Camera negative

In film production, the exposed and developed film from one or more image cameras is referred to as camera negative or original (negative) . Before exposure , one speaks of raw film , before development of latent material, from Latin latēre = to stand open. With the camera negative, some parameters are specified for later film copies , namely the film format , the image format and, above all, the image frequency , even if the image size can vary again in certain cases due to blow-up when copying to the projection format.

The camera negative is the original of a cinematographic recording and thus represents the quality reference against which all film copies or video scans made from it must be measured. For the camera negative you insure yourself against damage and loss during production, which can assume grotesque contrasts between the material value and its inherent, sometimes unrealizable values. A day of shooting that costs tens or hundreds of thousands of euros is available as a film strip with perhaps a few dozen euros in procurement and processing costs.

After the completion of the film montage , the cuts made on the working copy are reproduced in the negative cut frame-accurate in the camera negative by the copy machine specialists . Then the first positive copies of the finished film can be made. Until the 1970s camera negatives were provided after assembly with switching notches in the edges, which, when run by the copying machine were needed for the lights change. It was possible to overcome this additional physical weakening, often precisely at the adhesive points, with electronic picture counting ( FCC ).

As Interpositive , between positive or master copy is called duplicates derived from the camera negative ( Copy Generation ).