Sheet Film - Benefits

Benefits

Sheet film is, simply enough, big, and as such has a proportionately great ability to hold information. As an example, the image on a 8x10 inch piece of sheet film has approximately fifty six times the surface area of a standard 35mm image. In theory, the "enlargability" of such an image is proportionately great although the very high image quality of small format lenses sometimes allows somewhat greater magnifications than some large format lenses. However, this is not always the case. Sheet film can be enlarged to poster, or even billboard, size with acceptable quality. It is far easier to do retouching directly on the surface of a sheet of film since the images are large, than on smaller formats. Many of the larger formats can be contact printed, and for some ultra-large formats, are only contact printed.

Each sheet can receive individualized processing. Since each exposure is its own sheet, it's possible to alter development, based on the contrast of the photographed scene, to best fit the dynamic range of the subject. Because of this, many large-format photographers are also practitioners of the Zone System.

Because of the large size and very manual single-use nature of sheet films, it's possible to use a single sheet for more than one exposure. Using a dark slide which has been cut in half, turning a standard format into a long, skinny panoramic format is simple and very cost effective. While the holder is in the camera, the photographer removes the complete dark slide and inserts the half slide, then makes an exposure on half the sheet. The half dark slide is flipped over, and the other half of the film is available for a second shot. The practice originated with photographers taking pictures of groups of banquet attendees, giving these "banquet" formats their name. 4×10, 7×17, 8×20, and 12×20 inches are the most commonly used of these formats. However, specialized large format banquet cameras were often used for this purpose. They rotated on a stand while exposing the film in a pass from one edge to the other. Jokesters often took advantage of this by getting on the end of the line of people being photographed and then running behind the group of people and standing on the other end of the line so that they show up on both ends of the resulting picture.