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Why did half frame die?
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Leica actually was going to show a prototype half frame reflex with interchangeable lenses at the 1962 Photokina. However Olympus was showing their Pen F system and it was ready for production, so Leica put their concept prototype away and that was the end of that. Too bad, but Leica probably thought the market was too small and their camera would not be able to compete on price although I'm sure the quality would have been up to their usual high standards.
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One problem with HF cameras is that more than one was an auto-only type with a selenium meter. This makes them difficult to use today. On the rare occasions when I use my Konica Auto Reflex in HF mode, the 28mm f/1.8 Konica UC Hexanon makes an excellent standard lens. It is sharp, fast and has very close focusing. Over time these lenses tend to get oil on their blades so it tales some effort to keep them going. I also have a Konica AA 35, known in other markets as the Recorder. The lens seems nice and sharp. A friend of mine collects the Konica eye HF cameras. I think some were also sold under the wards name. The most interesting HF camera I saw (I saw a photo of one) was the Konica FT-1 Pro Half. There was a kit which Konica could install to convert the FT-1 slr to HF. Even more than 40 years ago it was possible to shoot with a film like Panatomic-X or KII and get decent enlargements if you used a sharp enough lens. The discussion on whether HF was devised to save money on film is an interesting one. Many labs charged more for processing and mounting HF slides or processing and printing print film. This offset some of the savings. Today, Portra 800, which is an excellent high speed color print film and maybe the only one left is about $10 a roll. At that price saving some money on film is not a bad idea if you are making modest enlargements. Ektar 100 should be great for HF use. I think that the last time I shot b&w HF I used a 40mm f/3.5 Bogen W.A. enlarging lens. The 40 works nicely for full frame printing but makes HF printing easier. I once asked Bob Shell whether it would be worth trying to fit the focusing screen of a Samurai into an old Olympus Pen SLR to brighten things up. He thought that the finder itself was not very bright and that chagning the focusing screen wouldn't help very much.
dynachrome, the format was made popular in Japan due to its conditions after th war and not necessarily did the same conditions exist in other markets such as the US during the period where the 1/2 format gained a decent market share considering the needs were less. Here, I remember visiting the stores and they were couched in terms of for the average middle class American who ws going on a vacation and wanted a camera that did all the work and one that took an almost unlimited number of frames with no need to frequently change film or carry rolls. Sort of like the idea of those non-film cameras. Take dozens of photos without having to change film or now a memory card.
A I go back to when they were popular and photo labs were geared to regularly process them, the price differential was none for development but a tad more for mounting slides and making prints as there was mote time involved. My lab was set up to automount 1/2 frame slides in cardboard vs hand mounting in plastic and the per frame was the same price as 2x2 35mm frames. Their printer just printed 2 frames per print and the charge was the same as for either a 24 or 36 roll unless you wanted them to cut the prints. If you wanted 1 print per frame there was not price penalty per frame just the increase in cost due to the number of prints. Another lab I used was similar in pricing but for printing there was a surcharge as their machine was not capable of autofeeding 1/2 frame negatives for a 1 frame per print. Both labs only processed 1/2 frame a couple of days per week as it required setting up the mounter for auto cutting, feeding and mounting and the printers required a lens change at a minimum.
A I go back to when they were popular and photo labs were geared to regularly process them, the price differential was none for development but a tad more for mounting slides and making prints as there was mote time involved. My lab was set up to automount 1/2 frame slides in cardboard vs hand mounting in plastic and the per frame was the same price as 2x2 35mm frames. Their printer just printed 2 frames per print and the charge was the same as for either a 24 or 36 roll unless you wanted them to cut the prints. If you wanted 1 print per frame there was not price penalty per frame just the increase in cost due to the number of prints. Another lab I used was similar in pricing but for printing there was a surcharge as their machine was not capable of autofeeding 1/2 frame negatives for a 1 frame per print. Both labs only processed 1/2 frame a couple of days per week as it required setting up the mounter for auto cutting, feeding and mounting and the printers required a lens change at a minimum.
I modify them to provide manual control. For example, the Pen EE-S is a delightful little camera with manual focus, but it's auto-only with two shutterspeeds. However, it has an aperture dial for flash, which lets you select aperture, but it always uses the slow speed (1/40th) in flash-mode. The camera can be modified so that you can manually select the shutterspeed: Holding the camera horizontally or vertically on its right side selects the slow speed. Holding the camera upside-down or on its left side selects the high speed.
Making this modification means taking the camera pretty far apart, but it's no problem if you're handy with mechanics. The pictures below show the critical part of the modification: A soldered-on weight consisting of copper wire so a lever will select the correct speed by gravity. The pictures show both low- and high-speed positions:
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I find that I shoot half-frame like digital: Shooting freely as if each shot were free. I turn in the roll to a mini-lab (for C-41 anyway) and tell them to pretend that each pair of frames is a normal frame and proceed as usual. The gives me two shots on each 4x6 print, which I use as proofs for selecting the keepers.
Mark Overton
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It would certainly have been odd for Olympus to produce half frame cameras for nearly 25 years, without responding to all those "experts" that were absolutely certain the quality of half frame couldn't compare to full frame.
http://www.skipwilliams.com/olympus/pen-lit/pen-ft-ography-p&b.pdf
Didn't die for me!
I don't know for sure why 35mm half frame cameras died, but I sure still like to use them. Have a Pen-EE, Agat, Mercury II, and my favorite, the Yashica Samurai X4.0. Not much is said about the Samurai cameras here, but they're a lot of fun, if you don't need a real compact camera. Styled like a video camera, the film runs vertically, giving the same viewing format as a full frame 35mm. Has lot's of modern camera features, like auto-focus, and film advance, power zoom (25-100mm,=35-140mm full frame). Other nice features, diopter adjustment, multiple shooting modes, both for flash and motor drive. Two unusual settings, are the auto shoot of 3 frames on self timer, and the quintuple exposure, where it shoots five exposures on one frame. This takes 1/4 sec. to preform so a tripod helps, but I've used it hand held for some interesting effects too. I've had this for about 15 years, and originally shot some color print film with it, because at the time the local (CA) labs were capable. Mostly I like to shoot B&W as I've always had a darkroom, and enjoy working in it. I use an Omega B-8 cold light enlarger, and have modified a spare 6X9 neg. carrier with card stock to print 4 exposures film strip style. I also found an original 1/2 frame neg. carrier for normal printing, using a 40mm lens. I know that a lot of formats were discontinued because of the film size itself. (127, 828) But like 120 film, which can be shot in various formats, I think it's a shame the 35mm half frames were discontinued. I suppose it's mostly a financial issue, because it was a non-professional format. The average person now shoots digital, not film anyway. It's all fun though!
I don't know for sure why 35mm half frame cameras died, but I sure still like to use them. Have a Pen-EE, Agat, Mercury II, and my favorite, the Yashica Samurai X4.0. Not much is said about the Samurai cameras here, but they're a lot of fun, if you don't need a real compact camera. Styled like a video camera, the film runs vertically, giving the same viewing format as a full frame 35mm. Has lot's of modern camera features, like auto-focus, and film advance, power zoom (25-100mm,=35-140mm full frame). Other nice features, diopter adjustment, multiple shooting modes, both for flash and motor drive. Two unusual settings, are the auto shoot of 3 frames on self timer, and the quintuple exposure, where it shoots five exposures on one frame. This takes 1/4 sec. to preform so a tripod helps, but I've used it hand held for some interesting effects too. I've had this for about 15 years, and originally shot some color print film with it, because at the time the local (CA) labs were capable. Mostly I like to shoot B&W as I've always had a darkroom, and enjoy working in it. I use an Omega B-8 cold light enlarger, and have modified a spare 6X9 neg. carrier with card stock to print 4 exposures film strip style. I also found an original 1/2 frame neg. carrier for normal printing, using a 40mm lens. I know that a lot of formats were discontinued because of the film size itself. (127, 828) But like 120 film, which can be shot in various formats, I think it's a shame the 35mm half frames were discontinued. I suppose it's mostly a financial issue, because it was a non-professional format. The average person now shoots digital, not film anyway. It's all fun though!
I just got a shipping notification from Goodwill on a Samurai X4.0. Your post has me all the more excited for it now. Can't effin' wait!!! 
Oh wow! Those are terrific! I've been wanting to find one of those since I saw them in the Japanese photo mag Camera Life earlier this year. How's the quality of the lenses?
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Call me cynical, but I wonder if perhaps Olympus would have some sort of motivation to declare that their half frame cameras produced results as good as those of full frame cameras.
As to the question of why half frames disappeared, I would reckon that they were primarily aimed at amateur and snapshooters, many of whom probably got tired of having to work through 40 or more frames before they could see their pictures - coupled with the price of color films dropping since the 1960s, there was less reason to own a half frame camera. They never totally went away though.
This is so true - I'd process films just before Christmas that would include the previous Christmas, Easter, umpteen birthdays and NY Celebrations; the 2 weeks before Christmas were often some of our busiest days for processing.
Never ever saw them before!
You overlooked Agfa's Karat and Rapid system. It took standard 35mm film in smaller cassettes, without protruding spool-hub. It gave the benifit of kind of drop-in loading.
When Kodak surprized the photographic world with their Instamatic system Agfa had to react overnight so to say by re-stablishing their late Karat system as Rapid system and crank out masses of brand new designed Rapid-cameras to conquer those Instamatics cameras.
Film graininess was still an issue back in the 1960s...so having to magnify the half frame image more, in order to make the same final print size, would magnify its grain size to be that much more visible.
In the film heyday, enthusiasts commonly lusted for medium format because of the reduction in grain as seen in the final print. So the success of a smaller format would be inherently more disadvantaged with that desire. We are spoiled by finer grain film today, where ISO 400 is virtually the same in visible grain as ISO 100 film...that was not true back then, and it didn't happen until about 1990 or so!
Back then there were 20 exposure rolls of film (and 36 exposure rolls), so 40 half frame exposures on a roll was not much different in toleration than a FF shooter using a 36 exposure roll. There were even 12 exposure rolls, so 24 half frame exposures was not much different than FF shooter with 20 exposure roll. So I don't buy the 'it took too long to shoot up a roll' argument as much of a factor to half frame demise.
I don't recall processing cost for the film itself, but about half the emulsion area should have allowed half of the film processing cost; the per print price would be virtually identical, of course. Of course, processing costs are not simply about depletion of the chemistry, as the labor costs are just as high to process a 36 exp roll of film as it is to process a 12 exposure roll of film.
In the film heyday, enthusiasts commonly lusted for medium format because of the reduction in grain as seen in the final print. So the success of a smaller format would be inherently more disadvantaged with that desire. We are spoiled by finer grain film today, where ISO 400 is virtually the same in visible grain as ISO 100 film...that was not true back then, and it didn't happen until about 1990 or so!
Back then there were 20 exposure rolls of film (and 36 exposure rolls), so 40 half frame exposures on a roll was not much different in toleration than a FF shooter using a 36 exposure roll. There were even 12 exposure rolls, so 24 half frame exposures was not much different than FF shooter with 20 exposure roll. So I don't buy the 'it took too long to shoot up a roll' argument as much of a factor to half frame demise.
I don't recall processing cost for the film itself, but about half the emulsion area should have allowed half of the film processing cost; the per print price would be virtually identical, of course. Of course, processing costs are not simply about depletion of the chemistry, as the labor costs are just as high to process a 36 exp roll of film as it is to process a 12 exposure roll of film.
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12 exposure rolls came about much later, unless they were available much earlier. When I started in 1979 or so they were 20 or 36 (I wish E6 films still were - my slide pages hold 20, and I have some Elitechrome 24 exposure I bought online, which means wasting 16 of 20 spaces in a slide page.) 12 and 24 both came about much later. But there might have been 12 back in the 60s or earlier; I don't know about that.
I have a Pen-D, and also a Dead Link Removed which, though being a plastic camera with plastic lens, one shutter speed and two aperture settings makes nice little snapshot images. Because of its leaf shutter, it works nicely with a small flash unit attached to its side-mounted hotshoe. It's also rather nicely built for a plastic toy camera.
Due to its small size and light weight, I'm much more apt to take the Golden Half with me than the Oly Pen-D, despite the difference in lens quality, which I really don't see with 4x6 mini lab prints. And I'd rather break or lose a $40 plastic camera than a collector's camera like an Olympus half frame.
~Joe
Due to its small size and light weight, I'm much more apt to take the Golden Half with me than the Oly Pen-D, despite the difference in lens quality, which I really don't see with 4x6 mini lab prints. And I'd rather break or lose a $40 plastic camera than a collector's camera like an Olympus half frame.
~Joe
The Karat/Rapid system I hinted at above had only a short strip of film. In case the appropriate camera exposed the 24x36mm format those films only gave 12 exposures (24 at 18x24).
Quarter frame is massive compared to MinoxI look forward to your results, Ian.
You should get a Minox and go to town.
Getting back to the OP. Too bad half-frame died, but quarter frame is alive and well
With regards to the Agfa Rapid cassettes, they also fit the Ansco Memo, which was a half-frame camera from the 1920s.
I had a very nice Pen FT. My favorite half-frame is the Agfa Optima_Parat. Excellent Solinar lens and accurate trap-needle exposure system.
I've shot a lot with this camera and have been very impressed with it.
Even so, I think the format has its limits when it comes to enlargements.
I had a very nice Pen FT. My favorite half-frame is the Agfa Optima_Parat. Excellent Solinar lens and accurate trap-needle exposure system.
I've shot a lot with this camera and have been very impressed with it.
Even so, I think the format has its limits when it comes to enlargements.
Quarter frame is massive compared to Minox
Getting back to the OP. Too bad half-frame died, but quarter frame is alive and well
Half frame, quarter frame.. It's all perspective... An 8x10 shooter would call a 6x7 a 1/8th frame and a 135 shooter a 1/25th frame shooter hehe (those were not mathematical just made up....protecting myself from the anal retentive "hey 35mm is only 1/20th man!" hehe
~Stone
The Important Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic
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Goid! Just didnt want to wait till I finished a roll to have it developed, When I startede doing my own, I bought my film in 100 ft rolls and loaded my cassets with 12 exp rolls
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