135 film
135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film with a film gauge of loaded into a standardized type of magazine for use in 135 film cameras.
The term 135 was introduced by Kodak in 1934 as a designation for 35 mm film specifically for still photography, perforated with Kodak Standard perforations. It quickly grew in popularity, surpassing 120 film by the late 1960s to become the most popular photographic film size. Despite competition from formats such as 120, 828, 126, 110, and APS, it remains the most popular film size today.
The size of the 135 film frame with its frame's aspect ratio of 2:3 has been adopted by many high-end digital single-lens reflex and digital mirrorless cameras, commonly referred to as "full frame". Even though the format is much smaller than historical medium format and large format film, being historically referred to as miniature format or small format, it is much larger than image sensors in most compact cameras and smartphone cameras.
The engineering standard for this film is controlled by ISO 1007 titled '135-size film and magazine'.
History
35 mm still cameras
The 135 film size is derived from earlier still cameras using lengths of 35 mm movie film, which had the same size but with different perforations. The 35 mm film standard for motion picture film was established in Thomas Edison's lab by William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. Dickson took 70 mm film stock supplied by George Eastman's Eastman Kodak Company. The 70 mm film was cut lengthwise into two equal width strips, spliced together end to end, and then perforated along both edges. The original picture size was 18×24 mm. There were four perforations on each side of a motion picture frame.While the [|Leica camera] popularized the format, several 35 mm still cameras used perforated movie film before the Leica was introduced in the 1920s. The first patent for one was issued to Leo, Audobard, and Baradat in England in 1908. The first full-scale production camera was the Homéos, a stereo camera produced by Jules Richard in 1913 and sold until 1920. It took 18x24 mm stereo pairs and used two Tessar lenses.
In 1909, the French designed a device for small-format photography, the "", which used the 35 mm perforated film to take consecutive hundred views in 18×24 mm. He manufactured it, won the gold medal in the Concours Lépine, and in 1910 sold at a small scale and without much success.
The first big-selling 35 mm still camera was the American Tourist Multiple, which also appeared in 1913, at a cost of $175 The first camera to take full-frame 24×36 mm exposures seems to be the Simplex, introduced in the U.S. in 1914. It took either 800 half-frame or 400 full-frame shots on 50 ft rolls.
The Minigraph, by Levy-Roth of Berlin, another half-frame small camera was sold in Germany in 1915. The patent for the Debrie Sept camera, a combination 35 mm still and movie camera was issued in 1918; the camera sold from 1922.
The Furet camera made and sold in France in 1923 took full-frame 24x36 mm negatives, and was the first cheap small 35 mm camera of similar appearance to more modern models.
Leica
The Leica Camera designed by Oskar Barnack used 35 mm film, and proved that a format as small as 24 mm × 36 mm was suitable for professional photography.Although Barnack designed his prototype camera around 1913, the first experimental production run of ur-Leicas did not occur until 1923. Full-scale production of the Leica did not begin until 1925. While by that time, there were at least a dozen other 35 mm cameras available, the Leica was a success. It came to be associated with the format, mostly because of this 35 mm popularity, as well as the entire company legacy. Early Leica cameras are considered highly collectable items. The original Leica prototype holds the record as being the world's most expensive camera, selling for €2.16 million in 2012.
Pre-loaded cassettes and Kodak Retina cameras
In the earliest days, the photographer had to load the film into reusable cassettes and, at least for some cameras, cut the film leader. In 1934, Kodak introduced a 135 daylight-loading single-use cassette. This cassette was engineered so that it could be used in both Leica and Zeiss Ikon Contax cameras along with the camera for which it was invented, namely the Kodak Retina camera. The Retina camera and this daylight loading cassette were the invention of Dr. August Nagel of the Kodak AG Dr. Nagel Werk in Stuttgart. Kodak bought Dr. August Nagel's company in December, 1931, and began marketing the Kodak Retina in the summer of 1934. The first Kodak Retina camera was a Typ 117. The 35 mm Kodak Retina camera line remained in production until 1969. Kodak also introduced a line of American made cameras that were simpler and more economical than the Retina. Argus, too, made a long-lived range of 35 mm cameras; notably the Argus C3. Kodak launched 135-format Kodachrome colour film in 1936. AGFA followed with the introduction of Agfacolor Neu later in the same year.The designations 235 and 435 refer to 35 mm film in daylight-loading spools, that could be loaded into Contax or Leica style reusable cassettes, respectively, without need of a darkroom. The 335 was a daylight loading spool for the 24 × 23 mm stereo format.
Reflex cameras
Reflex viewfinders, both twin-and single-lens, had been used with earlier cameras using plates and rollfilm.The first 35 mm single-lens reflex was the Kine Exakta, introduced in 1936. World War II interrupted development of the type. After the war, Exakta resumed development and the Contax S model with the now familiar pentaprism viewing feature was introduced in 1949. In the 1950s, the SLR also began to be produced in Japan by such companies as Asahi and Miranda. Asahi's Pentax introduced the instant-return mirror, important for the popularity of SLRs; until then, the viewfinder on an SLR camera blanked as the mirror sprang out of the optical path just before taking the picture, returning when the film was wound on. Nikon's F model, introduced in March 1959, was a system camera that greatly improved the quality and utility of 35 mm format cameras, encouraging professionals to switch from larger format cameras to the versatile, rugged, and fast SLR design. Numerous other film formats waxed and waned in popularity, but by the 1970s, interchangeable-lens SLR cameras and smaller rangefinders, from expensive Leicas to "point-and-shoot" pocket cameras, were all using 35 mm film, and manufacturers had proliferated.
Colour films improved, both for print negatives and reversal slides, while black-and-white films offered smoother grain and faster speeds than previously available. Since 35 mm was preferred by both amateur and professional photographers, makers of film stock have long offered the widest range of different film speeds and types in the format. The DX film-speed encoding system was introduced in the 1980s, as were single-use cameras pre-loaded with 35 mm film and using plastic lenses of reasonable enough quality to produce acceptable snapshots. Automated all-in-one processing and printing machines made 35 mm developing easier and less expensive, so that quality colour prints became available not only from photographic specialty stores, but also from supermarkets, drugstores, and big box retailers, often in less than an hour.
From 1996 to the present
In 1996, a smaller format called Advanced Photo System was introduced by a consortium of photographic companies in an attempt to supersede 135 film. Due in part to its small negative size, APS was not taken seriously as a professional format, despite the production of APS SLRs. In the point-and-shoot markets at which the format was primarily aimed, it enjoyed moderate initial success, but still never rivalled the market penetration of 135. Within five years of its launch, cheap digital compact cameras started becoming widely available, and APS sales plummeted.While they have shifted the vast majority of their product lines to digital, major camera manufacturers such as Canon and Nikon continued to make expensive professional-grade 35 mm film SLRs until relatively recently and the Nikon F6.
Introductory 35 mm SLRs, compact film point-and-shoot cameras, and single-use cameras continue to be built and sold by a number of makers. Leica introduced the digital Leica M8 rangefinder in 2007, but continues to make its M series rangefinder film cameras and lenses. A digital camera back for the Leica R9 SLR camera was discontinued in 2007. On March 25, 2009, Leica discontinued the R9 SLR and R-series lenses.
By the early 2020s, film photography, particularly 35 mm photography, was experiencing a resurgence in popularity. In a 2021 PetaPixel survey, 75% of respondents expressed interest in newly manufactured analog cameras. Kodak reported in 2022 that it was having trouble keeping up with demand for 35 mm film.
In 2024, the Pentax 17 and the Aflie TYCH+ 35 mm cameras were released, both using the half-frame format to conserve film. Retrospekt and Mattel put out the Malibu Barbie FC-11 35 mm camera. In September 2024, MiNT Camera took pre-orders for the Rollei 35AF, an update of the Rollei 35. Kodak offered six 35 mm film cameras for sale as of October 2024, including the Ektar H35N, another half-frame camera.
Characteristics
Cassette
Individual rolls of 135 film are enclosed in single-spool, light-tight, metal cassettes, also known as film canisters, to allow cameras to be loaded in daylight. The film is clipped or taped to a spool and exits via a slot lined with flocking. The end of the film is cut on one side to form a leader. It has the same dimensions and perforation pitch as 35 mm movie print film.Most cameras require the film to be rewound before the camera is opened. Some motorized cameras unwind the film fully upon loading and then expose the images in reverse order, returning the film to the cassette; this protects all exposed frames, should the camera back be accidentally opened; unexposed film gets spoiled, however. Disposable cameras use the same technique so that the user does not have to rewind.
File:DX-Codierung asb PICT3739.JPG|thumb|right|This modern film canister uses DX encoding; it is marked with a six-digit barcode which embeds the DX number below a silver-and-black conductive DX Camera Auto Sensing pattern.
Since 1983, most film cassettes have been marked with a DX encoding six-digit barcode pattern, which uses a DX number to identify the manufacturer and film type, and the number of exposures, for the use of photofinishing laboratories. The cassettes are also manufactured with a Camera Auto Sensing code constructed as two rows of six rectangular areas on the metal cassette surface which are either conductive or insulating, representing 32 possible film speeds, eight possible film lengths, and four possible values of exposure tolerance or latitude. Conforming cameras detect at least some of these areas; only three contacts are needed to set a light meter for the four most popular film speeds.