126 film

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See the Category: 126 film. See also 126 film (roll)

The Kodapak 126 film cartridge is a roll film magazine for 35 mm wide film with a paper backing.

It was launched by Kodak in answer to consumer complaints about the complications involved with loading and unloading roll film cameras. With the cartridge film, you don't have to attach the film leader to a take-up spool. The cartridge simply drops into the camera. Since the cartridge is asymmetric, it cannot be loaded incorrectly. You close the back, wind, and shoot.

The inventor, Hubert Nerwin, was granted US patent 3,138,081 on June 23, 1964. The patent was assigned to Eastman Kodak.

At the end of the roll, you don't have to rewind. Even if you remove the cartridge in mid-roll, only the current exposure is light-struck. The rest of the film is protected inside the cartridge.

It also incorporated one of the first widely-used mechanical film-speed sensing mechanisms. Markings on the cartridge set the camera's exposure mechanism. However, not all cameras took advantage of this feature. Kodak patents decades earlier (for example: 2186611, 2186613) described this innovation.

126 film is 35mm wide and has a single perforation per frame. The image size is nominally 26×26mm, though actually it is 29×28mm masked to approximately 26½×26½mm. The film has pre-exposed borders and exposure numbers. Cameras accepting this film are also called Instamatic cameras (or simply Instamatics), from the name of the first Kodak models taking it, the Instamatic series.

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