What have I got? Identifying old film, slides and video tapes
How to tell 35mm from APS, 8mm from Super 8, and VHS-C from Hi8, with simple checks anyone can do.
Clearing out a cupboard often turns up film and tapes that nobody can identify. Knowing what you have helps you get an accurate price and keeps everything handled correctly. Here is how to tell the common formats apart.
Negatives
| Format | How to recognise it | Common in |
|---|---|---|
| 35mm | Strips about 3.5cm wide with small holes along both edges. Each picture is a rectangle about 3.6 × 2.4cm. | 1960s to 2000s |
| APS | Often returned rolled up inside its small plastic canister, with a printed index sheet of thumbnails. Holes along one edge only. | 1996 to about 2010 |
| 110 | Very small pictures, about 1.3 × 1.7cm, with one hole per frame. Came from pocket cameras. | 1970s and 80s |
| 126 | Square pictures about 2.8cm across, one hole per frame. | 1960s and 70s |
| 120 (medium format) | Wider strips, about 6cm, with no holes at all. Pictures are often square. | 1940s onwards |
Colour negatives have an orange tint. Black-and-white negatives are grey on a clear base.
Slides
Most family slides are 35mm film in square mounts about 5cm across, made of card or plastic. The mount often has a date, a number or the name of the film, such as Kodachrome or Ektachrome, printed on it. Smaller "super slides" and larger medium-format slides also exist, but are much less common.
Cine film
Home movies from the 1930s to the 1980s are usually on small reels in square or round tins or plastic boxes. The two you are most likely to find are:
- Standard 8mm (Regular 8): larger holes along the edge, close to the frame line. Popular until the mid-1960s.
- Super 8: smaller, rectangular holes, centred on each frame, which left room for a bigger picture. Introduced in 1965 and loaded from a cartridge. Some Super 8 has a thin brown stripe along one edge, which means it has sound.
Hold a short length up to the light: if the holes look large and sit at the edge of each picture, it's Standard 8. If they are small and neat, it's Super 8. Film that is noticeably wider, about 1.6cm, is 16mm.
The length is usually written on the reel or box. A small 3-inch reel holds about 50 feet, which is roughly three to four minutes.
Video tapes
| Format | How to recognise it |
|---|---|
| VHS | The full-size tape, about 19cm wide. |
| VHS-C | A compact tape, about 9cm wide, from camcorders. Played in a VHS machine using an adapter. |
| Video8 and Hi8 | About the size of an audio cassette, marked "8" or "Hi8". |
| MiniDV | Smaller still, about the size of a matchbox. Digital, from the late 1990s and 2000s. |
Audio
Standard audio cassettes are easy to spot. Smaller microcassettes came from dictation machines and answering machines. Reel-to-reel tape comes on open spools and is more specialist.
Still not sure?
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