04-26-2014, 10:27 AM
Ever thought about those film-codes? Just an idea:
I know of 110, 126, 127, 135, 120, 220, but there are much more
First guess: It's just the length of the whole piece of film in cm. (36mm + 1.5mm) × 36 exposures = 1350mm = 135cm. Fine, but how about 120/220? I could guess, together with the longer paperstripe onto which the film itself was glued by a tape it could be 120cm.
As for 135, I read today about 235, 335 and 435 for daylight loading film cassettes Didn't know that bit. I did know, though, there are 24 × 65 mm negative sizes for little Panorama-single-shot cameras and larger ones for the Seitz rotating cameras.
Why is the length important? Don't know for sure. Before Oscar Barnack created with the first Leica this type of negative size, this type of film was used for cinematographic purposes, aka movies. It was cheap, easy to transport and to use and there were already labs which were able to develop those stripes. I wonder, how they did it? Filmrolls were very long and became very precious after they were exposed - actors, staff, locations. Failure in development usually was a financial catastrophe.
Either way, there must have been a failsafe procedure, long before internet. When I started to develop my films I had already black drums with one or more spirals to develop film. But for the large size cameras, there were tanks with filmholders (wireframes with clamps), one holder for each filmsheet. For those tanks, therer were also holders which were huge enough to wrap a complete 135 film around, or also 120. Those tanks were used in small professional labs.
Anyway, after a quick research I didn't find it but there were 135 camera types to switch from full frame to half frame. Because they used 135 film (which is 35mm width) and Oscar Barnack's chosen 24 × 36mm format, the half-format was 18 × 24mm. Lateron in the 60s, the half format was quite popular in Olympus PEN cameras, but there were much more - I even found a Leica prototype.
I never heard about half format on Medium format films, the description of medium format was 127 film type until 220 (which allowed double amount of frames of 120).
I think it's a quite weak definition to create the word "full frame" and mean 24 × 36mm, just because there are so much more full frame* types and sizes - but it is without doubt the most spread negative size, there a billions of pictures on this world made with 135 film. So, the word creation might be stupid but most phototech people know a bout the meaning.
*okay, those days most FF-DSLR allow to reduce the frame size to APS-C to save diskspace, give higher fps or just let adapt APS-C lenses to a FF body. But in the film days, the frame was in 85% of the camera bodies fixed - changing the cameraback of Medium format made it possible to use 135 film on 120 6 × 7 cameras.
It's even more strange to call "bigger than full frame" cameras immediately "medium format" - to me, and although I mentioned 127 film type (40 × 40mm), medium format is everything on a 120 roll which means one length of the negative has to have 56mm (6 × 6 cm was inaccurate) - the new Pentax 645Z is just 80% of that which to me is more a pimped FF than a real MF, but never mind: my definitions have the right to be as stupid as others
MF is just eating from he same lens menu which already existed from the film days. The concept of the cubic bodies of the Reflex-types is nothing new. Those bodies are a 45 years or more development in camera history.
I know of 110, 126, 127, 135, 120, 220, but there are much more
First guess: It's just the length of the whole piece of film in cm. (36mm + 1.5mm) × 36 exposures = 1350mm = 135cm. Fine, but how about 120/220? I could guess, together with the longer paperstripe onto which the film itself was glued by a tape it could be 120cm.
As for 135, I read today about 235, 335 and 435 for daylight loading film cassettes Didn't know that bit. I did know, though, there are 24 × 65 mm negative sizes for little Panorama-single-shot cameras and larger ones for the Seitz rotating cameras.
Why is the length important? Don't know for sure. Before Oscar Barnack created with the first Leica this type of negative size, this type of film was used for cinematographic purposes, aka movies. It was cheap, easy to transport and to use and there were already labs which were able to develop those stripes. I wonder, how they did it? Filmrolls were very long and became very precious after they were exposed - actors, staff, locations. Failure in development usually was a financial catastrophe.
Either way, there must have been a failsafe procedure, long before internet. When I started to develop my films I had already black drums with one or more spirals to develop film. But for the large size cameras, there were tanks with filmholders (wireframes with clamps), one holder for each filmsheet. For those tanks, therer were also holders which were huge enough to wrap a complete 135 film around, or also 120. Those tanks were used in small professional labs.
Anyway, after a quick research I didn't find it but there were 135 camera types to switch from full frame to half frame. Because they used 135 film (which is 35mm width) and Oscar Barnack's chosen 24 × 36mm format, the half-format was 18 × 24mm. Lateron in the 60s, the half format was quite popular in Olympus PEN cameras, but there were much more - I even found a Leica prototype.
I never heard about half format on Medium format films, the description of medium format was 127 film type until 220 (which allowed double amount of frames of 120).
I think it's a quite weak definition to create the word "full frame" and mean 24 × 36mm, just because there are so much more full frame* types and sizes - but it is without doubt the most spread negative size, there a billions of pictures on this world made with 135 film. So, the word creation might be stupid but most phototech people know a bout the meaning.
*okay, those days most FF-DSLR allow to reduce the frame size to APS-C to save diskspace, give higher fps or just let adapt APS-C lenses to a FF body. But in the film days, the frame was in 85% of the camera bodies fixed - changing the cameraback of Medium format made it possible to use 135 film on 120 6 × 7 cameras.
It's even more strange to call "bigger than full frame" cameras immediately "medium format" - to me, and although I mentioned 127 film type (40 × 40mm), medium format is everything on a 120 roll which means one length of the negative has to have 56mm (6 × 6 cm was inaccurate) - the new Pentax 645Z is just 80% of that which to me is more a pimped FF than a real MF, but never mind: my definitions have the right to be as stupid as others
MF is just eating from he same lens menu which already existed from the film days. The concept of the cubic bodies of the Reflex-types is nothing new. Those bodies are a 45 years or more development in camera history.