Oskar Barnack: The Father of 35mm Photography | Hacker News Reader

Oskar Barnack: The Father of 35mm Photography

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One of the craziest things about the invention of the ur-leica is the start of the 3:2 format. Before most cameras followed the 4:3 format as did movie film. Even most paintings before that followed a format somewhat similar to 4:3. It was considered natural as it seems to roughly follow the natural field of human high accuracy vision.

Barnack however did not have much of a choice. His camera was brand new and was a side project so he could not have a film manufacturer make film just for his camera. So he decided to use movie film but to run it from side to side (as not to obstruct the view of the photographer.

In order to avoid film wastage he decided to combine to movie frames to for one camera frame (ie to have round numbers and avoid random length off cuts). That worked but changed the aspect ratio. The film camera was 4:3, he moved the 4 from the horizontal to vertical and doubled the 3 by combining two frames to get 6:4, or 3:2.

And thus the 3:2 format was born purely out of practical necessity and without any artistic reason. And somehow this wide and short format lives on until now with many photographers swearing it is the best aspect ratio, even though I do not think there is any reason to believe so and nobody seemed to believe so before Barnack had this purely technical problem.

It took twenty years from prototype to success:

> By 1913, Barnack had news to record in his workshop journal: “Lilliput camera for cine film completed.”

> After World War I postponed the development of Barnack’s 35mm camera, Ernst Leitz II moved forward with the project.

> In 1923, Leitz produced 23 Leica 0-Series cameras, which had a fixed 50mm f/3.5 lens.

> Released at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1925, the Leica I (also called the Leica A) began to impress photographers.

> By 1933, Leitz had sold 100,000 of its new Leica cameras

It's also amazing how long it took to diffuse into the rest of society; in my family in France, people were still buying bizarre and unpractical compact medium format cameras well into the 50s, and used them until the end of the 70s at least. I still have them, and it's a mystery why anyone would subject to that when 35mm film had been available for so long.

> ... and it's a mystery why anyone would subject to that when 35mm film had been available for so long.

Medium format film still provides greater resolution and enables some processing techniques not feasible with 35 mm film, for example making contact prints possible.

"I still have them, and it's a mystery why anyone would subject to that when 35mm film had been available for so long."

Well, I can give you some answers that my dad would type here if he was still around...

The folding 120 film camera fits in your pocket [1], takes a wide range of films (slide, negative, different speeds and even with colour different tone characteristics). Many but not all roll film cameras of the 1950s and 60s took 12 square images on a 120 roll. So you did not have to turn the camera sideways at all.

The negative is large enough to make contact prints from without an enlarger and give them away to friends and family members. 2¼ inch slides could be viewed in cheap slide viewer that you held up to the window more easily than 35mm.

The larger negative area means the images are more forgiving of processing in your bathroom (I used to love the reticulation effects from using water that was too hot), and gives you more potential for cropping if you had an enlarger. The larger size of the camera means that the precision needed in the optical and mechanical parts is slightly lower and so cameras could be cheaper.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=folding+roll+film+camera+bal...

Mind you I used a Pentax and a Nikon like everyone else in the 80s and 90s...

Maybe some of this is true but I'm talking of cheap medium format things, with a cheap lens, and nobody in my family (before me) ever processed film in their bathroom. I suspect they bought these because that's what everyone around them bought, without giving it much thought.

True enough, people tend to buy what they see and can afford. We see that even now with laptops &c.

My point exposure forgiveness of the larger negative and lower precision requirements in the camera still stands I think. Did your relatives get their photos processed at the chemist? Did they ever get enlargements of selected frames done?

(Amazing how the cheaper smart phone has totally changed the way people use photographs - in less than a decade really)

PS: don't underestimate the Cooke-Robinson triplet lens stopped down to around f/8. The main issue with the cheapies was flare and the absence of lens coatings.

I'm really talking about my two grand parents. One was an artist that took wonderful pictures that were enlarged and that are still hanging in my home. The other wasn't and his pictures were all out of focus and mostly pointless (and also, yes, many of his pictures had a flare which rendered half of it over exposed ;-)

50% is a pretty good success rate!

Have a look at the grain pattern in one of the enlarged prints.

Cheers

I am also not sure whether good quality low grain film was likely easier to achieve in 120 format? Bigger film - low grain.

And since the lenses were bigger, perhaps also easier to manufacture vs high quality low size high precision 35mm lenses ?

Could it simply be the prints? When my dad briefly played with 35mm photography while working in 1950s Switzerland, what you got by default when you had your film developed was contact strips. I guess enlargements were made by hand, and thus expensive, so the contact strips were it, for those photos (and of course my mom threw out the negatives about 40 years later, right before my siblings and I got into b&w photography with darkroom equipment and all).

I can totally see the local photofinisher just making contact prints of those medium format pictures, and those going into the album, and... well, we've always done it this way, why change?

In the 1930s, Argus created a line of cheap Leica knockoffs that were quite popular, selling millions over a few decades. Agfa got into the 35mm game fairly early. 120 cameras tended to be either cheap instamatic-type cameras, or high end pro cameras like Rolleiflexes. Japanese makers like Nikon and Konica introduced high quality 35mm rangefinders pretty soon after they could scale up the postwar manufacturing.

120/220(6x6 medium) films produce much better image than 135(35mm). 135 films are already much better than more modern, smaller formats, but it is a compromise downwards from mediums.

One thing that's forgotten nowadays is that the old and even older 35mm films were a lot more grainier the ones we have now. 35mm started to gain bigger traction in the 60s and after that as the film stocks improved. Also 24-36 photos for the same price are probably more inviting compared to medium format's 10-16 photos depending on the frame size.

I love to shoot medium format but have couple of 35mm cameras laying around although the 36 frame rolls are too much for me and I decided that when I get the current 35mm stash shot, I'll buy bulk loader, empty containers and start creating that 10-16 frame rolls to get the amount sane and rolls developed more quickly.

Leicas were always expensive cameras - I think in the 30s we're talking the equivalent of a months wages, so these were never made and marketed as consumer products for the average consumer.

The professionals at the time were using 5x4, so things like the Crown Graphic for press photography, or rolleiflex TLRs shooting to 120 format film. There were a number of relatively cheap TLRs about, and the folding cameras you refer to, both using 120 format (which I think Kodak launched in 1901, so predating Barnack's work).

It's not clear to me when 35mm became ubiquitous. The growth of cheap consumer cameras came post world war II from Japan and Germany as their hi-tech industry was repurposed. In addition, post WWII people as a whole didn't have disposable income for consumer purchases, and we're really looking at the mid to late 50s before things start booming.

I think lots of photojournalists in the 60s switched to 35mm because it allowed them to shoot more frames, and 35mm is sufficient for newspaper.

On the otherside, pros working for magazine/fashion industry/etc still used medium/large format.

I have a serious camera collection. Rolleis, Hassies, Nikons, you name it.

You can take my IIIf and M3 only from my cold hands. The shooting experience with 35 mm film loaded on those mechanical marvels is something else. It is refreshing and gives back the pleasure of picture taking.

I love shooting on my mom’s old Nikon FE2. Just slap a nifty fifth on and hit the streets. It’s a really great way to keep the phone at bay when on trips too - I try to limit myself to 1 roll per 5 days.

While I admire Leica rangefinder cameras (both screw mount and M system), if I were stranded on island and only allowed to have 1 camera, then it would be a Hasselblad, or Rolleiflex SL66 :D

I love my SL66, but it’s so (relatively) big and heavy. My Leica MP is small and light enough that it never annoys me being around my neck.

Well, eventually, different tools for different purposes, though.

For my purpose, SL66/Hasselblad outperforms the Leica for these reasons: - interchangebale film backs - more longer lenses - macro work - bigger negatives

You may assume I don't shooting anything moving fast, and very likely on tripod. True. I usually use medium format when I have something specific in mind, like personal projects. If not, any 35mm gear is sufficient.

If we speak of street photography, I have another favorite: Rollei 35 S. But it is usable only for zone focusing.

Hassies are cool, but SL66 is a workhorse which is unbeatable. For medium format street scenarios, twin-lens Rolleis are light and easy to operate.

I had a IIIF. Ioved that camera. I had to sell it to make ends meet. It was small and compact. I took it every where.

Images from Hasselblad have better resolution, finer grain and are easier to print 16 x 20.

Images from the Leica have none of those qualities. What they have is a spontaneity that can only happen if you are always carrying your camera

What is it with camera manufacturers and zero-indexing their model numbers? From the article the first Kodak Brownie model was the No.0 Brownie and Leica had the 0-Series.

What other products did this?

SRAM bicycle parts start from X3 for the cheap stuff up to X9 for nice parts, then X0 is better than X9 and XX is the best. XX can be read as "X ten" but why is X0 between X9 and XX?

because they followed the rotary phone dial?

i've seen number sequence examples that start with 1-9 followed by 0 as the 10th digit. bogus/placeholder credit card numbers commonly used 12345678901234 type of sequence. since 1 is technically the first digit of any phone number, placeholder number sequences often started at 1 and ended with 0 for 10 digit numbers.

lots of people think of 1 as the first number (zero isn't really a number), so it's just a convenient place holder for that 10th digit written as a single digit.

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