Photographic Film Formats

There is a reason for this posting, that will become clear later on.

There have been a number of different formats of photographic film, but I am only covering the consumer sizes and formats, to avoid writing a very long blog that will end long after the course.

The one we all know is the 35mm film, sometimes referred to as 135, but there have been other formats, including some weird looking ones !

110 Pocket Cameras

My first camera was a Prinzmatic 110 camera, that I was given in 1976, before going on a school trip.

An example of a 110 camera is shown below:

The 110 format was a cartridge loading format:

where the film was wound on from one spool, through the camera where it would be exposed and then onto the second spool.

These cameras, commonly known as pocket cameras (due to their size) were available everywhere with some manufacturers branding them for the retail chains like Boots.

Because the film was encased in a cassette, therefore no threading a film leader into the camera, it was a very easy operation to load and unload the film into the camera, making these cameras very popular through their ease of use.  But due to the small size of the negative, 13 mm x 17 mm, enlargements where difficult.

Some manufacturers, including Pentax even made a 110 SLR, to take advantage of the smaller film size:

I did actually see one of these cameras at an antiques fair some years ago, where it was too expensive for me to buy, as they are seen as a classic and hold there price well.

126 Instamatic Cameras

The 110 format took over from the earlier 126 cassette based film (which was a new cassette based film as opposed to the older 126 roll film, which was introduced in 1906 and discontinued in 1949).  This new 126 cassette  was introduced in 1963 for the new instamatic cameras, making loading and unloading the film very simple.

An example of one of the 126 Instamatic cameras is shown below:

Like the 110 film format that followed, the 126 format was a cassette based format:

where the film was wound on from one spool, through the camera where it would be exposed and then onto the second spool.

Again,  like the later 110 film format, due to the small negative size (26.5mm x 26.5 mm) problems meant that very few people would try to print enlargements off these films.

Disc Cameras

A very different type of camera, and film format was the disc camera, which were developed from 1982:

This type of camera was completely different in how they fed the film through the camera, instead of being on a roll, the film was on a disc, again this was a cartridge type:

As you can see from the picture below, the negatives are in a completely new way of arrangement, almost star like:


But these cameras had a very limited appeal due to the production of cheaper 35mm compact cameras.

APS (Advanced Photo System) Cameras
These were the first serious attempt to take on the traditional 35mm film, with some manufacturers, including Canon, Nikon and Minolta producing APS SLRs:

This format allowed different types of photograph to be produced by one camera, including panoramic photographs.  These different sizes or types of photograph are known as:

• High Definition (negative size 30.2 mm x 16.7 mm)
• Classic (negative size 25.1 mm x 16.7 mm)
• Panoramic (negative size 30.2 mm x 9.5 mm)

The way the classic and panoramic sizes are produced is by masking off areas of the high definition sized print.

Like the 35mm film the cassette is only loaded into one end of the camera, as the film is exposed it is wound through the camera, but then wound back into the cassette afterwards.  This allowed the cassette to be removed before it had been fully exposed, without ruining any prints.

One advantage over the 35mm cassette system is that the film can be removed from the camera, before it is fully exposed, without ruining the film. There are indicators in the end of the cartridge, to aid the photographer in identifying if the film is exposed or not, these indicators are shown below:

These indicators show:

1. Full Circle  -  Unexposed
2. Half Circle  -  Part Exposed
3. Cross        -  Exposed but not processed
4. Square      -  Exposed and processed

In fact when people refer to the sensor sizes in a digital camera as APS-C or APS-H the sizes of the sensors relate to the sizes of the effective negative in APS cameras !

Instant Cameras

Finally, there are the instant cameras, made popular by Polaroid.

These cameras held bulky film cassettes containing the film and battery pack, but once the photograph had been taken the print could be viewed almost instantly.  Early cameras used a film cassette that contained a film with a tear off front paper which was torn off to reveal the photograph, later cameras used a cassette that removed the need for the paper.

Although these cameras produced almost instant photographs, they were very limited and could not really be used for much more than snap shots.  Polaroid did produce smaller cameras, the “Joycam” with sticky backed prints, but these did not really catch on, being seen as more like a gimmick.

With the advent of digital cameras instant cameras lost any advantage they had before.