What Is A 35 Millimeter Camera?

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On the assumption that this is not a joke, I'll give a straight reply.

A 35mm camera is a camera designed to use 35mm film. These cameras come in several styles, and two basic formats.

Common styles include box cameras (those with no adjustments, i.e., fixed-focus point-and-shoot cameras), viewfinder cameras, rangefinder cameras, and SLR (single-lens reflex) cameras.

Formats include full-frame and half-frame. Full frame cammeras take a picture that is 36×24mm in size. This is an industry standard, and forms the basis for many format size comparisons.

The less popular half-frame cameras shoot an image that is 24×18mm in size. this is the format used for traditional 35mm movie film.

Hope this helps.

No, 35mm refers to the width of the film frame. The sensors on FF cameras are (roughly) 35mm wide.

I'm suddenly feeling really old.

A 35 mm camera is a camera that uses the 35mm FILM format. A 35 mm SLR can use a wide variety of lenses such as the "talented" Canon EOS 3.

montreal wrote in post #4172441
No, 35mm refers to the width of the film frame. The sensors on FF cameras are (roughly) 35mm wide.

35mm refers to the width of the film strip. The image on the strip (and the nominal size of the sensors on full-frame digital cameras) are 36×24mm, with the 24mm size being across the film. The "missing" 11mm is taken up by the film's side strips, which include the sprocket holes.

JohnnyGalaga wrote in post #4172457
What's an "FF camera"? So exactly what is it that is 35 millimeters long ?

An FF (full-frame) film camera is a 35mm camera that produces a 36×24mm image on 35mm film.

An FF digital camera is a digital camera with a sensor of nominally 36×24mm.

Good grief!! Am I THAT old?
I'm starting to feel like an antique.

The next question will be "What's a record player?"



You just gotta love it!

Naturalist wrote in post #4172487
Good grief!! Am I THAT old?
I'm starting to feel like an antique.

The next question will be "What's a record player?"

What is this... record player you speak of? Is it anything like those old cassette players that people used to use?

JohnnyGalaga wrote in post #4172457
What's an "FF camera"? So exactly what is it that is 35 millimeters long? I see lots of lenses that are like "28-70mm" or "70-200mm".

You are confusing film and/or image size with lens focal length. They are entirely different.

35mm film is so called because the film strip is 35mm wide. This has only a partial connection to image size, and no connection at all to lens focal length.

With 35mm film, a full-frame image is 36×24mm, and a half-frame image is 24×18mm. The image size has only this relationship to the film size: It cannot be bigger than the film allows in at least one dimension. 35mm film has a space between the sprocket holes that is just over 24mm wide. Therefore, one of the two image dimension cannot exceed 24mm.

Lens focal llength has absolutely nothing to do with film size OR image size. A 35mm full-frame camera may use a 10mm lens or a 1200mm lens, or any desires size at all. This is the focal length of the lens, and is an optical property that determines how the lens see the world.

adam8080 wrote in post #4172501
What is this... record player you speak of? Is it anything like those old cassette players that people used to use?

"Record player" = early name for a rap DJ's turntable. Now, a Victrola, on the other hand....

I had a car with an 8-track player once.

Haha. I think most music artists that did use turntables are switching over to computers now. A couple years back I saw an advertisement for an electric turntable that plugged into your computer to manipulate the sound.

20droger wrote in post #4172459
35mm refers to the width of the film strip. The image on the strip (and the nominal size of the sensors on full-frame digital cameras) are 36×24mm, with the 24mm size being across the film. The "missing" 11mm is taken up by the film's side strips, which include the sprocket holes.

Don't forget the Olympus Pen and other half-frame 35mm cameras where the negative size is 18x24 while the film is still 35mm (also known as 135). Don't forget also that 126 cartridge film was 35mm film but with a different kind of sprocket setup.

Johnny
You are confusing 35mm THE FILM with 35mm THE LENS

Film
Film began as 8x10 glass plates, then later gelatin film sheets (Like Ansel Adams used to shoot), and got progressively smaller - 4x5 sheets and eventually wound onto spools of 120mm wide roll, or 35mm wide roll. The mm is the WIDTH of the film. The film roll varied in length to accomodate 12, 24 or 36 exposures.

Camera
Today, a FF (full frame) camera means that the sensor size is about the size (width & length) as one of those 35mm negative images would appear on the roll of film after processing. Back "in the film heyday" we did not have to worry about sensor size and the "crop factor". 35mm film cameras were the top predator of the time consuming millions of rolls of film each year.

Lenses
Now, lenses come in all kinds of different lengths. PRIME lenses are a fixed focal length: 20mm, 50mm, 300mm, you get what you have and thats all. Zoom lenses, however, are of a variable focal length and can change: 28-80mm, 100-300mm. Its like having 4 lenses in one - except the image quality was not as good as the Prime and the lens speed...well, we'll get into that in another lesson later.

Just remember that the mm (as far as lenses is concerned) is a measurement from the front element (objective lens) to the optical disc within the lens. (Technical crap we don't really need to know).

When used on a 35mm (film) camera, the 35mm (lens) was considered at the top end of a wide angle lens - not really wide angle, but just at that barrier between normal lens and wide angle lens.

Hope this helps.