Medium Format Photography: 120 Film, Bigger Negatives, and the Balance Between Quality and Portability

In April 2026, a design engineer named Francis Garing launched a Kickstarter campaign for a medium-format film camera called the VZ-6617. The camera's defining feature is a Variable Zone Film Gate, a 3D-printed articulating mask mechanism that lets the photographer change the frame size from 6x6 to 6x17 on the same roll of 120 film, mid-roll, by turning a knob. Garing built the camera because he was tired of carrying multiple medium-format cameras for different aspect ratios. An RB67 for square portraits, Fuji 6x4.5 bodies for everyday shooting, a panoramic camera for wide landscapes: each format required a different camera body. The VZ-6617 eliminates that constraint. The campaign met its $7,500 funding goal with 26 backers and nearly a month left to go. The fact that someone is designing and funding a new medium-format film camera in 2026 tells you that this format is not a relic. It is a living practice.

Medium format photography is the practice of using cameras that take 120 or 220 roll film, producing negatives larger than 35mm but smaller than large format sheet film. The 120 film format, introduced by Kodak in 1901 for the No. 2 Brownie camera, is a roll of film 61mm wide backed with paper, producing frames in various sizes depending on the camera: 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, and even 6x17 centimeters. Medium format occupies the middle ground between the portability of 35mm and the image quality of large format, and it has been the preferred format for portrait, fashion, and landscape photographers who need more detail and tonal range than 35mm provides but who cannot or will not work with the bulk and slowness of a view camera.

This entry covers how medium format works, its history from the early 20th century to the present, the cameras and photographers that defined the format, and why medium format continues to attract practitioners in 2026.

What Is Medium Format and How Does It Work?

The defining characteristic of medium format is the film size. 120 film is 61mm wide, and the length of film determines how many frames a roll produces. A 120 roll is approximately 82cm long. The number of frames depends on the camera's frame size: 6x4.5cm cameras produce 15 or 16 frames per roll, 6x6cm cameras produce 12, 6x7cm cameras produce 10, 6x9cm cameras produce 8, and 6x17cm panoramic cameras produce 4. 220 film, now largely discontinued, was the same width but twice the length, producing double the number of frames per roll.

The advantage of medium format over 35mm is negative area. A 6x6cm negative has approximately 56x56mm of usable image area, which is about 3.1 times the area of a 35mm frame (24x36mm). A 6x7cm negative has about 4.5 times the area. More negative area means more resolution, finer grain, and better tonal range. A 6x7 negative can be enlarged to 16x20 inches or larger with detail that a 35mm negative cannot match. For photographers who need large prints, medium format provides the quality without the extreme slowness and bulk of an 8x10 view camera.

Medium format cameras come in several types. Twin-lens reflex (TLR) cameras, like the Rolleiflex, have two lenses: one for viewing and one for exposing. The photographer looks down into a ground glass at waist level to compose. The image is reversed left to right, which takes practice. Single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras, like the Hasselblad 500C/M and the Mamiya RB67, have a mirror that flips up during exposure, allowing the photographer to see exactly what the lens sees. Rangefinder cameras, like the Mamiya 7, use a separate viewfinder with a coupled rangefinder for focusing. Folding cameras, like the vintage Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta, collapse for portability. Each type has its advantages and its following.

Origins and History

The Brownie and the Birth of 120 Film (1901)

Kodak introduced 120 film in 1901 for the No. 2 Brownie camera, a simple, inexpensive box camera that sold for $2. The Brownie was designed for amateur photographers, and 120 film was its consumer format. The film produced 2.25x3.25 inch (6x9cm) negatives, eight per roll. The Brownie democratized photography, and 120 film became one of the most widely used film formats of the 20th century. The irony is that a format designed for cheap amateur cameras became, decades later, the preferred format for professional photographers.

The Rolleiflex and TLR Era (1929-1960s)

The Rolleiflex, introduced by Franke and Heidecke in 1929, was the first practical twin-lens reflex camera using 120 film. It produced 6x6cm square negatives, 12 per roll. The camera was compact, quiet, and held at waist level, which made it unobtrusive. The Rolleiflex became the standard camera for press, portrait, and street photographers through the 1950s. Robert Capa carried a Rolleiflex alongside his 35mm Contax during the Spanish Civil War. Vivian Maier used a Rolleiflex for her street photographs of Chicago and New York, taken over four decades and discovered only after her death in 2009.

The square 6x6 format became a signature of medium-format photography. Unlike rectangular formats, the square does not require the photographer to decide between horizontal and vertical orientation at the moment of capture. The decision can be made later, during printing or cropping. This freedom influenced the composition of generations of photographers who worked with the square format.

The Hasselblad Era (1957-Present)

The Hasselblad 500C, introduced in 1957, was a modular single-lens reflex camera using 120 film. It was designed by Victor Hasselblad, a Swedish camera manufacturer who had been asked by the Swedish Air Force to build a copy of a captured German reconnaissance camera. The 500C was modular: the lens, viewfinder, and film back were interchangeable. The camera used a leaf shutter in the lens, which allowed flash synchronization at all shutter speeds. The 500C and its successor, the 500C/M (1970), became the standard camera for studio portrait and fashion photography.

Hasselblad cameras were used by NASA for space photography beginning with the Mercury missions in 1962. The first photograph of Earth from lunar orbit, taken during Apollo 8 in December 1968, was made with a Hasselblad 500EL. The camera was modified for space use, with lubricants that would not off-gas in vacuum and a specially designed film magazine. Twelve Hasselblad cameras were left on the Moon to save weight for the return of lunar samples.

The Mamiya RB67 and RZ67 (1970-2000s)

The Mamiya RB67, introduced in 1970, was a 6x7cm SLR with rotating bellows focusing, allowing the photographer to switch between horizontal and vertical orientation without turning the camera. The RB67 was heavy, bulky, and produced 10 frames per roll, but its 6x7 negatives were prized by portrait and fashion photographers for their detail and tonal range. The RZ67, introduced in 1982, was an electronic version of the RB67 with motorized features. The RB67/RZ67 series remained in production until 2013 and is still used by film photographers today.

Key Practitioners

Vivian Maier (1926-2009)

Maier's street photographs, made in Chicago and New York over four decades, were unknown during her lifetime. She used a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera, producing 6x6cm square negatives. The camera was held at waist level, which allowed Maier to photograph strangers without raising a camera to her eye. Her images show people on the street, children, workers, and passersby, composed with a precision that demonstrates the decisive moment in its purest form. Her work was discovered in 2007 when her storage lockers were auctioned, and it is now held in major collections.

Diane Arbus (1923-1971)

Arbus used a twin-lens reflex camera, specifically a Mamiyaflex C33, for much of her career. The 6x6cm square format and the waist-level viewing position allowed her to photograph her subjects at close range while maintaining eye contact. The square format of her portraits, including Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey (1967), is inseparable from their visual identity. The Rolleiflex and Mamiyaflex cameras she used produced negatives with enough detail for large prints, which amplified the directness of her portraits.

Peter Hujar (1934-1987)

Hujar worked primarily with a medium-format twin-lens reflex camera producing 12 square frames per roll, alongside a 35mm camera. His portraits of downtown New York's queer and artistic communities, including Susan Sontag, Candy Darling, and David Wojnarowicz, were made with the square format's formal precision. His contact sheets, held at the Morgan Library, show the full sequence of each shoot in 6x6 frames.

Annie Leibovitz (b. 1949)

Leibovitz has used medium-format cameras throughout her career for her portrait work for Vanity Fair and Vogue. The Hasselblad 500C/M and later the Hasselblad H-series medium-format cameras provided the detail and tonal range needed for large-format magazine reproduction. Her staged, narrative portraits, including the famous image of a naked John Lennon curled against Yoko Ono (December 1980), were made with medium-format equipment.

Sally Mann (b. 1951)

Mann's Immediate Family series (1984-1994) was shot on an 8x10 view camera, but her earlier and later work has used medium-format cameras. The 6x7 and 6x6 formats provided a balance between the detail she needed for large prints and the portability required for photographing her children in the landscape around her Virginia farm.

Medium Format in 2026

Medium format in 2026 exists in two forms: film and digital. Medium-format digital cameras, made by Fujifilm and Hasselblad, use sensors larger than full-frame 35mm but smaller than 6x4.5cm film. The Fujifilm GFX 100S II, released in 2024, uses a 102-megapixel medium-format sensor. The Hasselblad X2D 100C, also released in 2024, uses a 100-megapixel sensor. These cameras provide the resolution and tonal range that medium-format film offered, with the convenience of digital capture. They are used by commercial, fashion, and landscape photographers who need high resolution but who cannot work with the slowness of film.

Medium-format film photography is experiencing the same revival as other film formats. The VZ-6617, launched on Kickstarter in April 2026 by Francis Garing's company Exposing Engineering, is a new medium-format film camera that allows photographers to change frame size from 6x6 to 6x17 mid-roll. The camera uses 120 film and is compatible with large-format view camera lenses. It weighs 925 grams body only, 1,850 grams with a Fujinon-SW 90mm f/8 lens. The camera was born from Garing's frustration with carrying multiple medium-format cameras for different aspect ratios. Read more at PetaPixel.

The VZ-6617 is not the only new medium-format camera. Three panoramic medium-format film cameras were announced or launched in the last year: the CCB 617, the Sasquatch 617, and the VZ-6617. The fact that multiple manufacturers are designing new medium-format film cameras in 2026 demonstrates that the format has a practical future, not just a nostalgic one.

Why Medium Format Still Matters

The answer is the same as it has always been: negative area. A 6x7 negative has 4.5 times the area of a 35mm negative. More area means more silver halide crystals recording the image, which means finer grain, more tonal range, and more detail. For photographers who make large prints, the difference is visible. A 16x20 inch print from a 6x7 negative has a level of detail and tonal smoothness that a 35mm negative, enlarged to the same size, cannot match.

The second answer is the square format. The 6x6cm square, produced by Rolleiflex, Hasselblad, and other TLR and SLR cameras, is a format that does not exist in 35mm photography. The square eliminates the need to choose between horizontal and vertical orientation at the moment of capture. The photographer composes in the square, and the decision about whether to crop to a rectangle is made later. This freedom has influenced the composition of photographers from Diane Arbus to Vivian Maier.

The third answer is the cameras themselves. Medium-format cameras, particularly the mechanical ones like the Hasselblad 500C/M and the Mamiya RB67, are built to a standard of precision and durability that few modern cameras match. A Hasselblad 500C/M from 1970, if properly maintained, will function perfectly in 2026. The camera is fully mechanical, with no electronics to fail. The lens is a Carl Zeiss design with a leaf shutter that syncs with flash at all speeds. The camera is a tool that will outlast its owner.

Related Terms

Medium format is positioned between 35mm film photography and large format photography in terms of negative size and image quality. It uses roll film negatives rather than sheet film. Contact sheets from medium-format film show 12 or 10 frames per roll, depending on the format. The Zone System is harder to apply with medium format than with large format because an entire roll shares a single development time, but the mental model of tonal previsualization still applies. For more on photography, read our post on photography as fine art, or explore our guide to Cindy Sherman and the self-portrait as concept.

See Medium Format Photography in Person

Medium-format negatives produce prints with a level of detail and tonal range that is best appreciated in person. Diane Arbus's square portraits, printed from 6x6 negatives, are held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA. Vivian Maier's photographs, printed from Rolleiflex negatives, have been exhibited internationally. Peter Hujar's portraits, printed from medium-format negatives, were the subject of the Morgan Library's 2026 exhibition. Annie Leibovitz's portrait work is held in collections worldwide.

When you look at a print from a medium-format negative, compare it to a print from a 35mm negative of the same size. The medium-format print will show finer grain, smoother tonal transitions, and more detail in the shadows and highlights. The difference is the negative area, and it is visible. For more on photography, read our entries on large format photography and film photography, or explore our post on photography as fine art.