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24 x 24mm or 24 x 30mm Cameras?

rbultman

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I'm familiar with the "normal" 36 x 24 mm, half frame and various pano formats. Today I saw a Robot Royal 24 in another thread that answered my question about whether a square format 135 camera had ever been created. Looks like the Diana also supports 24 x 24.

I've also wondered if a 30 x 24 mm camera has ever existed. This is the same aspect ratio as 8x10 paper.

So, just how many 24 x 24 camera models existed? How many, if any, in 30 x 24?

Regards,
Rob
 
Nikom

Nikon made a rangefinder camera in the 1950s that produced a negative on 35mm film that could be blown up to 8x10 without cropping. Nobody much bought them and the cameras now are expensive.
 
snapguy said:
Nikon made a rangefinder camera in the 1950s that produced a negative on 35mm film that could be blown up to 8x10 without cropping. Nobody much bought them and the cameras now are expensive.
Click to expand...

The Nikon I rangefinder was 32x24mm.
It was actually a problem in standardisation that lead to reverting to 36x24mm.
At that time Nikon wasn't known as a camera manufacturer, only as a lens manufacturer and even then it was hardly known outside Japan.
 
The Zeiss Tenax I and II make 24x24mm pictures, as does the successor East German Taxona model. I have a Taxona with the 37.5mm f/3.5 Jena Tessar. It's a delightfully quirky little camera.
 
The 126 format film was 35mm wide with about a 26x26 square image.

 
rbultman said:
Today I saw a Robot Royal 24 in another thread that answered my question about whether a square format 135 camera had ever been created. Looks like the Diana also supports 24 x 24.
Click to expand...

The Robot Royal was a quite obscure camera.
But the (over here) ubiquitous Agfa Rapid cameras mostly gave a 24x24 frame. Though not using the type-135 cassette, but the Rapid cassettes, that nevertheless took the same film.
 
I have a Zeiss Tenax II - excellent although rather rare camera. Splendid pre-war build quality.
 
I have no idea what brand it was, but I've seen a 135 TLR that took 24x24mm. Probably just a toy though...
 
My Diana makes square photos on 120 film. Not sure how big they are. Maybe 4.5x4.5? I get 16 on a roll, so that must be it.

I once owned one of those Robot Royals that took 24x24 photos (got tons of photos on a 36 exp roll of film). The thing had a build quality that made a Leica seem cheap, and was as heavy as lead. No strap lugs either. Loved that spring loaded film advance though! Unfortunately, the lens on mine was not up to a Leica, and a 24x24 photo could not be enlarged much. Scanning them was a challenge too. The more desirable camera was the Robot Royal 36, which took conventional sized pics.
 

I checked the book "Nikon Rangefinder Camera" by Robert Rotoloni.

The first rangefinder Nikon I (1948-1949) was 24 x 32 format and was not allowed to be exported to the US because it was not compatible with Kodachrome slide mounts.
The next model was Nikon M (August 1949 - January 1951) with format 24 x 34, which is half way between the 24 x 36 (Leica "L" size) size and the 24 x 32 (Nikon "N" size).
The "first" official Nikon rangefinder in the US was the following Nikon S (from January 1951) with format 24 x 36.

Also an interesting read on film formats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_format
 
The Agfa Rapid was somewhat popular in the 60's, used 35mm film which came in Agfa factory load cassettes just for the Rapid. If I remember correctly the image was 24mm x 24mm, color print and B&W film. The film went from one cassette to another on the takeup side. It was sort of like a Kodak Instamatic but used 35mm film which gave a sharper image than 126. The Rapid system was pretty much gone by the time the 110 Instamatic came out.
 
Summicron is right, my Busch Verascope F40 3D camera shoots 30X24 frames. It also has mono mode so you can shoot non stereo frames.
 
Last month I bought a Zeiss Tenax I, with a coated Tessar (pictured here, not mine.) It's a very nice little camera that does 24 x 24.
 

Thanks Bert for the extra explanation.
 
TheToadMen said:
The first rangefinder Nikon I (1948-1949) was 24 x 32 format and was not allowed to be exported to the US because it was not compatible with Kodachrome slide mounts.
Click to expand...

24 X 32 was the Japanese standard. It has a 4:3 aspect ratio that they apparently preferred (cf. the 18 X 24 "half" frame). The Olympus 35 I (cat's paw) had this aspect ratio. The American occupying authority forced them to change it in the subsequent model.
 

Kodak only returned Kodachrome 24x36 slides mounted in cardboard 2x2s
 
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