
I have also asked this question in the past. 35mm is the most common film format on the planet and paper manufacturers have never bothered sell paper in this aspect ratio. Marketing people are not photographers.

Very few darkroom printers print to sizes like 4"x6".
The vast majority of prints from 35mm are on 4"x6" paper - almost all on either 4" roll paper or 6" roll paper - done by labs.
The darkroom printers tend to either:
1) customize their prints to the mats they intend to use;
2) custom cut mats; or
3) buy paper that fits into frames or albums - the frame/album sizes determine the paper size.
Very few darkroom printers are reluctant to crop.

MattKing · Mar 8, 2023

MurrayMinchin said:
(Ducking under the chesterfield, now!

You may have to translate "chesterfield" for some of our US members .

Sirius Glass · Mar 8, 2023

DREW WILEY said:
Sirius - or breed together you're square and 35mm formats, and you do end up with a standard paper proportion like 8x10 or 16X20 etc. Just one more reason you should buy my patented Film Stretcher.

I am looking of a left handed paper stretcher.

Sirius Glass · Mar 8, 2023

Pieter12 said:
You don't need to fill the sheet. Just print the ratio you want on whatever size you want. Cut the paper if you want to. Consider the border size: you should probably leave the bottom border wider than the rest, just make it look balanced and pleasing to the eye. If the prints end up matted, the mat window can match your image proportions.

That is what I have been doing for almost 60 years. I gave up thinking about the paper size disparity a long time ago as I have other more pressing pet peeves.

Sirius Glass · Mar 8, 2023

MattKing said:
You may have to translate "chesterfield" for some of our US members .

Not related to a cigarette brand, closer to a sofa or couch, right?

MattKing · Mar 8, 2023

Sirius Glass said:
closer to a sofa or couch,

The same - I think it might come from our English roots.

Sirius Glass · Mar 8, 2023

MattKing said:
The same - I think it might come from our English roots.

Maple, oak, beech?

Pieter12 · Mar 8, 2023

DREW WILEY said:
Sirius - or breed together you're square and 35mm formats, and you do end up with a standard paper proportion like 8x10 or 16X20 etc. Just one more reason you should buy my patented Film Stretcher.

Or an anamorphic enlarging lens.

MurrayMinchin · Mar 8, 2023

MattKing said:
You may have to translate "chesterfield" for some of our US members .

Bad me...did it on purpose

cliveh · Mar 8, 2023

It would be interesting to hear from Ilford or any photographic paper manufacturer about this.

bluechromis · Mar 8, 2023

I have gotten Ilford Multigrade RC paper in the 8 1/2 X 11 inch size. It seems to match the 35 mm aspect ratio slightly better. But it is only a minor improvement. If I want to cut it down to 8 x 10 I can get borderless edges which works well for bleed mounting. In comparison, when using 8 x 10 paper, the pallets I have used leave a sizable border that is not hidden by most frames when doing a bleed mount. 8 1/2 X 11works well for 35 mm proof sheets.

GregY · Mar 8, 2023

bluechromis said:
I have gotten Ilford Multigrade RC paper in the 8 1/2 X 11 inch size. It seems to match the 35 mm aspect ratio slightly better. But it is only a minor improvement. If I want to cut it down to 8 x 10 I can get borderless edges which works well for bleed mounting. In comparison, when using 8 x 10 paper, the pallets I have used leave a sizable border that is not hidden by most frames when doing a bleed mount. 8 1/2 X 11works well for 35 mm proof sheets.

Neither 8.5 x 11 nor 12x16 are commonly stocked items in N America. B&H has none in stock, and Freestyle has 2 offerings compared to 99 in 8x10....

MattKing · Mar 8, 2023

GregY said:
Neither 8.5 x 11 nor 12x16 are commonly stocked items. B&H has none in stock, and Freestyle has 2 offerings compared to 99 in 8x10....

That is a response to the US and Canadian marketplace. 12x16 is more commonly stocked by Ilford distributors in other markets.
It is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.
By the way, 12x16 cut into two sheets of 8x12 would be perfect for those who seek a 2:3 aspect ratio.

GregY · Mar 8, 2023

Honestly we've lived with paper size/film size differences for decades. As others have mentioned many of us shoot different film sizes. For me 35mm is in the minority, and i'll print from. 645,6x6,6x7, 6x8, 6x9, 4"x5" and 5"x7" with a few 8x10"....i don't consider paper size to be an issue. Supply of BW enlarging paper on the other hand continues to shrink. Let's not shake up Ilford....they continue to be the most reliable supplier of enlarging paper.

Pieter12 · Mar 8, 2023

I shoot square, print square (even if the film format isn't square). No whining here. I'm used to having excess paper and if things get tight, I might just cut my paper square and use the extra for test strips.

bluechromis · Mar 8, 2023

I know there are folks that love wide aspect ratios, up to panorama width. But I have also heard more than a few people state that they hate the 35 mm aspect ratio, saying that it is overly wide, especially in a portrait orientation. They feel it is an unfortunate accident that that ratio ever became the standard. The border for the sproket holes on 35 mm seems pretty narrow, but together they add up. If 35 mm had the smaller borders like medium format that might be noticeably different. The sprocket holes were there originally for use in cinema and may not be ideal for still photography. In a way you are paying for extra film area you can't use. One of Kodak's failed film formats was 828 which was like an unperforated 35 mm with a paper backing. It was 1 1/8 X 1 x 1/2 inches ratio, so almost square. Even though it failed, perhaps it is an indication that Kodak recognized that perforated movie-style film was not ideally suited to still photography.

In digital, I have made prints to fit in 8 x 12 frames because it seems to better match the 35 mm format. But I have found that works better with some images that others. Some images strike me as bit strange in 8 x 12. If you have square negatives it is the opposite problem as the wide 35 mm negs. So even if Ilford made paper that better fit 35 mm, would people still feel the need to frequently make prints in less wide ratios for aesthetic reasons? You could say It is Ilford's fault in not making paper in the right size for 35 or you could say it is fault of the 35 mm ratio that is difficult to work with and out of step with some other common formats.

I can't argue that in an ideal world that it wouldn't be nice if paper manufactures made some paper for 35 mm ratio so people could use it if they wanted to. Maybe if enough people beg for it there was be a Go Fund Me campaign to produce it. It would nicer still if they offered 35 mm size in all options of color tone, texture, fiber, RC etc. Or maybe an enterprising little company will buy rolls of paper from manufactuers and cut in down to 35 mm format and sell it at a premium with a slick marketing campaign that makes it seems like they are making a new kind of paper the world has never seen before. But in a less than ideal world that's a lot to hope for. I don't know if paper was ever made in 35 ratio, but certainly there was vastly greater variety of kinds of paper in the past. I'm pretty glad they are still making the papers we have.

MattKing · Mar 8, 2023

Now if someone wants to argue for more small roll paper and easy to obtain and reasonably priced roll cutter/dispensers, I'm all in!

MattKing · Mar 8, 2023

bluechromis said:
One of Kodak's failed film formats was 828

Actually it was quite successful - in Kodachrome!
That's me about 60 years younger at bottom right, in the brown jacket:

Pieter12 · Mar 8, 2023

bluechromis said:
But I have also heard more than a few people state that they hate the 35 mm aspect ratio, saying that it is overly wide, especially in a portrait orientation. They feel it is an unfortunate accident that that ratio ever became the standard. The border for the sproket holes on 35 mm seems pretty narrow, but together they add up. If 35 mm had the smaller borders like medium format that might be noticeably different.

There is no reason 35mm could not have been a different ratio. The height might be fixed, but the width could be anything, as 35mm panoramic cameras. Blame it on Barnack.

cmacd123 · Mar 8, 2023

MattKing said:
You may have to translate "chesterfield" for some of our US members .

Wikipedia seems to lump it in with sofas and such... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couch

MattKing · Mar 8, 2023

By the way, 110 film and 4/3 or M4/3 sensors are essentially the same size.
And they offer the same aspect ratio as 6x4.5.
They fit perfectly on 12x16 paper, and quite well on 11x14.

Rick A · Mar 8, 2023

Ilford makes 4x6, 8.5x11, and 9.5x12. the 4x6 is 3/2, and 9.5x12 is close for 35mm.

Why Ilford printing paper has not the 3/2 ratio in dimensions like of a 35mm film

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Why Ilford printing paper has not the 3/2 ratio in dimensions like of a 35mm film

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