Sheet Film

For most amateur photographers, the film of choice is standard 35mm film. With 35mm film, you can get a good quality photographic from a basic, point and shoot camera, and it is perfectly adequate for most amateur photography uses. If you have an SLR camera, and you use your camera take photos of family and friends for your own private collection, than 35mm film is the ideal choice for you. For professional photographers, however, the decision about which film to use gets a little more complex. The same goes for people who pursue photography as a serious hobby. When you are taking professional photos, you need a professional level camera, and those kinds of cameras require a special kind of film. The most common types of professional level cameras are the medium format camera and the large format camera, and these cameras can’t take just any old film. To use one of these kinds of cameras, you need to use special sheet film. Sheet film produced high quality photographs and puts more of the control over the photo taking process into the hands of the photographer.

Why Use Sheet Film?

The basic reason for using sheet film in medium format camera and large format cameras is simple – the film itself is larger, and so you can easily take larger photos with it. These kinds of cameras are designed for taking large photographs of all sorts – either large in actual photo size, or photos of large subjects, like landscape shots. Sheet film starts out at the right size that the photographer wants the actual photo to be, so there is no concern over taking a smaller frame image and having to enlarge it, distorting the final image. Sheet film comes in several different sizes. Sheet film that is 4x5 is the most popular size, but 8x10 sheet film is also available, right on up to the 20x25 poster size of sheet film. Because this kind of film, combined with the right kind of camera, offers a higher magnification degree, the resulting photos are crispers, brighter, and sharper.

Sheet film is highly specialized. If you want to buy it, you will need to pay a visit to a specialty camera store, or of course, you can buy it online. Two popular sheet film brands are Ilford sheet film and Rollei sheet film. Sheet film is very delicate, so you should seek some sheet film storage advice if you have never used it before.