All the common film formats explained: how to recognize the one in your hand, how they compare in size, and what it costs to have each one developed at The Darkroom.
Every format below comes in up to three kinds of film, and each kind runs through a different chemistry. The box or cassette tells you which one you have, usually printed next to the ISO.
The everyday color film. Nearly everything sold today is C-41, including disposable cameras. The developed negatives look orange with the colors reversed; the scans and prints come out normal.
Traditional silver-based black and white film, developed in its own chemistry on our dip and dunk line. The negatives are grey and clear rather than orange.
Slide film gives you a positive image on the film itself, the kind that went into projectors and light boxes. Colors are vivid and unforgiving of exposure mistakes, which is exactly why people love it.
All three are developed in our own lab in San Clemente, California, in every format listed below that still has film made for it. Prices are the base package with standard scans and your negatives or slides mailed back.
A short introduction to each, top to bottom. Every entry opens the full page, with the history, how to tell it apart, and the developing details.
Born as movie film in Edison’s lab in 1889 and packaged in the familiar metal cassette by Kodak in 1934. The standard for most cameras since, and still the most-shot format in the world.
Introduced for the Kodak Brownie No. 2 and now the medium format standard. A paper-backed roll that gives a negative three to four times the size of 35mm, popular with Holga, Hasselblad and Mamiya shooters alike.
Kodak’s pocket-sized drop-in cartridge, launched with the Pocket Instamatic. Tiny 16mm film with a tiny negative, which is why 110 scans have their grainy charm. Lomography still makes it.
The Instamatic cartridge. Around ten million 126 cameras were sold, so most family photos from 1965 to the mid-seventies were shot on it. 35mm-wide film with a square picture and a drop-in load.
Kodak’s Advantix and the Advanced Photo System: a sealed 24mm cartridge that loads itself, records exposure data on a magnetic layer, and comes back from the lab with the developed film stored inside it. Already developed cartridges can be scanned and printed too.
The same film as 120 on a thinner metal spool, made for Kodak’s own cameras. Old 620 cameras shoot happily today with 120 film respooled onto a 620 spool, and we develop it as 120.
120’s long-roll cousin: the same width with no backing paper, so twice the frames fit on one spool. Needs a camera or back built for it. Mostly discontinued, but still turning up in freezers.
Kodak’s “Vest Pocket” roll film, 46mm wide, for a generation of folding cameras and later the Brownie and Yashica 44. Square 4 x 4cm negatives, with a few specialty makers still cutting it today.
Big 70mm roll film from the era when negative size was everything, giving 6.5 x 11cm pictures that could be contact printed. 616 is the same film on a slimmer spool for smaller folding cameras.
35mm-wide film without sprocket holes, paper-backed and wound on a tiny spool for Kodak’s Bantam cameras. The missing sprockets gave a slightly bigger picture than standard 35mm.
Not a format of its own: a disposable camera is a roll of 35mm film sealed inside a plastic body, from Fujifilm’s 1986 QuickSnap to today’s Kodak FunSaver and Ilford models. Mail the whole camera; we take the film out.
4×5, 5×7 and 8×10 inch sheets loaded one at a time into film holders. The oldest way to shoot and still the sharpest, with negatives you can read by eye. Processed sheet by sheet in our dip and dunk line.
We develop almost all types of C-41 (Color), E-6 (Slide), and Black & White film types. See below for our full list.
Film Types We Process
Film Types We Cannot Process
If you are unsure what film you have, take a picture and attach it to our contact form.
35mm is by far the most common, followed by 120 medium format. Among older film found in drawers and thrift-store cameras, 110, 126 and Advantix (APS) cartridges are the ones we see most. Large format sheet film (4×5 and 8×10) is a separate category we also process.
All three use the same 60mm-wide film. 120 comes on a plastic spool with a wide slot and a paper backing. 620 is the same film on a thinner metal spool with a smaller center hole, so a 120 spool won’t fit a 620 camera. 220 has no backing paper, only a paper leader and trailer, and holds twice as many frames. If the roll has a paper band and frame numbers printed on the back, it’s 120 or 620, not 220.
35mm film comes in a metal cassette with a film leader sticking out and gives a 24 x 36mm picture. 126 uses the same 35mm-wide film but inside a drop-in plastic cartridge, with a square 28 x 28mm picture. 110 is a smaller twin-chamber cartridge with 16mm film and a 13 x 17mm picture, about a quarter the area of a 35mm frame.
Yes. A bigger negative holds more detail, so 120 scans look cleaner than 35mm, and 35mm looks cleaner than 110 or Advantix (APS). Small-negative formats are scanned by hand at The Darkroom, which is why cartridge film takes a few extra days. Choosing Enhanced or Super scans gets the most out of any format.
Yes. We develop 116 and 616 film for $24 a roll and 828 film for $14 a roll, on the same dip-and-dunk line as 120, with scans to your online gallery and the negatives returned. The usual old-film rules apply: pre-1973 color marked C-22 or Kodacolor-X comes back as black & white, and Kodachrome, Triple Print and E-4 Ektachrome cannot be processed. If you’re shooting a 116, 616 or 828 camera today with respooled 120 or 35mm film, ask for your spools and backing paper back in the order notes. Not sure what you have? Send a photo of the roll and its label through our contact form.
35mm and 120 are in full production from Kodak, Ilford, Fujifilm, Lomography and others. 110 is made by Lomography. 127 comes from small specialty makers. 620 can be had by respooling 120. 126, Advantix (APS), 220, 116, 616 and 828 are no longer manufactured, though expired stock still turns up and can be shot and developed.
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