Are frame sizes and spacing standardized across film formats like 135 and 120?
Asked 3/23/2017
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I'm researching the physical dimensions of common film formats such as 135, 120/220, and sheet film, and I can find standards for the film stock itself (for example, width, backing paper, and perforations). What I'm less clear on is whether the exposed frame size and the gap between frames are standardized, or whether those are determined by the camera design.
In particular, for roll film like 120, different cameras seem to produce slightly different image areas even within the same nominal format (for example, 6x7). Is frame spacing standardized for any formats, and if not, where does the variation come from?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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Here's a little secret¹: roll film has no aspect ratio at all until it is exposed. It is just one blank piece of film a specific width and any practical length, sometimes with perforations occupying the outer edges that leave a strip of a certain width in between the perforations.
What determines the dimensions of the photo is the size of the film plane each specific camera allows to be exposed each time the shutter is opened.
Movie cameras that used 135 format film, for instance, classically used a frame 24mm wide and 16mm tall (plus a 3mm gap between frames) as the film was going through the camera vertically oriented (the perforations were on the right and left of each frame).
135 format still image cameras typically run the same film size through in a horizontal direction and expose about 36mm of width along with the 24mm of height per frame (with the perforations above and below each frame) while leaving a 2mm spacing between the edges of each successive frame.² This is exactly twice the linear length of movie film that used 16mm + 3mm per frame. So movie film used exactly 4 sprocket holes per frame, 135 film uses exactly 8 sprocket holes per frame. The center of the sprocket holes are 4.75mm apart for all 135 format film, both for movies and stills.
Some film types, such as 135 format 35mm film, were more standardized across manufacturers lines. Other film types, such as medium and large format sheet film, were not. How much border between the exposed film and the edge of the standard sized negative could vary significantly from one camera maker to the next and sometimes even from one model to the next within a single maker's model lines.
Probably the most standardized format as far as roll film for still images goes was 135 film used in 35mm cameras. The camera usually allowed a 36x24mm area of film to be exposed, but not all of that area was usually included in the print. What was included in the print was fairly standard, though.
Back in the heyday of 35mm film cameras, most U.S. printing labs cropped each frame by around 5% to avoid printing rough edges. Most viewfinders on 35mm cameras were only about 95% coverage (so you didn't see the full field of view being exposed on the film, but rather the 95% that was actually going to be printed by most labs) or had a 100% viewfinder with indexing marks inscribed around the edges of the view screen that showed you where the 95% lines were. There were also technical issues with film that made the outer edges a little less precise than the middle of the frame in terms of optical performance. Japanese labs cropped the long edges only and printed the center 34.2mm x 24mm. Even today the standard 3R print size in Japan is 127mm x 89mm (5" x 3.5") which yields a ratio of ≈1.427:1. U.S. labs once did the same when producing 3 1/2" x 5" prints. When the U.S. moved to the larger 4" x 6" print, labs typically printed the center 34.2mm x 22.8mm of the 36mm x 24mm that was exposed.
The Wikipedia article for Film Format is a fairly comprehensive resource for various film formats that were offered and the size(s) of the exposed frame when using various films. As you can see on the first chart at that article, there were 4 common frame sizes that used 120/220 film (the only differences between 120 and 220 are whether or not it has opaque backing paper and the total length).
In addition to the ones listed at the article linked above, the Wikipedia article for 120 Film includes several additional format sizes.
¹ It's not really a secret, but there are a lot of folks who have shot film for a long time who don't realize this.
² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/135_film
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
9y ago
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Usually the film format standard defines the film itself, not the exact exposed frame size or inter-frame gap.
For 120/220, the film width and backing paper are standardized, but the image area and spacing are largely determined by the camera. That’s why nominal formats like 6x6 or 6x7 can vary a little between cameras, and frame spacing can vary too. With 120, transport is not positively indexed by sprocket holes, so spacing is inherently less exact.
For perforated films such as 135, spacing is much more consistent because the camera advances film using the sprocket holes. Even then, what counts as the frame size depends on how the camera uses the film. For example, 35mm movie cameras and 35mm still cameras use the same film stock but expose different frame dimensions and orientation.
So: no, frame spacing is not universally standardized across all film formats, and for non-perforated roll films it is mostly a camera-design issue. There does not appear to be a single comprehensive reference covering every camera’s exact frame size and spacing; in practice those details are often documented by camera makers or measured by users.
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