I don't quite understand this part. If 35mm film was "standard" but photographers had a strong preference for square images, why wasn't there a proliferation of cameras that could shoot 24x24mm images on the same type of film?
I don't quite understand this part. If 35mm film was "standard" but photographers had a strong preference for square images, why wasn't there a proliferation of cameras that could shoot 24x24mm images on the same type of film?
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.
> 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.
Many pros push 35mm to billboard sizes. The size of the print doesn't matter. It's the viewing distance.
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.
There was. The 126 cartridge film was the same stock as 35mm, and square format. Since it was a cartridge and needed no sprockets, the image area 26mm x 26mm.