Photographic film

About the image medium

Name

Photographic film

Notes

Photographic film is a sheet or strip of transparent plastic film coated on one side with light-sensitive chemicals. Roll film is usually segmented into frames which produce separate photographs. The film creates a negative image, reversing the light and dark areas, and reversing the colours in colour negatives. Positive photographic prints can be made from negatives by projecting and enlarging the negative onto light-sensitive paper and then developing the image with chemicals to reverse the light and dark tones.

In 1888, George Eastman introduced the Kodak camera and with it the means for anyone to be able to take pictures with a handheld camera simply by pressing a button. The camera was sold for $25 and was pre-loaded with enough roll film for 100 exposures. After exposure, the whole camera was returned for prints to be made and another film inserted. His slogan is well known to this day - "you press the button, we do the rest".
A year later, the first commercial transparent roll film, perfected by George Eastman and his research chemist, was put on the market.