[gchpaco]

Too small, slide mounts were already standardized on 24x36, and the square was never all that popular among the general photographer. The reason why the square shape in 120 was originally developed was a technical hack. Since it outputs a square, there was never any need to hold a Hasselblad vertically; just take the photo and crop it to suit. The only square consumer oriented cameras I can think of are twin-lens reflex cameras like the Rolleiflex, which are delightful but somewhat uncommon. A number of folks started trying to make use of the square format as a square format, but it was not originally, I think, intended for that purpose.

Re: too small; an 8x10, one of the smaller standard print formats for portraits, is about an 8x enlargement from a 35mm frame. With modern materials and good technique, 8x-11x is feasible, but starting to push it at the edges; I have printed 13x17s off 35mm but I would not want to push it much larger. 35mm does 4x6s, 5x7s and 8x10s perfectly reasonably, which is what it spent most of its time doing for common consumer work. It's worth noting that one of the other common consumer cameras of the 1940s was the Brownie, which output 6cmx9cm images and was routinely contact printed, producing something smaller even than a 4x6.

120 produces images that are between 1.8x (in the 645 format) or 2.5x (in most others) as large, physically, meaning that the common enlargements are only 4x-5x. If you push it, with quality equipment, you start getting into print sizes that are super clumsy to handle like 20x24. I've never printed, personally, anything larger than a 16x20. If you do your own wet processing they're also nicer to work with—35mm negatives are real small and kinda fiddly. 4x5 sheets are also delightful to work with, of course, but they require fighting the camera in the field.

[rplst8]

> With modern materials and good technique, 8x-11x is feasible, but starting to push it at the edges; I have printed 13x17s off 35mm but I would not want to push it much larger.

Many pros push 35mm to billboard sizes. The size of the print doesn't matter. It's the viewing distance.

[HankB99]

Not a pro here, but the greater the distance, the better my pictures look. ;) Back to the subject at hand, it is a little surprising to me that a format closer to square didn't catch on at some point. I suppose that the image quality of the image deteriorates more toward the edge of a circle around the center point. The format that gets the most out of a circle of acceptable quality is a square. As the shape becomes more oblong, more of that 'acceptable quality area' falls outside the image. Perhaps this is one reason that larger formats are closer to square than 35mm.

[sjwright]

Well to be pedantic, the format that gets the most out of a circle of acceptable quality is a circle, not a square.

[HankB99]

Point taken. That makes me curious if any cameras were ever produced in that format. I would suspect that circular format photography might be used in astronomy where every last bit of the image is valuable.

[sjwright]

Yo’re right though, a square is certainly the rectangle of largest area from a circular lens.

If there was a need to maximize the capture for technical reasons I imagine it would be easier to just oversize the film or sensor and trim the corners.

[gchpaco]

There's a number of fisheyes that produce circular images on rectangular film (obviously, not using the entirety of the film surface).

[w0mbat]

> The only square consumer oriented cameras

> I can think of are twin-lens reflex cameras

> like the Rolleiflex, which are delightful

> but somewhat uncommon.

The Kodak Brownie, a cheap consumer camera that sold in the millions, was a 120 camera that shot square pictures, same format as a Hasselblad or a Rolleiflex. The original Box Brownie came out in 1900 and was the most popular camera in the world for years going through various models up to the 1960s. That's how long the 120 square format was a popular consumer format.

[gchpaco]

The #2 Brownie came out in 1901 and shot 6cm x 9cm, and all of the surviving Brownies I've seen shot rectangular formats. There was the Brownie 127 which shot square, but I only learned of its existence just now; have never seen one in the wild, probably because finding 127 film is functionally impossible.

[Finnucane]

once a year Ilford produces a limited run of 127 bulk rolls (and other odd sizes). I’ve got a 127 Spartus I wanted to get some for, but figured i’d Never use the whole spool.

[frostburg]

Rolleiflex cameras were extremely expensive and not in any sense consumer oriented.

[gchpaco]

No, but it is the one name that people remember, and saves much explanation. The Rolleicord, the Mamiya C series, and the YashicaMats, one of which is my TLR, were more consumer oriented.