What is Half Frame Camera?

Hello guys,

 

I was reading Nippon Camera Magazine April edition. In one of the chapter were

cover Canon Demi & Olympus-Pen Cameras. I found out on ebay ppl referr these

two model using a term that I hv never heard before. "half frame" camera.

 

What is a Half Frame camera? How does it differ itself with PS camera. I hv

notice both model has adj aperture control which dissappeared on late modern PS

cameras.

 

Those camera are before my time. I humbly asking knowledge from you all. Thanks.

"Half frame" refers to the fact that these cameras produce an image size that is half the size of the usual 24X36 mm frame for 35mm. So a 36 exp. 35 mm film will allow you 72 frames on one of these cameras. I think that's how it works - have never used one myself.

Yup, its half the size of "full frame" 35mm cameras. They make an image 24mm high by 18mm wide. Many companies made half-frame cameras in the 1970s after the trend set by Olympus with the Pen cameras in the 1960s. Ironically enough, "half frame" is the original format for 35mm cameras. Thomas Edison designed his movie cameras to make images 24mm wide by 18mm high and had Kodak manufacture a super flexible film 35mm wide with sproket holes on both sides. The earliest still cameras designed to take 35mm movie film looked similar to movie cameras... with the film travelling vertically from spools at the top and bottom of the camera.

 

Eventually manufacturers began to put the spools on the sides of the camera and have the film travel horizontally. These cameras made vertically oriented images (called portrait format). To make the scene landscape format instead of portrait format, they doubled the size of the film gate to 36mm. Full frame 35mm cameras were originally called "double frame" cameras and half frame cameras were originially called "single frame" cameras. Confused yet?

 

Most half-frame cameras produced since the 1950s are setup like most 35mm cameras with the film travelling horizontal... for this reason the images are vertical, or portrait. Ironically enough many digital cameras have a sensor the same size as a half-frame negative. The 4/3s sensor is a little smaller, but all the APS-C sensors are the same size as a half-frame negative. (except in landscape format) Because of this, the lenses have a similar "crop factor"... a 35mm half-frame lens gives the same veiw as a 50mm full-frame lens.

 

There are several advantages to half-frame cameras over full-frame cameras. The first one is obviously the fact that you get twice the images on the roll of film! A second advantage is the portrait format... some photographers find themselves constantly turning their 35mm cameras sideways to get the shot they want, I actually find this very common.... generally people are vertical and since most of us live in citys full of tall buildings, we find ourselves surrounded by more vertical things everyday than horizontal things! A third advantage is the proportions of the negative... the standard 35mm neg has to be cropped to fit most standard sized prints such as 8x10, 5x7, and 3x4. The half-frame negative is the 4/3s proportion so it fits better into those print sizes than a fullframe negative.... and likewise better on computer screens. ;) The last advantage is size.... especially amoung classics there are very few full frame cameras as small as their half-frame brethren.

 

The major disadvantage to half-frame is that most commercial labs do not have an effient way to make half-frame prints anymore and unless you ask them to NOT cut your negatives they will end up chopping right through some of your negs when they cut the roll to put it into a storage sheet. If you have a way to scan negatives yourself I really recommend trying out a half-frame camera! The Pen rangefinder series are very well built and can be found for reasonable prices if you look around.

See if you can find a Leica 72 which is basicly a IIIf with a mask at the focal plane and a winding mechanism that only winds 1/2 the amount on each exposure, and an exposure dial which goes to over 72. Sells now for a rediculous price!

 

There was also an unusual post-WW2 camera called the Mercury Univex that was 1/2 frame and had a rotary shutter. Not too bad a camera but it didn't sell well.

Wow, that is so interesting! Thanks Patrick & Alex. I am one of the few who still love to work with film. Now I want to try a roll with these! Of course, if i can find them at fair price and perfect working condition.

When talking about 120 roll film format 'full frame' is 6cm x 9cm so you get 8 shots per roll, 'half frame' is 6cm x 4.5cm with 16 shots per roll and the classic Rolleiflex / Hasselblad 'square format' is 6cm x 6cm where you get 12 shots per roll. Many classic roll film cameras came with versions in all three formats e.g. the Zeiss Ikonta and SuperIkonta.

William, the camera Alex speaks of was a limited edition, never a full production camera. Nikon and Pentax also made several limited edition cameras modified to make half-frame exposures. Some of these cameras were limited to one aperature to simplify shooting. These types of cameras were popular with police forces, especially in Europe it seems.

 

Konica made a camera called the Auto-Reflex which allowed you to switch between full-frame and half-frame mid-roll. (this was actually the FIRST auto-exposure 35mm SLR camera ever made!) The point was allow the user to switch between landscape and portrait shots without tilting the camera.... similar to the APS cameras of the 90s. I am not sure if the Konica cameras used saved film by using a different amount of film advance for half-frame or if it simply masked the half-frame image... does anyone know about this?

 

Olympus made the only production totally half-frame SLR, the Pen F series. They even made an entire series of tiny lenses for them. These cameras are however very expensive... if you want to play in half-frame I definitly recommend looking into some of the 1970s rangefinders. They are fairly common, and because they are simple cameras it should be easy to find one in full working order.

"Half-frame" is also referrecd to as "single-frame," because originally the Leica negative size was called "double-frame," which was twice the width of the 35mm negatives used in the Movie Industry.

The problem with half-frame cameras is that most of them are based on full frame 35mm camera designs, and most of them are NOT significantly smaller than a 35 mm full frame camera. I have a Canon Demi EE17 which is not much smaller than a full-frame Canonet QL17. Only advantage I see is that you can shoot more pics with a single roll. Today film is as cheap as never before, so saving costs is not really an issue. Remember that you will have to find a printing lab, to buy extra slide frames,and a special projector (in case you shoot slides and do not like a tiny projected pic). So today shooting half frame is rather for fun.

 

I like my Canon Demi EE17, anyway, it's a real street shooter. I have never made so many shots in a short time as with the Demi EE17.

And don't forget there is also a 24x24mm SQUARE format on 35mm film. Old Tenax and Robot (and some other) cameras use this format, so you don't need a Hasselblad if you want to shoot square pictures (though I don't think I have heard of an <abbr title="single-lens reflex camera">SLR</abbr> that uses 24x24, but I might be wrong).

A problem with half frame is that transparencies are returned unmounted so you must find half frame mounts and do it yourself. Another problem is that it can take forever to finish a 48 or 72 exposure film. I had an Olympus Pen D which was great but the processing problems (prints or slides) caused me to stop using it.

There were lots of companies that made half frame cameras, I believe in the maybe early 60's. Ricoh, Fujica------Olympus and Canon were already named. The cream of the crop were the Olympus Pen line with interchangeable lenses. You should be able to pick up at least one of the various makes in working order, and cheap.

It can take a while to finish off a roll in a half-frame camera. On those occasions where I've wanted to process the exposed frames on a roll going through my SLR or other full-frame camera, my practice has been to cut off the exposed length in the darkroom for processing, then trim the remaining film to make a new leader, and pop it in the half-frame to use up the remainder. So even though a few frames get lost through the cutting and trimming, the film is still used most efficiently. I treat film as a consumable which is cheaper now that an any time in photographic history.

Don't forget the Mercury II, one of the most entertaining half frame cameras around.

<i>

[...] so you don't need a Hasselblad if you want to shoot square pictures (though I don't think

I have heard of an SLR that uses 24x24, but I might be wrong </i><p>

Hasselblad also had a "super slide" back that make ~36x36mm images on 120 film. The

images were trimmed from the film and fit into a 35mm slide mount. Another odd factoid:

they once made a 6x4.5 back with a portrait orientation so that it got only 12 exposures per

roll. Very odd.<p>

To the OP - The Olympus Pen F (no built-in meter) and Pen FT are very good cameras, the

most compact 1/2 frame SLR. The FT is desirable because the finder is a bit brighter.

Half frame cameras are only slightly smaller than a full frame camera,

some of them, in fact is larger than full frame compact camera.

 

The smallest camera using 35mm film is <P>

<center>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/5786368-md.jpg"width=550>

Tessina 35 <p>

</center>

 

A Tessina is only 2 5/8 x2 1/8 x 15/16"

<center>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/5786368-md.jpg"width=550><P>

Tessina 35<P>

</center>

The Olympus Pen was a terrific camera for its time...I still have some prints in 8x10 from the 1960s which are incredibly sharp as well as some half frame slides. Unfortunately now these cameras command a premium as a collector item, and many need a CLA. Good luck if you get a good working one...they're a hoot.

I just saw an auction for a Tessina on ebay.... around $500 for a complete kit if I remember correctly. I beleive they are still manufactured in Switzerland. The cool thing about these cameras is they take regular 35mm film and come with a special loader for loading the film into the cartridges yourself. Many of the submini cameras required you to buy cartridges from the manufacturer of a special size of cut film... way too limited!

 

Martin... any pics from that Tessina?

Patrick, some of <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=627960">photos taken with Tessina 35, Ilford PanF+ film</a>

The coolest thing about Tessina is that it has a built in mechanical

film winder. Windingup its master spring is enough for 8 pictures without further winding. I don't know any half frame camera has a built in winder.

oooo cool... I know the Kodak Instamatic 126 cameras have that too... and dont some of the Robots do that? Maybe its just the full frame Robots with the spring winder.

My scanner treats two shots with half-frame as one full-frame shot, Easy to make a dyptich out of it if you shoot the natural portrait (vertical) orientation. This was taken with an Olympus Pen "S", my first decent camera, in 1966 or 1977, in Colombia. It had a pretty nice lens.

 

As always when this topic comes up, I invite people to look at my folders from this camera on my Photo.net pages, and to critique freely.<div></div>

Whoops! She's too young to fix watches don't you think?<div></div>

Drifting a bit into the spring wound subject, the 35 mm. Kodak Motormatic has that too, along with selenium-cell auto exposure.