Medium backs???

[Youngun]

I've heard of medium format backs for cameras. What exactly does this mean?

 

[voodoocat]

A medium format back is for a medium format camera. You can get backs that hold 120 film (12 6x6 exposures), 240 film (24 6x6 exposures), poloroid back (for checking exposure) and then recently digital back. 16 and 22 megapixels is what they make now. Anywhere from $5-32k.

 

[Mitica100]

I've heard of medium format backs for cameras. What exactly does this mean?

Like Voodoo says, the medium format cameras handle a larger size negative. They all have removable backs for multi purposes. Say you're shooting color slide and you just realize that a B/W shot of the same subject would work better. With most of the medium format cameras one needs to switch from the back holding color slide film to the one holding B/W film. The advantage of these backs being that they can be switched in mid-roll. The many sizes of the MF backs are from 6x6, 6x4.5, 6x7, 6x9, 4x4 (aka Superslide) and so on, the most common being the 6x6 (or 2 and 1/4 by 2 and 1/4 inch). They have dark slides which, when removed, allow for picture taking.

 

[ksmattfish]

You can also get medium format backs for large format cameras, so that you can use 120/220 roll film with the LF camera.