When 35 mm film became main stream in the USA?

[User_4525289]

<p>People help me out here? I read in one old photography book published in 1950s that most of 35 mm cameras are imports and it is not a popular format in the USA. However some one on the Russian rangefinder forum insists that Argus A was sold between 1936-41 in 210.000 copies for $12.50 a piece. Also I am just curious was pre-war Contax III (sold for $298 with Sonnar 50/1.5) a gadget for reach amateur or an instrument of professional photog? Who can afford in 1938 $298 for a camera?</p>

[waltflanagan]

<p>Based on this calculator spending $298 in 1938 is like spending $4,564 in 2009.<br>

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/</p>

<p>In the past 2 years Nikon has sold thousands of D3's for around $4500 so I would say the same kind of people could have bought them in 1938. The Great Depression was still going on but there were still rich people back then and pros who could have justified it as a business expense.</p>

[steven_p]

<p>In nikon dollars/years, the original F would cost around the same as a D700 today.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Kozma; my dad got an Argus A and then later an A2 35mm for the magical 12.5 dollar value; one prewar; one post war.<br>

He also had the slick 8x8/Bantum Special; he got a Retina IIIc about 1955.<br>

The 35mm cameras were used mostly entirely for slides. For prints my grandfather shot with an 8x10 camera for the railroad in the enginnering dept from about 1900 to say 1940. My mom's folks used big folding cameras in the 1920's and 1930's; ie the 116/616 size. My dad got a Vigilant 620 in the late 1940's to shoot prints.</p>

<p>There was a time when Kodakcolor print film was NOT in 35mm yet; later it came out in 35mm. Most all amateur folks shot in B&W for prints until about the 1970's when C41 came out. The USA in the 1950's had alot of us kids using 120/620 films in simple box cameras with Verichrome in B&W; some cameras were given away as free cameras; ie simple ones.</p>

<p>For macro work and medicine the German Exakta VX series had a strong following in the USA; in one small market. Newspapers used 4x5 and TLR's in the 1950', with some 35mm. In the US military the Kodak 35 was used in WW2; plus the Kodak Medialist 620; plus the 4x5 Speed Graphic; 16mm cine such as the Bell and Howell film; and 16mm gun cameras. In the Korean war the Signet 35 military version was used .Early usage of 35mm in the USA was mostly for slides; NOT for prints. I used a Exakta VX in the later 1950's; then ;later a Nikon F that I got in 1962. My brothers got a Konica Auto S2 in 1964 for 42 bucks; another got a Minolta RF about 1967.<br>

<br /> Before Kodapak/Instamatic 126 came out in 1963; Joe Six pack in the USA used a box camera or maybe an old folder for B&W prints. Many times the failure mode was double exposures or film load issues. Kodapak thru a switch in the train tracks; the USA's Joe Six pack often went "Instamatic" and the USSR's Mighty Mikhail stayed with 35mm Zorki. I do not think that the Instamatic system got used much in the USSR at all. Advanced Amateurs in the USA like my brother got a Konica Auto S2 in 1964 and used them to shoot sports; a 100 foot roll of tri-x was about 3 dollars then. There were alot of folks who shot with Argus A's; C44's; C3's too.<br /> <br /> In the USA many friends and neighbors got their first 35mm cameras in the late 1970's; GI's comeing home from Vietnam often brought home cameras in the 1960's and 1970's. The eyedoctor in the USA used an Exakta in the 1940's thru 1970's; and often migrated to the same mount Topcon slr in the 1960's and later.</p>

<p>35mm rangefinders in the USA were a nice tool for 35mm slides in the 1940's thru 1970's. My own peak shooting of 35mm slides probably peaked about in the early or mid 1980's. C41/prints got radically better; boring slide shows got old :) Pre digital; say pre 1992 C41 prints were king; and Joe Six pack shot slides only on holidays; not with mainstream use.</p>

<p>The 1980's and 1990's brought out alot of easy to use P&S 35mm cameras; some with excellent lenses like the Olympus stylus; this fueled shooting C41 ie color prints.<br>

<br /> the 110 sidetrack was embraced by Joe six pack; the Kodak disc was not used as much. APS was a least gap "lets make a unique bastard format" that causes many C41 labs to invest in more equipment.</p>

<p>In Southern California in the early and mid 1990's; we used digital cameras at work to shoot assembly drawings to BBS them or ccmail the images to Singapore/Bangkok/Toyko/Bay Area/etc to keep the production lines going. Realtors in Thousand Oaks were using digital back then to shoot houses; the images were on a BBS that a client could log on. A local lab in Thousand Oaks called the new APS system an abortion format. From a practical standpoint even if C41 film was sent into the bowels of LA for processing; it cost more than 35mm. Thats why it was called an APS tax; one had a subset of C41 labs that could process it; it often cost 10 to 40 percent more; one got less uality since the negative was smaller. Many APS makers were big cheerleaders for APS at the same time others were already using early digital. It was even worse because a hybrid realtor client who shot with 35mm could gat a digital scan; and an APS scanner was not available yet.</p>

<p>35mm came mainstream in the USA in 1963; since the Kodapak is really 35mm film ! :)</p>

<p>With my dad probably his 50 percent point of shot fired was 35mm about WW2.<br>

For me it was late 1950's; since earlier I used box 120/620; and 620 folders and 4x5 stuff more.<br>

A neighbor in Michigan used Blads and TLR's in the 1950's and on; he got a Nikon F in 1960<br>

There a zillion soccer moms who got canon Rebels with F5.6 zooms in the 1990's at Walmarts too.<br>

The zorki was just an odd entry in the early 1970's Wall Street camera catalog; many of us only got into them after the wall fell; and ebay allowed an easy route to buy them.</p>

[cliffmanley]

<p>Excellent post Kelly.<br>

Just goes to show the true value of things has not changed that much. It's just the de-valuation of the Bankers phony debt based fiat currency notes, that requires more of them to purchase the same thing. And the more of them that they print out of thin air, the less they are worth. IE: trillions of bailout money going into circulation makes what's out there worth less, soon to be worthless! Currently the U.S. dollar note is worth less than .02 cents, and people let the bankers just continue stealing and indebting future generations into slavery.</p>

<p>I have said this before, if you need film, you better get it now. With the rapid decline of the dollar, it will likely be two to three times the cost in in the USA in a very a short time. And if you really need a digital Nikon, you better get that too. It won't be long till most Americans will be wondering how to buy a loaf of bread. You will want some film to document what is happening here.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Up to the entry of the USA into the war in 1941, I'd guess that most ordinary American families had either a box camera like the various Brownies or a folding, roughly 6x9cm camera like the Jiffy. 120 and 620 (the same except for the spool) were probably the "default" film purchase at the time and would have been what was found in the drugstore.</p>

<p>However, Kodak got into the picture with both 35mm (1934) cameras and the 828 format (Bantam, 1935). The latter was essentially 35mm film with a roll film backing and no sprockets (8 pictures a little larger than 24x36mm). About this time, the Argus A and its descendants were becoming popular.</p>

<p>It was Kodachrome, in my opinion, that made the 35mm format popular in America. On the one hand there was the real pioneering cameras like the Argus A to C3, and on the other, the elite and expensive European cameras like the Leica and the Contax. A very few German SLRs, mostly Exaktas, made it over before we got into the war, but I have no idea how the New York stores came by the few Praktiflexes they were advertising in 1940 and early 1941.</p>

<p>It was post-war that 35mm (again color slides, I think for the most part) really took off. The Allied Control Commission had made all the German camera patents, etc. open for the world to use as part of war reparations. Both during the war, and after it, American and British firms made copies of the Leica, especially, for the military, and then for the general public. In a twist of fate, the action of the Commission also made the German designs legally available to the Japanese, who had also copied the Leica and Contax before and during the war (Canon and Nikon, respectively, after the war). A fair amount of Kodachrome shooting was done on Leicas, etc. by combat photographers, but the bulk of day-to-day work was done with 4x5 press cameras in militarized form like the Combat Graphic (a Graphic in a wooden box with no bellows). I used one of these in the River Basin Survey days in the northern Plains in the late 50s.</p>

<p>Some really topline cameras were made after the war by Kodak and Bell & Howell (the Foton, not to be confused with the Fotron, a later scam), but they cost well over $400 and simply found little market once people were able to get the German originals again.</p>

<p>Some pro photographers like Ansel Adams had begun to use 35mm (mostly for portraiture, I think), but most pro photographers were press photographers where the classic 4x5 Graphics reigned up to the Korean War.</p>

<p>Some American press photographers carrying Contaxes, discovered Nikon lenses on their way to the Korean War, and the rest, as they say is history. Scientists had adopted the Exakta for their work, but it was the Nikon F that killed the old press camera off.</p>

 

[User_4525289]

<p>Thanx guys for responses still the question remains who was an average target buyer for 300 buck Contax III in 1938. Was that a professional photographer rather then a gift to a reach executive?</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>300 bucks in 1938 was a huge amount of money; a years salary dropped below 500 for some that year; IF one actually had a job. An average salary was about 1500. Gas was about a dime; thus the camera was equal to 3000 gallons of gasoline; ie 1/3 a modern/todays tanker truck. A 300 buck camera thus compared to gasoline was more like a 7500 buck purchase; with gasoline at 2.50 today. The lowly Argus A was 12.5 bucks; more like only 125 gallons of gas; or maybe 1/2 months rent if a renter.</p>

[charles_stobbs3]

Another factor was the price of an enlarger. Box/folding cameras users could develop roll film at home and make contact black & white prints. 35 mm requires the use of an enlarger, another great expense, to make decent size prints.

[cliffmanley]

<p>Kozma,</p>

<p>As JDM and Kelly implied above, the 35mm was not used by professionals much before the 60's, and even then the small 35mm negatives were really only good for snapshots and small newspaper and magazine photos, with millions of feet of tri-x and plus-x being shot on the street and at ball games for the papers, thus making them professional cameras by definition. Most professional photography was done with large format cameras. So in general, the market was directed at the amateurs.</p>

[User_4525289]

<p>So reach amateurs they were than? It is quite funny. Did they have dark room service for 35 mm back in 1930-es, or reach amateurs processed film by their own in their spare time between money making? But I bet someone who could afford a contaxIII at the time could hire a dark room tech...</p>

[steve_levine]

<p>I worked in the C41 color processing department of a huge "amateur" lab from 1978-1981. At this time we processed approximately the following ratios: 110 cartridge 60%, 126 cartridge 20%. And roll films 2%. The remaining 18% was 35mm.</p>

<p>Interestingly almost 100% of the problem film that had to be dip & dunked, not continuous processed, was 35mm. Most of this film was victim to sprocket hole shredding ,which would occur during rewinding without pushing the rewind button first! So cartridge and roll films were almost never special handled. Only the film that leaves it's cartridge, and needs winding back, caused difficulties.</p>

<p>The playing field leveled by the mid 80's when auto loading, auto rewinding 35mm point & shoots hit the market. I'm sure the lab people at that time were pleased.</p>

<p>But from this time on all other popular formats 110,126,disc, etc all started to vanish. Mostly due to the proliferation of the cheap 35mm p&s cameras.</p>

<p>I recently asked the same question about Contax and the 1930's. The conclusion was that both then and now. A new German RF with fast glass costs about half of what a new car costs. An MP or an M7 is over $4K new, add $3K for "A" glass. So price is always relative.</p>

[john_shriver]

<p>It was really the auto-loading Japanese point and shoot cameras that made 35mm "mainstream". Well, those and disposable cameras.<br>

Until that, 35mm was really a serious photographer's format, and the high-volume formats were the two "Instamatic" formats, 126 and 110. That was the "everyman's" camera. The Instamatic was a phenomenal sales success.<br>

As for before World War II, yes, it was box and folding cameras with rollfilm, but the dominant sizes were 116 and 616. That's because it makes a much more reasonably sized contact print. Until the Rolleiflex and Hasselblad, 120 was an amateur format for folks who couldn't afford the larger 116/616 size film.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Steve made a great point here:<br>

<br /> " The playing field leveled by the mid 80's when auto loading, auto rewinding 35mm point & shoots hit the market. I'm sure the lab people at that time were pleased".<br>

<br /> As for home processing; my moms 1920's and 1930's childhood era used often Verichrome Ortho. Mom was of the age/era where every kid in the USA got a free camera when the turned something like 12. Amatuers shot with big rollfilm cameras and contact printed with 116/later 616; or even the bigger rollfilm size.<br>

<br /> The Nikor stainless steel reel goes back to the 1930's ; made by Nikor Products in west springfield mass. The bulk of photo.net folks seem to act like Hewes invented them .:) A mid 1960's photo catalog here has several dozen makers/marketers of steel reels; and no mention of Hewes. Kodak had this apron deal/affair in the 1950's and before; it had raised bumps to prevent the sleeve from touching the 35mm film; this went into a bakelite tank with lid.<br>

<br /> Most folks did NOT have an enlarger at home. Here the first "home" enlarger was from Sears Roebuck in the later 1950's; actually a Testrite diffusion enlarger that had holders for 6x6cm and 35mm too. A kit we had came with two lenses; both 3 elements. One a 75mm F4.5 Perflex; another a 50mm F3.5 Testrite. My older brotehr ordered from Sears; when we picked it up at Sears it was the better model and they gave it to us at the lower models price; to avoid the freight.The three red palstic darkroom trays with the Sears kit are about 4.5x5.5 inchs at the bottom; ie for a 4x5 print.<br>

<br /> Another thing why Joe Six pack didnt not usually get color prints was color print films were slow until the later 1970's. In the early 1960's Tri-x was asa 400; and Kodacolor print film as 80. High speed ektachrome was asa 160; and was 400 with the Kodak push/ESP-1 envelope.; when one goes farther back; in the 1940's; Kodacolor was about asa 25 and only in MF; NOT 35mm. My dads first Kodacolor was with 616 rollfilm in 1944. In pro stuff Vericolor when to 125 then 160 in the 1970's. In Amateur stuff color print C41 went from 125 to 400 in the later 1970's. </p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>jdm had the most thorough report.<br>

I don't understand all the talk about leicas and contaxes as<br>

the better cameras were very rare.<br>

since Kodacolor was available just beforw ww II and<br>

became more popular in the mid 1950's but there were<br>

only 6.8 or 12 exposures as oppioses to 8,12. or 16<br>

on a 120 or 620 roll,<br>

most only had roll film folders or box cameras.<br>

and since color was costly and took 2 weeks? it was not<br>

used as often as reglular B&W<br>

If a person had a 35mm camera and shot slides he was<br>

considered an expert or close to being a pro.<br>

many in the military like an aunt who was an army nurse<br>

had a kodak 35 and a argus c-3. and shot kodachrome.<br>

but she was a rarity.<br>

we squinted at 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 contact prints,<br>

even 115 and 616 was beconming rare,<br>

It wasn't until 1960 that I had a 35mm camera and later a<br>

federal 135 enlarger ( $28.00)<br>

I later got a fujitsu clASSIC iv a very basic $14.00 camera<br>

it was the peerrless/willoby's special.<br>

in may 1961 I goit my first slr. shot mostly slides.<br>

a 20 exp roll of kodachome was $1.39.<br>

I rarely shot ektachrome as it was too blue.<br>

But my early EF worked better with asa 32 not asa 10 film.<br>

so sometimes I did use ektachrome.<br>

but i developed B&W and used a lot of film.<br>

color processing was still pricey.<br>

yes I have a usmc combat graphic.<br>

but someone before me liked 3n1 oil a LOT.</p>

 

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>If I look at all the familes photoalbums and slides going back 110 years; the first color prints were my dads WW2 616 Kodacolors of 1944. The 1946 Kodak Databook says Kodacolor came out in 1942. Almost none of our 1940's and 1950's family photoalbums have any color prints; they are about all b&w. The 1950's ones have a few Kodachrome prints that Kodak made from Kodachrome slides. My experience is that color print film became starting to be sort of used with the 1964 Instamatic . But still our 1960's albums are still mosty B&W. It is my experience that color prints became mainstream once C41 came out in the 1970's. Somewhere in the 1970's and 1980's average Joe stopped shooting slides and C41 prints became the norm. Today most all 35mm stuff processed at labs is color C41; and a tiny fraction is real B&W. One can look at a real Kodak processed print shot in 1965 with an Instamatic; and the print today has great blacks and whites and great tones. Sending 35mm B&W today out is a totaly crap shoot; one often gets grey prints; ie crap.<br>

Great C41 processing and great asa 400 and 800 print films and easy to load 35mm P&S's made the 1980's or 1990's Average Joe Amateur get good results. Many folks shot more prints in this period compared to slides back in the 1960's and 1950's. Today's Fuji Superia iso 800 c41 with a 4th layer works radically with mixed lighting than an early 1970's Kodacolor; even with one screwed around with filters too.</p>

[User_502260]

<p>It's true that many Americans just jumped from simple 620 and 120 roll film cameras to 126 (Kodapak 126). Just loading a 35mm camera was too scary for many people. In 1968 my father bought a Konica Auto S1.6 on the recommendation of a cousin. He got exactly one roll through the camera before he forgot that you had to press the little button on the bottom before rewinding the film. That one roll of Agfa slide film was perfect. He then went to a simple 126 Kodak camera and got the usual not very sharp photos for years. My interest in picture taking started in 1971 with a Konica Autoreflex T2. A few years later I recommended that my father get a Konica C35. He had no problem with the RF focusing and even remembered to press the button on the bottom before rewinding the film. He used that camera for many years and took some very decent pictures with it. It wasn't really necessary for so many people to use 126 cameras for as long as they did but the laziness factor was high so that's what people stayed with. </p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>I'd say before the late 1960s, because by then a lot of GI's were able to buy 35mm kits in the PX. So, by 1965, the price on the equipment and supplies was already low enough to be within reach of a lower-ranking enlisted Soldier. It may have cost him a pretty penny, but it was evidently possible. This would be about ten years or so after 35mm SLRs began to do well; I'd look around 1960 to 1965.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>To come back to the question on processing. Lots of "amateur" photographers did their own processing and enlargement, sometimes in club darkrooms.These were the same people who subscribed to the photomagazines of the period which are filled with developer formulae, etc. rather than equipment reviews. "Salons" for judging photographs competitively were common, and a major preoccupation of "club" shooters. I don't doubt that the most popular meetings of the clubs were when they pooled their resources to hire a (often nude) model.</p>

<p>The vast majority of the people just took their film to a local camera store and got contact prints for the larger sizes and, later, enlargements of the smaller formats like color negative film. Drugstores got into the business a little later, and there were lots of mail-order outfits offering developing and printing for $1, say. That was how Spiratone got started, when Fred Spira started commercially developing film in his bathroom.</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>My only comment is to add that this is the most interesting thread that I have read in a long while, well done guys!</p>

[tgh]

<p>Somewhat of a side note on "professional" 35mm use, but the Farm Security Agency (FSA) known for many of the Great Depression era photos was an early user of 35mm. The head, Roy Stryker, wanted to standardize their photos on either 35mm or 3.25x4.25 inch film as much as possible. This photo division operated from 1935 to about 1942 and during the first year two photographers who used 35mm almost exclusively, Carl Mydans (Contax) and Ben Shahn (Leica) accounted for half or more of the total negatives made that year.<br>

A photo of Carl Mydans in 1935 holding his Contax is here:<br>

<a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/fsaall:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(cph+3c20968))+@field(COLLID+fsa">http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/fsaall:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(cph+3c20968))+@field(COLLID+fsa</a>))</p>

<p>Roy Stryker himself made a few photos for the collection in 1937, and all were made on 35mm.<br>

I'd suspect it's possible that 35mm negatives account for over half of the total FSA collection. But the most famous images almost all were from larger formats.</p>

[User_4525289]

<blockquote>

<p>Somewhat of a side note on "professional" 35mm use, but the Farm Security Agency (FSA) known for many of the Great Depression era photos was an early user of 35mm. The head, Roy Stryker, wanted to standardize their photos on either 35mm or 3.25x4.25 inch film as much as possible. This photo division operated from 1935 to about 1942 and during the first year two photographers who used 35mm almost exclusively, Carl Mydans (Contax) and Ben Shahn (Leica) accounted for half or more of the total negatives made that year</p>

</blockquote>

<p> It was quite a wise use of taxpayers dollars espessially during the time of the Great Depression to support German (read Nazi) industry. However very illuminating. Thanx Todd</p>

[Troll]

<p>35mm B&W replaced the old standby Kodak 620 and 616 box and folding cameras in popularity when photofinishers began furninshing optically printed "Jumbo Prints" in the late '40s and early 50s.<br>

Although 35mm was widly used for reportage in Europe before WW2, in America it was rare until Kodak introduced Kodachrome in 1936. After that until after WW2, almost all were used to make slides. The Popular Argus A and C series provided low cost euipment, Kodak's Retina and its competitors attracted the middle class, and only the rich had Leicas and Contaxes.<br>

Moat of the great Photojournalists of Life and Look magazines used everything from 35mm, to TLRs, to Speed Graphics depending on the subject requirements.</p>

[brucecahn]

<p>In the sixties some professionals were switching to 35mm. 120 was considered a normal camera at the time for serious photography. 35 was that newfangled miniature. The film was not as good as it is today, especially the faster films, so results were not great, but for smaller enlargements the results were good. I am not sure about normal households but I think they started getting 35mm cameras in the early to mid seventies. </p>

[nickc1]

<p>While I hesitate to join in, being UK based, I am fascinated by the American 35mm, and according to the published figures for Argus alone (300000 A series, and nearly 3 million C series) this suggests that the adoption of 35mm by family photographers was far earlier than is supposed. </p>