120 NOT 120mm film
We in the film photography business are all in this uphill battle together, marching and battling for every square inch of real estate on that photographic knoll to promote and preserve the labor of love that is shooting film. While the surge in interest in film is an encouraging trend, erroneous hashtags and misinformation are not.
Rummage through social media today and you’ll find film photographs and gear shots tagged as 120mm or 120mm film. Even legit photographic businesses are not innocent in exacerbating this falsity. There is no such thing as 120mm film.
I have no idea how this trend even started but like a good old wives’ tale, fallacies become truth when enough people hop on the bandwagon. Makes me want to yank my hair out. But if i pull out a grey hair two more will appear in its place.
Fact Check
I can perhaps comprehend the confusion as 135 film is indeed 35mm wide. But in that case, shouldn’t 120 rolls be only 20mm wide? Is it just because us Yanks don’t get the metric system? Or has critical thinking just gone by the wayside and we accept everything we read from others?
The fact of the matter is 120 film is roughly 61 mm (2.4 in.) wide and the length is nominally between 820 mm (32 in.) and 850 mm (33 in.) according to the ISO 732:2000 standard.
While I’d love to believe there’s some Alex Jones-esque illuminati back story contributing the number 120 to the Knights Templar, unfortunately it was merely a numbering system Kodak implemented to keep track of all the film formats they manufactured. There were many types of film since they were specific to different cameras back then so they needed to simplify their film ordering system.
So Kodak decided that the daylight-loading roll films on flanged spools would be numbered in the order of introduction, starting with the first Kodak film of this type introduced with the No. 2 Bullet camera in 1895 as number 101. Of all the medium format roll types that Kodak produced, only number 120 survived the test of time and is the only medium format film still being produced today.
Conclusion
Forgive me for believing that pushing personal agendas should never take precedence over facts. It just seems more in this day and age than ever that rhetoric and hype trumps accuracy and reality. The dangers of misinformation should be apparent to us by now.
Shoot film because you love it, not to be “cool” or “trendy”. I’ve seen all sorts of photos tagged with “120mm film” while also tagging a 35mm film camera, film tags on digital cameras, artificial borders, etc.
Didn’t know Portra came in BW*
*Note- It was pointed out that there was indeed a Kodak Portra 400BW, though it should have “400BW” printed on the film edge. Case in point.
It seems I am not the only one thinking about this:
https://emulsive.org/articles/rants-theres-no-such-thing-as-120mm-film
www.35mmc.com/18/09/2019/120not120mm
https://twitter.com/120NOT120MM
C’mon folks, we can do better. Is too much to ask to check yourself before you wreck yourself? Am I just a pedantic whiner? As always, relevant thoughts and comments are welcome.
#120NOT120MM
Stop the rot
MN
120 chrome film is the best in Voigtlander Bessa ll folding rangefinder 6x9cm with a heliar lens.
Ugh. Celebrate the real film community instead of bashing the copy cats and wanna-bes. If anything the famous and social media stars are helping the film community
I give this story 120 stars
Love it. Great article.
while that image could be edited, black and white Portra does in fact exist
Unless you knew the facts, you could even think 127 was even larger-format than 120. Then there was 620, etc.!
HI, well said Hamish on 35mmc wrote a similar article.
Unfortunately these days every one is a Photographer! while that is good for the industry the down fall Is there is a lac of quality work out there.
Instagram in my view has lost it’s appeal and now you have this “120mm” fiasco.
I wander how many from this era where a million or more of photographs or should I say just imagers without meaning and where it’s all about me, me, me will be reveared as the HCB, Robert Cappa, R Avendon, H Newton, R Frank of this generation. I say non.
I think it’s time the industry has a good look at it self, much of the industry is based on what camera to buy and to shoot with not much about the type of photography that’s out there.
I have not come across many site ( Excluding Bellahmy that does an Artist series and book reviews ) that talks about new artists and there work in depth and really looking at compositions and ideas and projects.
I also think that most like the idead of photography and taking pictures but don’t really understand what’s it is about to be a Photographer.
I think we might blame President Ronald Reagan for some of the confusion reigning today in America. President Carter had started a metrification program in the U.S., which President Reagan quickly put a stop to after his inauguration., right after he removed Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the roof of the White House.
Seriously, though, the more informed content that shows up on the Web, the more likely it is that people who might care enough to be curious about it will learn and be able to talk about it knowledgeably. I started photography with film, but was not interested in these details until I recently started playing around with 3D printing and modifying old medium format cameras — exact image dimensions, lens image circles for medium format lenses, back flange to ground glass distance, lens flange to film distance, etc. become important. Despite all the content on the Web, reliable information like this is sparse and what is on the Web now could disappear. So thank you for putting this up.
There’s no considered reason for it: most folks do not know that 35mm film is also referred to as 135 film. They just add “mm” to numbers dealing with cameras, pretty much all the time. I’ve seen folks adding mm to shutter speeds.
Misinformation is common where I live which is the Philippines. It is sad to see Americans have become so lazy.
Imagine how big 220 is! How did they even get in the same camera without folding it in half?
Other things that annoy me is when sheet film cameras are referred to as plate cameras. 35mm format is referred to as full frame (full frame is a shooting and printing technique where you did not crop and printed out to the film edge regardless of the film size). 35mm was called a miniature format. Depth of field and bokeh are not the same thing–the first refers to how much of the scene appears sharp on each side of the object plane, the other is the quality of the out-of-focus image regardless of the depth of field. And depth of field, the area in front of the camera, is not the same as depth of focus, the area on each side of the image plane. And metamerism (pronounced me-tam-er-ism) needs two different materials under two different viewing conditions, not simply one condition that modifies color perception. Please do not get me started on equivalence!
Naturally, photographic technology evolves and new terms are created and old terms can evolve. Technical camera is one such term where it meant a metal flat-bed view camera and now encompasses a range of metal cameras with and without movements: Alpa, Arca Swiss, and Cambo are the most resent. However, not knowing the history and significance of terms degrades our craft and makes nonsense of meaning.
/rant. That feels better…
No… ¡you are not alone!
https://valentinsama.blogspot.com/2019/12/los-carretes-de-120-mm-no-existenidiota.html
Best regards
Fake News!
There is however film that is 120mm, but that is 9×12 sheet film that is 90x120mm per sheet. (slightly smaller than 4×5 film)
So you could say that you are shooting 120mm film and be almost correct :)