35mm Negative Facts & History

35 mm negatives are generally 24 mm wide, between the perforations in the 35 mm wide film. The common "full-frame" negative size is 24 x 36 mm.

Negative Film for 35 mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic or cellulose acetate. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that the next image is projected onto unexposed film. When the film is developed it is a long strip of small negative images. This strip is often cut into sections for easier handling. In larger cameras this piece of film may be as large as a full sheet of paper, or even larger, with a single image captured onto one piece. Each of these negative images may be referred to as a negative and the entire strip or set of images may be collectively referred to as negatives. These negative images are the master images, from which all other copies will be made, and thus they are treated with care.

A negative image is a total inversion of a positive image, in which light areas appear dark and vice versa. A negative color image is additionally color reversed, with red areas appearing cyan, greens appearing magenta and blues appearing yellow. This sometimes can have a reverse effect and cause the greens to appear a reddish brown.