35MM

35 mm film is the basic film gauge most commonly used for both still photography and motion pictures, and remains relatively unchanged since its introduction in 1892 by William Dickson and Thomas Edison, using film stock supplied by George Eastman. more...

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The photographic film is cut into strips 35 mm (about 1 3/8 inches) wide — hence the name. The standard negative pulldown for movies ("single-frame" format) is four perforations per frame along both edges, which makes for exactly 16 frames per foot (for stills, the standard frame is eight perforations).

A wide variety of largely proprietary gauges were used by the numerous different camera and projection systems independently invented around the late 19th century and early 20th century, ranging from 13 mm to 75 mm (0.51–2.95 in). 35 mm was eventually recognized as the international standard gauge in 1909, and has by far remained the dominant film gauge for both image origination and projection. Despite threats both from smaller and larger gauges, and novel formats, its longevity is largely because its size allows for a relatively good tradeoff between the cost of the film stock and the quality of the images captured. Additionally, the ubiquity of 35 mm movie projectors in commercial movie theaters makes it the only motion picture format, film or video, which can be played in almost any cinema in the world.

The gauge is also remarkably versatile in application. Within the past hundred years, it has been modified to include sound, redesigned to create a safer film base, formulated to capture color, accommodated a bevy of widescreen formats, and incorporated digital sound data into nearly all of its non-frame areas. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the manufacturing of 35 mm motion picture film has been a duopoly between Eastman Kodak and Fujifilm.

Early history

In 1880 George Eastman started to manufacture gelatin dry photographic plates in Rochester, New York. Along with W. H. Walker, Eastman invented a holder for a roll of picture-carrying gelatin layer coated paper. Hannibal Goodwin's invention of nitrocellulose film base in 1887 was the first transparent, flexible film; the following year, Emile Reynaud developed the first perforated film stock. Eastman was the first major company, however, to put these components into mass production, when in 1889 Eastman realized that the dry-gelatino-bromide emulsion could be coated onto this clear base and eliminate the paper.

Read more at Wikipedia.org