110 cartridge film
1972 (Pocket Instamatic)
A tiny drop-in cartridge with a 13×17 mm frame that made pocket cameras possible. Popular in the 1970s and 80s, but its small negatives looked grainy when enlarged.
How it began
Kodak’s Instamatic cartridge of 1963 made loading easy, but the cameras were still bulky. In 1972 Kodak shrank the idea: 110 film and the Pocket Instamatic, flat enough to carry in a pocket.
How it works
Like 126, the film runs between two chambers of a plastic cartridge that drops into the camera. The frame is only 13×17 mm, about a quarter of 35mm, and a tab on the cartridge tells the camera the film speed.
Why it mattered
It made the camera something people carried every day, decades before phones. Tens of millions of 110 cameras were sold, and even an SLR was made for it.
Limits and what replaced it
Small negatives meant visible grain in prints larger than snapshot size, and the film could not lie perfectly flat. Compact 35mm cameras with autofocus replaced 110 in the 1980s.
Today
Lomography revived 110 film in 2012; a few cameras are still made.