Ok now, a half-frame 120 camera?
Happy to oblige.Great, found another person to put on my ignore list here.
Thanks,
Jeremy
Yeah, it's funny how the original format for 35mm sprocket film is 24x18 and which was doubled by Barnack (with a detour to Robot 24x24).What we now see as 120 was originally at least three different films on the same spool. There was 117, 6x6 with 6 frames and 120 with 8 frames of 6x9 (and 620 was originally designed, with its skinner spool, to have 6 frames of 6x9, but that plan changed before it came to market). As late as 1948, Zeiss was still making the Super Ikonta B, a 6x6 folder with a mechanical frame counter, with a single red window (for starting the counter) on the 6x9 track, I believe because 117 and 118/124 were hard to get in Germany and they couldn't count on all 120 having the 6x6 framing track. Somewhere along that path, 6x4.5 folders had two windows on the 6x9 track; you'd wind to the first, then the same frame number to the second (this was very common on 6x9 folders with removable half frame masks). Eventually, 6x4.5 got its own framing track (again, not all at once) and later 6x4.5 folders got a window on the16 frame track.
As far as I know, there was never a 120-spool film with only 6x4.5 frame track; that format was always treated as "half frame" with double windows until the 16-frame track was added to 120 backing.
I thought 6x4.5 was half frame 120–i.e. half of a 6x9 frame?
This is an OT question, but what was the first frame size on 120? I was kind of under the impression it was 6x9, with the early 6x9 box cameras, and it would also make sense that Leitz would use the same aspect on 35mm film.
120 started out as an almost exclusively contact printed format (like most photography in the first century of the medium).Half-frame of 6x6 I guess. I'm used to 6x6 being the native 120 format.
120 started out as an almost exclusively contact printed format (like most photography in the first century of the medium).
The size is about the smallest tolerable as a real honest to goodness image before we are into photos for mice.
It’s interesting, but pure speculation to compare to the tradition dating back to the late eighteenth century of miniatures, among them silhouettes done in a camera obscura and traced with a pencil and cut out with pen knife.
The 120 formats are mirrored (copied rather, probably) pretty well in Fuji’s Instax sizes, where the actual image is only a smidgen larger than the old 120 standard sizes.
135 was always meant to be enlarged. Hence the name often associated with it in the early decades of the format: Miniature.
Not so sure about "far and away". It probably barely edges out 6x9 which continued long after straight boxes went out.All that withstanding as the format matured it was used as 6x6 for the vast amount of applications. 6x6 was/is far and away the most popular aspect for 120.
If that's your main goal, you should look for a Bencini Koroll 24. Shoots half-frame on the 6x6 track, with a roughly 3x6 vertical mask. Twenty-four on a roll of 120. Pretty common triplet lens (f/8 IIRC), but it seems a valid format, too.
Again with non full width mask? What gives?Some sort of slide standard? At least give me the full width to crop from.Or the Rolleicord Vb. F&H (the manufacturers of this wonderful 120 roll film gem) made a 24 exposure kit with two variables, both horizontal so one has no need to turn the camera sideways for landscapes. With this kit, you can make 24 35mm-size exposures or 24 24 28x40 images, this I believe was the 828 format, the latter useful for scenes when a slightly panoramic effect is wanted - that is, if you can cope with the tiny images produced on 120 film. Small as they are, they are made from the center of the Schneider Xenar lens, so if you are careful with holding the camera and exposing, prints to 8x10" can be made, not the sharpest but definitely with surprisingly good definition and pleasing mid-tones. The Xenar is a greatly underrated lens.
The 16 and 24 exposure kits for this camera often turn up on Ebay are are (usually) not too expensive. I bought mine for about A$60-$70 each and the 16 kit is permanently on my Vb. An added plus is by carefully aligning the films while loading, I get 17 images from a roll, which in this expensive for everything day and age is nothing to sneeze at.
There is also a 35mm Rolleikin available to convert the 'cord into a MF-sized 'miniature' camera, but this is getting away from the original topic, so I'll stop here.
The 16 and 24 exposure kits for this camera often turn up on Ebay are are (usually) not too expensive. I bought mine for about A$60-$70 each and the 16 kit is permanently on my Vb. here.
Exactly. 828 slides give wonderful, large slides that fit in a 2"x2" slide mounts - same as for 135 film.Again with non full width mask? What gives?Some sort of slide standard? At least give me the full width to crop from.
Again with non full width mask? What gives? Some sort of slide standard? At least give me the full width to crop from.
Great photo. KC really loved those browns.Exactly. 828 slides give wonderful, large slides that fit in a 2"x2" slide mounts - same as for 135 film.
From 50 years ago, on 828 Kodachrome. I'm the little guy in the brown jacket:
View attachment 285706
A slide standard is a chrome/dias film (gate) size that has commercial masks/frames made for it.Alas for you, poor man, not on the Rolleicord Vb. The Rolleiflex T may be your baby as the 645 (actually 455, a German foible) insert looks to be almost the entire width of the film, with only a thin 'margins'.
Whether you use the T or the Vb, they are good for landscapes as the format width is horizontal, not vertical. Another plus for the Rolleis.
Out of curiosity, what did you mean by "slide standard?"
120 started out as an almost exclusively contact printed format (like most photography in the first century of the medium).
The size is about the smallest tolerable as a real honest to goodness image before we are into photos for mice.
Exactly. 828 slides give wonderful, large slides that fit in a 2"x2" slide mounts - same as for 135 film.
I shoot 6x8. The GX680iii which is a phenominal camera that is about the least portable thing before large format. I was interested in architectural and landscape when I got it, and there it shines.
Gotta say-- My Chamonix is way more portable than my GX680.
Brubeck and his quartet had a penchant for odd time signatures - Take Five with its 5⁄ 4 or Blue Rondo A La Turk with a 9⁄ 8 time signature are examples.
A slide standard is a chrome/dias film (gate) size that has commercial masks/frames made for it.
I have a T. Never used it. Pretty irritating linkage system.
I took a look at my T today.Thanks - that's what I thought it could mean. Obviously, not in the Vb's case, nor the T, as the 16 exposure dimensions are closer to 4.5x5. I shot many rolls of Ektachrome and Fujichrome with my Ts in my day, and always found it easy to mount these in conventional mounts (I used paper ones) as they were mostly smaller than the actual image anyway. I stopped using E6 in all my cameras about 15 years ago so am no longer ofay with what is available in slide mounts today, that is if anything still is. Maybe used from Ebay.
You say you found the T's linkage system "irritating"?? Confusion here again. My experience with the Ts (I own two) differs - to me they are fare easier to use than the so-called legendary automatic loading system on the earlier and pro Rollei TLRs. I quickly worked out how to load my films more, shall we say, "creatively" and squeeze an extra exposure out of every roll of 120 film. 17 on 120 is nothing to sneeze at!!
You should give your T another chance, especially with a 16 kit. It's an excellent camera and it was marketed to amateurs, so used Rollei Ts being sold today are unlikely to have been beaten to death in studios. My two are late 1960s models and came from their original owner. I doubt he put more than maybe 1-2-3 rolls of film through each one every year. I use them far more than this, now entirely for B&W. I'm sure they will outlast me.
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