35mm camera
As miniature cameras 35 mm film cameras are mostly with an aspect ratio of 24 mm × 36 mm understood that use the small picture cartridge type 135th In a broader sense, this includes all cameras that have a film format of around two to four centimeters in length; these are film types and formats that are no longer used today.
With the advent of digital compact cameras, most 35mm film cameras have disappeared from the market.
For digital cameras with image sensors in 35mm format, see full format sensor .
Camera types
Viewfinder cameras
Practically all simple cameras were built as viewfinder cameras ; In addition, there are some high-end system viewfinder cameras, especially the Leica -M series, which are usually referred to as rangefinder cameras . As a result, they made up the largest share among the 35mm cameras. There were viewfinder cameras from numerous suppliers, almost every camera manufacturer had some in its range. Special designs are the Nikonos underwater camera from Nikon and the Hasselblad XPan panorama camera . The Russian Lomo became very popular in the 1990s .
Single-lens reflex cameras
Most high-quality 35mm cameras were single-lens reflex cameras , also known as SLR for "single lens reflex". Mostly they were system cameras with a wide range of lenses and other accessories.
Two-lens reflex camera
Two-lens reflex cameras (also known as TLR for "Twin Lens Reflex") were of no importance in the small image area. On the one hand there was the Rolleiflex Baby and some Asian replicas, a cuboid camera with a light shaft finder and the format 4 × 4 centimeters. On the other hand, there were a few twin-lens cameras for film type 135 in the 1960s, such as the Agfa Optima Reflex . They looked like an ordinary one-eyed camera, so they had a built-in pentaprism viewfinder , just two small built-in lenses. In 1936, with the Contaflex from Zeiss Ikon, a unique two-lens reflex camera was introduced for the small picture, which - extremely complex and therefore very expensive - was not very successful commercially.
properties
height and weight
Small format cameras usually differ significantly from medium format cameras in terms of weight: With 5 kg to 6 kg an extremely universally usable system can be put together. Compact cameras sometimes even approximate the size of the pocket camera . The Rollei 35 took a first step in this direction in 1966 , followed by the Minox 35 (1974) and the Olympus XA (1979).
costs
Because of the large number of units, 35mm cameras were manufactured very cheaply; In addition, the required image circle can be smaller compared to the medium format, which generally makes the lenses significantly cheaper. Most of the films were also offered particularly cheaply because of the mass market.
Depth of field
With its depth of field , the small picture format 24 mm × 36 mm represents a favorable compromise; On the one hand, the focal lengths are short enough to be able to produce a large area of focus even with a slight stop, on the other hand, when fully open, there is usually enough blur to let the background stand out from the foreground. The latter is also supported by the high-speed lenses available for many systems. Normal lenses with f / 1.2 and light telephoto lenses with f / 2 can be built at reasonable cost and weight (for comparison: with the half-format 18 mm × 24 mm, it is difficult to create a background that is sufficiently blurred for design purposes).
Viewfinder
Most SLR cameras have a built-in prism viewfinder; With the professional top models it was common until the 1980s that the focusing screen or the entire viewfinder could be replaced and thus adapted to different needs. This is mostly no longer the case today, on the one hand because z. B. a light shaft finder has a screen that is too small compared to the medium format for the subject to be perfectly assessed. On the other hand, with modern cameras, the electronic control can replace the replacement of hardware components and thus make them superfluous.
picture quality
The small picture generally offers a high picture quality, with some effort it even comes close to the medium format. Effort means using a low-sensitivity film, high-quality optics and a tripod. Expressed in “digital” terms, a high quality 35mm slide film with low sensitivity (25 ISO) can achieve a technical resolution of around 16 million pixels. Scanning small picture negatives or slides with higher resolutions does not make sense, because in this case only the grain of the photosensitive layer physically present on the film would be enlarged. Due to the design, it is somewhat easier to manufacture particularly high-quality lenses for (measuring) viewfinder cameras, while the optical-technical effort is somewhat greater for single-lens reflex cameras because of the space required by the rear-swinging mirror. In recent years, however, this slight advantage has been practically offset by the mass production of SLR systems and the resulting decrease in production costs.
Areas of application
35mm cameras can be used universally. There is no area in which they cannot provide at least acceptable performance. The strengths of the 35mm SLR in particular are distant and rapidly moving subjects, which is why it dominated the market for professional sports and press photographers for decades (while studio and landscape photographers almost exclusively used medium and large format cameras). For the system cameras there are lenses up to about twelve times magnification with extremely good imaging properties, whereby the magnification can be further increased with a teleconverter connected in front of it with only a slight loss of quality. Well-functioning autofocus systems and image stabilizers facilitate high-quality sports and animal shots. High-quality rangefinder cameras, on the other hand, are more advantageous in poor lighting conditions and in situations that require more discretion, when a tripod cannot be used or when smaller and lighter equipment is important. The numerous bright lenses allow free-hand night shots that cannot be achieved with the medium format.
Films and formats
Type 127
The roll film of the type 127 with a width of four centimeters is considered the first 35mm film. Its original format of 4 cm × 6 cm was still considered a small picture at the time, but is now a medium format; the 3 cm × 4 cm and 4 cm × 4 cm formats, however, are still small images. Until the Instamatic film was released, the film had a notable significance for simple cameras. In March 1931, the Rolleiflex Baby came out for it. With this camera, Rollei wanted to participate in the trend towards the small picture initiated by the Leica, but it was nowhere near as successful as the medium-format Rolleiflex. That is why it was not built again after the Second World War; A baby did not come onto the market until June 1957, and it remained in production until May 1968. A few replicas of the Baby have also appeared, the most famous from Yashica . After 1970, however, the film type fell into oblivion.
The roll film formats mentioned are rounded dimensions, for the exact values see under roll film .
Type 135
In a narrower sense, 35mm film today only refers to the 135 type, as it made the 35mm popular and has been the most common since then. It is the 35 mm motion picture film that is packaged in a cartridge and is therefore perforated on both sides. At the beginning of the Type 135 there was the Leica developed by Oskar Barnack at Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar, it already had the image format 24 mm × 36 mm, but still had an independent cartridge. Other manufacturers also used their own cartridge shapes; after 1945 the type 135 introduced by Kodak quickly spread in Germany. Only very few cameras used the 18 mm × 24 mm half-frame format; the best-known of them is the Olympus Pen. Until the early 1950s, there were also models that only exposed the 24 mm × 32 mm format, including in particular the early Nikon Viewfinder cameras. Occasionally there were also cameras that exposed square formats of 24 mm × 24 mm on the film.
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Type 126
For entry-level cameras, Kodak developed the easy-to-use Instamatic cassette with a square format of 28 mm × 28 mm. Kodak also offered an SLR camera, but Instamatic cameras were bought almost exclusively in the lower price range of up to around 120 marks. The film was a great success there and was widespread in the 1960s to 1980s. The film is 35 mm wide and has a perforation hole per frame that controls the film transport of the camera.
Rapid film
As an Instamatic competitor, Agfa presented Rapidfilm , which was mostly also exposed with square images, but in the format 24 mm × 24 mm. The system had little success outside of Germany, so that rapid films only gained some importance in the 1960s and early 1970s. The film is 35 mm wide and has the same perforation as an ordinary 35mm film . The beginning and end of the film are roughened by embossing in order to prevent light from entering the rapid cassette.
literature
- Erich Stenger : The history of the 35mm camera to the Leica . Ed .: Optical Works Ernst Leitz. Umschau-Verlag, Frankfurt 1949 (published on the occasion of the company's 100th anniversary).
