Medium and Large Format Crop Factors

Analog photography has a deep and rich history of evolution and diversification going back 200 years. After an early, bewildering explosion of diversity and competition, by the late 20th century the industry had settled on a limited number of standard film types before digital photography transformed the medium.

This article seeks to visually explain the most common formats and relate them to the 35mm “full frame” format for people coming from a digital photography background.

Crop Factor

Crop factor is a multiplier which allows one to compare a particular imaging area to the 35mm lens imaging area.

More generally, a crop factor can be applied to the focal length of a lens for one imaging area (or format) to provide an understanding of the angle of view that focal length will produce upon a different imaging area (or format).

To be sure, it is a strange usage of this term to apply it to imaging areas which are larger than 135 format. I have chosen to use it in this fashion because the term is a familiar one to those coming from digital imaging. And mathematically, it works just as well, you simply end up with numbers which are less than one as the multiplier. However I understand objections to the term as conceptually, no actual crop is being applied to the larger format, rather an inverse crop (an expansion?) is being applied to the 135 format. I hope this is clear.

Part of the job of a photographer is to visualise the angle of view that a particular lens has in order to choose an appropriate focal length for a particular shot. For example, on 135 format, a 50mm lens is considered a “normal” angle of view or pretty close to the way the human eye sees. Likewise, on 135 format, a 20mm lens is considered “wide” and a 150mm lens is considered “telephoto”. However, due to the fact that focal length is an invariant property of a lens, a 150mm lens on a 4×5 format camera actually has a “normal” field of view because the imaging area is so much larger!

Hence a nominal crop factor aids in understanding and pre-visualisation of a shot, before a lens is chosen, for those coming from smaller or larger formats.

This discussion glosses over other important properties of a lens, such as the image circle, for the sake of simplicity.

Aspect Ratios

Crop factor is below calculated by simply dividing the diagonal of the 135 format (43mm) by the diagonal of the comparison format. However, the resulting number is only useful if the aspect ratios of the two formats are similar. Where the formats differ widely, as in 135 vs 6×17 (to take an extreme example, 3:2 vs ~3:1), the crop factor may be better calculated by dividing the two shorter sides.

All illustrations which follow are to scale for direct visual comparison (except for 8×10 large format).

135 format

The introduction of 135 format in the early 20th century enabled cameras to become much smaller and extremely portable. 135 took over from medium format as the format of choice during the post-war period. More 35mm film cameras were produced than any other film type by quite a large margin, and thus it is the format most people are familiar with.

• Crop 1.0x
• Dimensions: 24 x 36mm
• Aspect: 3:2
• Diagonal: 43mm
• Shots per roll: 36+

Medium Format

Medium format is actually a collection of formats, all of which use unperforated 120 format roll film which is 62mm wide. 120 film is commonly available and can be processed in many minilabs. It produces a negative which is between 2 times and three times the diagonal of 135 format.

645 format

• Crop 0.6x
• Dimensions: 56x42mm
• Aspect: 4:3
• Diagonal: 72mm
• Shots per roll: 16

Example systems

• Mamiya 645
• Pentax 645
• Contax 645

6×6 format

• Crop 0.55x
• Dimensions: 56x56mm
• Aspect: 1:1
• Diagonal: 79mm
• Shots per roll: 12

Example systems

• Hasselblad
• Most Twin Lens Reflex cameras, eg Rolleiflex, YashicaMat, Mamiya C330, etc
• Folding viewfinder and rangefinder cameras from Zeiss, Balda, Welta, Olympus, etc
• Mamiya 6 (1990s)

6×7 format

• Crop 0.5x
• Dimensions: 56x67mm
• Aspect: 5:4
• Diagonal: 89mm
• Shots per roll: 10

Example systems

• Pentax 67
• Mamiya RB67
• Mamiya RZ67
• Mamiya 7

6×8 format

• Crop 0.45x
• Dimensions: 56x75mm
• Aspect: 4:3
• Diagonal: 98mm
• Shots per roll: 8

Example systems

• Fuji GX680

6×9 format

• Crop 0.4x
• Dimensions: 56x84mm
• Aspect: 3:2
• Diagonal: 106mm
• Shots per roll: 8

Example systems

• Mamiya Press
• Voigtländer Bessa
• Zeiss Ikonta
• Moskova

Large format

Like Medium Format, there are a series of increasingly large imaging areas under the rubric Large Format. It is beyond the scope of this article to detail them all. We will simply mention two of the Large Formats, 4×5 and 8×10.

9×12 format

This is the European continental equivalent of the US 4×5 format, and although it is slightly smaller it is equivalent for our purposes here.

4×5 format

4-inch by 5-inch and larger formats are generally not referred to by metric numbers. (In the UK 4×5 is referred to as 5×4.)

4×5 is found only as sheet film. It cannot be processed in a minilab, and finding a pro lab to develop your film can be a challenge, hence most 4×5 is shot and developed in black and white chemistry in home darkrooms.

4×5 is slightly more than double the area of 6×9.

4×5 is the so-called “International” format that Graflok backs and double film holders (sometimes called “dark slides”) accept. It is not to be confused with the similar European size of 9x12cm.

• Crop 0.28x
• Dimensions: 94x120mm
• Aspect: 4:3
• Diagonal: 152mm
• Shots per sheet: 1

Example systems

• Pacemaker Graphic – Speed, Crown
• Graflex
• Linhof
• Horseman
• Wista
• Toyo
• Ebony
• Chamonix

8×10 format

8×10 is the largest format in common use. It has double the diagonal, or four times the area of 4×5 film.

(Not to scale)

• Crop 0.13x
• Dimensions: 203x254mm
• Aspect: 5:4
• Diagonal: 325mm
• Shots per sheet: 1

Field of View Equivalence

The values in this table are approximate and have been rounded to common focal lengths for simplicity. All crop factors are expressed relative to 135 format.

135	645	6x6	6x7	6x8	6x9	4x5
/1.0	/0.6	/0.55	/0.5	/0.45	/0.4	/0.28
15	24	28	30	32	35	55
21	32	38	42	48	48	75
28	45	50	55	60	65	100
35	55	65	70	78	80	125
45	70	80	90	95	100	160
50	80	90	100	110	120	180
70	105	120	140	145	150	250
90	145	160	180	200	210	320
110	175	200	220	240	250	300
135	220	245	270	300	320	480
200	320	365	400	450	465	700

References

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_format
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_format_(film)
• http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?74928-Is-9×12-4×5
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_film
• http://largesense.com/products/4×5-large-format-digital-back-ls45/
• https://www.pointsinfocus.com/tools/depth-of-field-and-equivalent-lens-calculator/
• https://largeformatu.blogspot.com/2014/06/comparison-of-focal-lengths-of-lenses.html