What are half-frame cameras? (articles)
by Scott Bird
share it: digg | stumbleupon
Half-frame cameras are those which made the most of 35mm film, by squeezing two images into each frame (as a typical SLR would see it). These images measure 18mm x 24mm, or close to it (17 × 24 and 18 × 23 are also fairly common).
In addition to the savings in film, half-frame cameras usually afforded the following benefits :
- they were smaller and lighter than their full-frame counterparts (eventually driving 35mm cameras to become smaller and lighter themselves)
- half-frame cameras are still being produced, alongside their full-frame cousins - so many have autoexposure, motor drives, built-in flash etc
- standard 35mm film is used, which is still fairly easy to come by
‘HIT’-style cameras
The Half-Frame cameras I generally focus on may be thought of a subset of the above, the various ‘HIT’-style cameras. These cameras made used of the French ‘Pathe Rural’ 17.5mm film, which was just a half-sized version of 35mm film. Once again, cost savings were the reasoning behind this.
The original HIT cameras were produced in post-war Japan, and were widely copied. Because of this, any camera with similar features is known as a ‘HIT’. Typically this means it has :
- a single shutter speed
- a fixed-focus lens
- a fixed aperture
- a body style similar to the original HIT
and used paper-backed 17.5mm film (producing 14mm x 14mm images).
Beautiful things.
Comments
Receive new articles via RSS