35 mm film is the basic film gauge most commonly used for both still photography and motion pictures, and remains relatively unchanged since its introduction in 1892 by William Dickson and Thomas Edison, using film stock supplied by George Eastman. The photographic film is cut into strips 1 3/8 inches or 35 mm wide — hence the name. The standard negative pulldown is four perforations per frame along both edges, which makes for exactly 16 frames per foot. A wide variety of largely proprietary gauges were used by the numerous different camera and projection systems independently invented around the late 19th century and early 20th century, ranging from 13 mm to 75 mm. 35 mm was eventually recognized as the international standard gauge in 1909, and has by far remained the dominant film gauge for both image origination and projection. Despite threats both from smaller and larger gauges, and novel formats, its longevity is largely because its size allows for a relatively good tradeoff between the cost of the film stock and the quality of the images captured. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the manufacturing of 35 mm motion picture film has been a duopoly between Eastman Kodak and Fujifilm. (more...)
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