Uses
The 4×5 inch sheet film format was very convenient for press photography since it allowed for direct contact printing on the printing plate, hence it was widely used in press cameras. This was done well into 1940s and 1950s, even with the advent of more convenient and compact medium format or 35 mm roll-film cameras which started to appear in the 1930s. The 35 mm and medium format SLR which appeared in the mid-1950s were soon adopted by press photographers.
Large-format photography is not limited to film; large digital camera backs are available to fit large-format cameras. These are either medium-format digital backs adapted to fit large-format cameras (sometimes resulting in cropped images), step and repeat Multishot systems, or scanning backs (which scan the image area in the manner of a flat-bed scanner). Scanning backs can take seconds or even several minutes to capture an image. When using a Sinar Macroscan unit and 54H data files, over 1 gigabyte of data is produced.
Large format, both film-based and digital, is still used for many applications, for example: landscape photography, advertising photos, fine-art photography, scientific applications and generally for images that will be enlarged to a high magnification while requiring a high level of detail.
Recordation of historic resources for the National Park Service documentation programs: the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and the Historic American Landscape Survey (HALS) requires large format film-based photography. 4×5", 5×7", and 8×10" large format film formats are the only acceptable formats for inclusion in the HABS, HAER, and HALS collections at the Library of Congress. 4x5 and 5x7 are generally used in the field (5×7" is preferred for very significant buildings) and 8×10" is generally utilized for photo-duplication of historic photographs, documents and blueprints. Through HABS/HAER/HALS, buildings and sites of historic significance are recorded with large format cameras and black and white film and using techniques that document the key features of the historic resource with special care not to distort the angles and views. This rectified photography can be accomplished with large-format cameras by keeping the film, lens and subject perfectly parallel. Smaller format cameras need to be tilted to view high or low subjects, but the same subjects can be captured by shifting the lens element of a large format camera up or down to keep the film, lens, and subject planes parallel.
HABS, HAER, and HALS also requires the increased resolution of large format film. A sheet of 5×7" film has almost twice the resolution of 4×5" film, and 4×5" is almost 16 times larger than a 35 mm film image (24×36 mm). This added negative size not only allows for more detail, but the large-format polyester film is also far more durable than acetate 35 mm stock. HABS, HAER, and HALS require that all submissions to the Library of Congress include the original film (archivally washed) and it must also include contact prints on fiber-based paper; these contact are the same size as the film being submitted, 4×5", 5×7", 8×10" and the large size allows people to readily see the prints, while 35 mm contacts would be too small and would require magnification.
The Library of Congress uses various large format digital scans for "American Memories" (its website of old images and maps) in the current JPEG 2000 format (which allows quick small images, remote tiling, remote enlargement), and the older MrSID, JPEG, and TIFF formats.
In the printing industry, very large fixed cameras were also used to make large films for the preparation of lithographic plates before computer to film and computer to plate techniques were introduced. These are generally referred to as a "process camera" and consist of vertically-mounted models for smaller work and horizontal units mounted on rails for very large works such as maps and plans.
Read more about this topic: Large Format (photography)