So why did 120 (and 127) manage to thrive when the others died out?

Meyer Trioplan · Nov 23, 2015

Looking at the list of roll film formats that once existed, it is pretty incredible to see not only the variety of film formats that were once available, but also that the market and manufacturing sectors could support so many varied sizes.

Well, at least for a time it seems. It looks that by the 1920's, the first of these film formats was discontinued, and by 1960, just 116/616, 118, 120/620, 122, 124, 127, and 130 remained, to have three of these bow out the next year, leaving just 4 cut sizes left. Today, only 120 really remains, with a modest niche following to be found for 127 format.

What I have to wonder is, that given that it was just 1 of 30 "100" formats, what was so attractive about 120 format in comparison to the 29 other formats that made it the standard roll film format, while others bit the dust?

Sirius Glass · Nov 23, 2015

In the beginning films were known by the camera that used them. In 1913 Kodak started numbering films, starting the 100 series. When the same width of film was used with a different spool the hundreds digit was changed, thus 120 ==> 620. 35mm was named 135 for convenience and to avoid confusion.

Sometimes films were dropped from lack of sales, others were dropped for lack of support of the film manufacturers.

http://www.nwmangum.com/Kodak/FilmHist.html

http://wichm.home.xs4all.nl/filmsize.html

http://www.kodak.com/ek/us/en/corp/aboutus/heritage/milestones/default.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_format

mgb74 · Nov 23, 2015

Perhaps urban legend, but I remember reading that Kodak designed the 620 format to discourage competition from other film manufacturers - who offered 120. They built their cameras around their proprietary 620 format to sell more film. I don't know if they initially had a patent around that format or not.

Ricardo Miranda · Nov 23, 2015

It also depended on the camera manufacturers supporting a format or not.
See 120 could be use in box cameras as well as Hasselblads.
The same didn't happen to 620 when just a handful of manufacturers were using it.
That also explains why there is still a 127 film being made as there are a number of high quality cameras for it, such as the baby Rolleiflexes.

summicron1 · Nov 23, 2015

Kodak used to be good about supporting odd sizes, but they needed sales. In the 70s they told the camera columnist f pop photo that they'd make him any size he wanted if he would order 10,000 units.

aoresteen · Nov 23, 2015

620 is 120 except for the spool. It was patented by Kodak so manufactured avoided it and stuck to 120.

120 survived in the 30's because of the Rollieflex TLR that used 120. Ditto for 127 as the Baby Rollieflex made fantastic super-slides that would fit in a standard 35mm slide projector.

AgX · Nov 23, 2015

mgb74 said:
Perhaps urban legend, but I remember reading that Kodak designed the 620 format to discourage competition from other film manufacturers - who offered 120. They built their cameras around their proprietary 620 format to sell more film. I don't know if they initially had a patent around that format or not.

There were two ways to go for film manufacturers who also made cameras (to boost their sales):

-) installing proprietory formats to keep other manufacturers off their share of the cake

-) share own formats with other manufacturers to be able to sell at other markets too

In their history Kodak went both ways.

Gerald C Koch · Nov 23, 2015

Early cameras relied upon large format films because the emulsions of the day were of rather coarse grain and did not stand up to enlargement. As film quality improved the larger size formats slowly died out. What roll films survived were 120 and 127.

Xmas · Nov 24, 2015

There were more simple cameras made in 120 and 127 size cause 120 and 127 was cheaper.

Every one had a 120 camera cause the contacts were cheap and you could recognise people wearing reading glasses on a (6x9) contact, but 127 was a size too small for reading glasses.

Even the smallest pharmacy had a show case of yellow boxes. But only verichrome pan...

Films had snow scenes at each end bathing costumes in middle.

Then the show cases all changed to half yellow half green, with 35mm...but that only happened yesterday.

Xmas · Nov 24, 2015

AgX said:
There were two ways to go for film manufacturers who also made cameras (to boost their sales):

-) installing proprietory formats to keep other manufacturers off their share of the cake

-) share own formats with other manufacturers to be able to sell at other markets too

In their history Kodak went both ways.

They did also try the third option of ignoring patents.

gray1720 · Nov 24, 2015

At risk of stating a recursive argument, I suspect that it had a lot to do with which sizes Kodak stuck with. I don't know when the last 620 camera was made, but Kodak themselves suddenly produced a 120 folder again in the 1960s and if all the 620 cameras were sat on shelves, but Hasselblad, Rollei and so on were still using 120 then it was worth keeping selling it. I suspect that Kodak were the last volume producer of 127 cameras as well, though I remember my mother retired hers in the early 1980s as it was hard to find film by then.

One of the saving graces of 120 was surely the genius who thought of putting the different size markings on the same film? I don't recall whether the same length of film was sold marked for 8, 12 or 16 exposures, but I'm reasonably certain that the first Rollleis were made to take a format the same width as 120 with just six exposures, and Ensign's Cupid is thought to be the first camera made to take 16 on 120 by means of two red windows in the early 1920s.

Hmm - possibly as early as 1914? http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C221.html

Fashion may well have had a lot to do with it as well - big overcoats with huge pockets went out of style, so bigger formats were harder to carry round. Don't forget two world wars as well - lots of soldiers wanting photos to send home, but only having so much space to carry stuff in, so the smaller the camera the better. 127 in fact probably owes a lot of its early success to WW1, which gives me an excuse to post this link, the first picture clearly shows a VPK sat on the wing!
http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=55239

After all that I'm not sure there's a point to it - I think it was multiple factors at play, in myriad combinations.

Adrian

Ian Grant · Nov 24, 2015

Film sizes came from many companies both camera manufacturers and film manufacturers. Kodak weren't the first manufacturer of roll films and like other companies in the late 19th C amalgamations, acquisitions etc brought changes in the Industry.

In the UK an early company was the Alliance Roll-film Camera Co. Ltd, short lived under that name (1898-1904) becoming part of Houghtons (one of the partners) and later cameras sold under their Ensign trade name up to the early 1960's. Houghtons had their own film plant selling roll film under the Ensign brand. Kodak bought other small film (plate) companies here in the UK as well as in the US as well as camera manufacturers.

It was the most popular roll film sizes that lasted longest those used by the main camera makers.

Ian

Meyer Trioplan · Nov 24, 2015

A lot of very interesting insights. Thanks!

As someone who came into photography around 1990, the formats I would typically see in the camera shops were Disc, 110, 120, 126, and 135. The cartridge formats had a logical progression going from smallest to largest, but "120," typically thought of as the "professional format" did not seem to fall neatly into this sequence. It was only later that I would discover there were other formats in decline or abandonment such as 127, 620, and 828, and not too long ago that I learned of the original numbering scheme (and numerous other accompanying formats) of which 120 was a part.

The culmination of camera and film availability such as that with the Rollei cameras, the versatility of the various 120 cameras to use multiple formats on the same film, and the changes in dress styles and need for true portability all do make compelling cases for why 120 has remained as the others have vanished. My 645 folders of the 1930's are many times more portable than my 1A camera, even if they aren't as nimble as my capable little Bantam.

If there was one format I wish had been developed a bit more, it would be 122, offering an image size rivaling 4x5, but with a greater degree of portability and convenience.

AgX · Nov 24, 2015

Meyer Trioplan said:
As someone who came into photography around 1990, the formats I would typically see in the camera shops were Disc, 110, 120, 126, and 135. .

Coming to photography in the 70s that is what I saw too. Plus bulk 35mm, Minox and SX-70 and 600. Later added by APS.

I never ever saw anything else locally.

Ian Grant · Nov 24, 2015

Meyer Trioplan said:
A lot of very interesting insights. Thanks!

As someone who came into photography around 1990, the formats I would typically see in the camera shops were Disc, 110, 120, 126, and 135./QUOTE]

I had my first camera by the mid 1950's no idea what format, probably 6x9 I was too young to be allowed film. I graduated though to a Brownie 127 as soon as the Instamatics came out in 1963 when I processed my first films. I shot 828 on my fathers Bantam as well.

These days aside from 120 cameras which I use regularly I also have a 127 Purma (a pile of junk) and a very nice Alliance Roll-film Camera Co. Ltd 110 camera made between 1898-1904 and would love to get/make some film for it - essentially its a roll film 5"x4" camera, I have some aerial film to slit, just need backing paper

Ian

Steve Smith · Nov 24, 2015

mgb74 said:
Perhaps urban legend, but I remember reading that Kodak designed the 620 format to discourage competition from other film manufacturers - who offered 120. They built their cameras around their proprietary 620 format to sell more film.

It didn't work as other manufacturers also made 620 film.

Steve.

RalphLambrecht · Nov 24, 2015

Meyer Trioplan said:
Looking at the list of roll film formats that once existed, it is pretty incredible to see not only the variety of film formats that were once available, but also that the market and manufacturing sectors could support so many varied sizes.

Well, at least for a time it seems. It looks that by the 1920's, the first of these film formats was discontinued, and by 1960, just 116/616, 118, 120/620, 122, 124, 127, and 130 remained, to have three of these bow out the next year, leaving just 4 cut sizes left. Today, only 120 really remains, with a modest niche following to be found for 127 format.

What I have to wonder is, that given that it was just 1 of 30 "100" formats, what was so attractive about 120 format in comparison to the 29 other formats that made it the standard roll film format, while others bit the dust?

because popular cameras were continiously made needing the120 format(Hassellblad mamiya, Rollei) and the ones that hsd been made survived in the used market for a long time.Also,it was a popular pro format with high sales volumes.;It is basically THE medium -format film format.

MattKing · Nov 24, 2015

Another factor that should be considered is the influence of the photo-finishing industry. As colour film became the norm, it was extremely unlikely that labs that were set up for anything up to 2 1/4" wide film (120/620) would invest in equipment for larger negatives.

As well, the move to automation made it less likely that machines would be customized for the smaller, less supported formats (828 and 127).

Xmas · Nov 24, 2015

RalphLambrecht said:
because popular cameras were continiously made needing the120 format(Hassellblad mamiya, Rollei) and the ones that hsd been made survived in the used market for a long time.Also,it was a popular pro format with high sales volumes.;It is basically THE medium -format film format.

If you go back to 1950 120 was used in folders and boxes in many house holds in the UK. It was cheaper than larger formats and could be dropped off for processing and contact printed at home on POP paper, with a simple print frame, which I did.

Blads, Rolli, Mamiya were rather more rare, 35mm film ditto...

The same was true in 1933 in my family.

The folders and boxes were not as ubiquitous as iPhones today times were harder in the Great Depression and post war austerity Britain.

But 8 on 120 was the iPhone of its day.

AgX · Nov 24, 2015

As Xmas indicated: one has to think about the term "popular".

railwayman3 · Nov 24, 2015

I'd follow most of the above comments.....as emulsions improved, 120 probably finished up as being the most practical combination (or compromise) of size of negative for quality work, portability and cost of materials, for users from snapshotters with the plastic Brownie Cresta (my first camera) through to the pros with their Rolleis and Hassies. 127 was never a pro format (35mm being obviously the choice for portability and quick shooting) but was, for many years, a very convenient and quality "vest pocket" size for amateur use.

828, disc, and 126 were either a attempt to make picture-taking easier for the amateur, or the more cynical of us might suggest a way to sell more cameras and different lab equipment (an example, with some of the earlier formats, of an attempt at early planned obsolescence?) . APS was similar, in part an ingenious way of solving problems which didn't exist and also a too-late-in-the-day attempt to compete with digital, which, in the event, arguably proved to do the job better for many snapshotters anyway.

Sirius Glass · Nov 24, 2015

Xmas said:
The folders and boxes were not as ubiquitous as iPhones today times were harder in the Great Depression and post war austerity Britain.

I have a flip phone for a cell phone. I can take a photograph with it, although I have never done that. So the question is does a flip phone that can take a photograph called a "folder"?

:munch::munch::munch::munch::munch:

blockend · Nov 25, 2015

As a child in the 1960s I recall a huge array of films available at the local chemist. The pharmacy was on the border of a very affluent area and a working class distract (ours!), and people typically brought their camera in to be loaded by the owner. Elderly dowagers would bring in a camera they'd bought before WW1 and expect film to be available for it.

By the time I got seriously interested in photography in the mid-70s some of those formats had gone, or were only available in specialist outlets, not chemists. The 80s saw off the more antique formats.

Xmas · Nov 25, 2015

Sirius Glass said:
I have a flip phone for a cell phone. I can take a photograph with it, although I have never done that. So the question is does a flip phone that can take a photograph called a "folder"?

:munch::munch::munch::munch::munch:

No more than a Star Trek communicator.

AgX · Nov 25, 2015

AgX said:
As Xmas indicated: one has to think about the term "popular".

During my whole school time I only came across two Hasselblads.

So why did 120 (and 127) manage to thrive when the others died out?

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