art_rowan

Thanks for all the information. It seems safe to say that 4:6 (24x36mm) negatives are not at all unusual for the 1950s, and that such negatives would have been, in essence, automatically cropped in the printing process simply because the paper came in 4x5 proportions. That certainly seems to suggest that a photographer would have needed to take extra care with composition, and looking at my 4x6 prints I'd have to say it appears there is a pattern of "extra" space at one side of the frame -- my uneducated opinion is that whoever took these photos had some idea of what he was doing.

Thanks. Am I correct to conclude that negatives in a 4:6 ratio *can* be dated to the 1950s, but that they were more likely taken by an amateur than a professional?

I'm a very new collector of 1950s b&w photography, and I'm trying to learn

something about the film of that era. Almost all of what I have was printed in a

4" x 5" format, but examining a set of negatives (supposedly from the '50s) the

format has confused me: I was expecting to see 4:5 images on the negatives, but

they're 4:6 (24x36 mm). Was it was the practice to produce 4x5 images from 4:6

negatives?

 

The only info I see on the negatives are Eastman Kodak, Panchromatic, and Safety

Film.

 

Thanks.