Shooting 16mm Film

Here are a couple of articles on how to make film for a 16mm still camera and how to make a reel to develop it.  There are a variety of 16mm film cameras, ranging from the well known Minox to the Mamiya 16 and Minolta 16 to the Yashica 16, the Kiev cameras and more.  A list of the many subminiature cameras can be found at subclub.org - a repository of everything subminiature.

The first up, Kosmo Foto offers a simple, but effective method to make a cutter to slice a roll of 35mm film into a 16mm roll.  Using just a couple of blades and a matchbox, an effective tool can be made to cut perhaps 3 rolls of subminiature film from a single roll of 35mm. 

Your Blogger recommends a low speed, T-grain film, such as Kodak T-Max 100 or Ilford Delta 100 for finest grain.  Most any modern film will work fine, but given the small frame of 16mm film, a low grain film would be recommended.

The second step is how to process the film.  Paying to develop 16mm film may be difficult and expensive. the film is an unusual size and quite short.  Labs that handle 16mm movie film probably do not want to handle it and still film labs might not be able to process it either.  Developing B&W is fairly straightforward if you have the tank and reel for it.  Buying that might be expensive as well.

The folks at 35one20.com have a solution for 110 film, which happens to be the same size as 16mm.  Simply cut down a plastic, 35mm reel to fit.  The collar on one side of the reel leaves just enough space for a roll of 16mm to fit.

So, that wraps it up, a way to make 16mm film, a list of 16mm film cameras, and a way to make a 16mm film processing reel.  It is that easy to step into the world of subminiature photography!