Kodak Ektar H35 vs. H35N: The Complete Guide to RETO’s Half-Frame Lineup

The Kodak Ektar H35 and H35N are half-frame cameras. They expose 18x24 mm instead of 24x36 mm, giving you 72 pictures from a 36-exposure roll of film. They are not built by Kodak, but by RETO Production Ltd. in Hong Kong as a brand licensee. The H35N has the better optics, while the older H35 has the slightly brighter aperture. And when developing the film, half-frame becomes a special case with an extra charge at almost every lab. This guide explains what you should know before buying and what can go wrong afterward.

Table of contents

1. Who actually builds the Kodak Ektar?
2. What half-frame means in everyday use
3. Is the H35N worth the extra cost?
4. Which film you should load
5. Six mistakes that can cost you half a roll of film
6. Where to have a half-frame roll developed
7. How to digitize small negatives properly
8. What accessories are available for the Ektar
9. When another camera is the better choice
10. Conclusion

Who actually builds the Kodak Ektar?

The camera says Kodak on it. Someone else built it. On the official product page from Kodak itself, the sentence appears in the fine print: “RETO Production Ltd. manufactures and sells this product. The Kodak trademark, logo and trade dress are used under license by RETO Production Ltd.”

This is not nitpicking. If you need a replacement part, want to make a complaint, or need compatibility information, RETO in Hong Kong is your point of contact, not Eastman Kodak. It also explains why the cameras sold under the Kodak name vary so much: they are products of an independent manufacturer that has licensed the brand.

Five quite different devices now use this label. The prices are from the official RETO shop, as of August 2026.

Model	What it is	Format	Lens	Manufacturer's price
Ektar H35	Reusable half-frame camera	18x24 mm	22 mm f/9.5, acrylic	49.99 USD
Ektar H35N	Revised half-frame camera	18x24 mm	22 mm f/11, glass and acrylic	64.99 USD
EC35	Simple 35mm camera	24x36 mm	Plastic lens	34.99 USD
Snapic A1	Motorized compact camera	24x36 mm	25 mm f/9.5, glass triplet	99.00 USD
Charmera	Digital keychain camera	digital, 1.6 MP	fixed	34.99 USD

The Snapic A1 is often confused with the H35 because both come from the same manufacturer and have a similar retro look. But it is a full-frame camera with motorized film transport and a genuine glass triplet lens—so it is a different device for a different purpose. What it can do and where its limits lie are covered in our Kodak Snapic A1 review. In short: more camera, more money, no 72 pictures.

The Ektar H35 in “Sage.” At launch, it was available in five colors: black, brown, sage, sand, and off-white. Photo: Ausgeknipst

What half-frame means in everyday use

A normal 35mm camera exposes 24x36 mm horizontally. A half-frame camera exposes 18x24 mm vertically—exactly half the area, rotated 90 degrees. A 36-exposure roll produces 72 images, and a 24-exposure roll produces 48.

Half-frame on the left and right, classic 35mm in the center. Photo: Ashley Pomeroy, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

You hold the camera differently. To take a landscape-oriented photo, you have to hold the Ektar vertically. For portraits and anything that will end up on your phone anyway, this is more of an advantage, since portrait orientation is the standard there. With landscapes, it’s simply a matter of getting used to it.

Grain becomes more visible. An 18x24 mm negative has to be enlarged twice as much as a 35mm negative to produce the same image size. You won’t notice this at postcard size. With an A3 print, you will.

Your images come in pairs. Two half-frames sit side by side on the negative strip where a single 35mm frame would normally be. Many labs therefore scan them as a pair. If you use this deliberately, you can photograph diptychs—two images that tell a story together.

Half-frame saves less money than the doubled number of shots might suggest. The film cost per image really is cut in half, but lab costs are not: They are charged per roll, plus a half-frame surcharge. Based on a Kodak Gold 200/36 (from €7.99 according to Geizhals) and development plus scanning for €15.95, you end up at around €0.67 per image in full-frame format. In half-frame format, including the €5 surcharge, it comes to around €0.40. That’s about 40 percent less, not half.

Is the H35N worth the extra cost?

The H35N was released in 2023 as a revised version. In Germany, it costs around €60 to €69, while the older H35 costs around €54 to €57 (price comparison at Geizhals, as of August 2026). Here, the manufacturers’ specifications for both cameras are shown side by side, taken directly from the official product pages.

	Ektar H35	Ektar H35N
Lens	22 mm, f/9.5	22 mm, f/11 (f/8 with flash), coated
Lens construction	2 elements, both acrylic	2 elements, including 1x glass and 1x aspherical acrylic
Shutter	1/100 s	1/100 s, plus Bulb
Star filter	no	built-in, can be activated via lever
Tripod thread and cable release	no	yes
Flash	built-in	built-in
Power	1x AAA alkaline battery	1x AAA alkaline battery
Material	ABS	ABS and aluminum
Dimensions and weight	110 x 62 x 39 mm, 100 g	110 x 62 x 39 mm, 110 g

Sources: the official product pages for the Ektar H35 and Ektar H35N at RETO.

The most interesting point in this table is mentioned in almost no review: The newer camera is the darker one. f/11 instead of f/9.5 means around 0.4 stops less light. The glass element gives you sharpness, not brightness. Only when you turn on the flash does the H35N switch to f/8, making it half a stop brighter than the H35. So if you mainly use the new camera outdoors without flash, you are working with slightly less reserve than with the old one.

Whether the extra sharpness is worth the higher price depends on your expectations. My Favourite Lens describes the H35N’s results as surprisingly close to what a 35mm camera produces. Casual Photophile is much harsher in its assessment of the old H35: strong vignetting, soft image edges, low contrast, and image quality on the level of a disposable camera. Both can be true. They are two different expectations for the same genre.

Video: “Kodak Ektar H35 vs Kodak Ektar H35N - Comparison” by 8storeytree. Both cameras side by side, with sample images from the same situation.

Our recommendation if money is not a major concern: get the H35N. The star filter, bulb function, and tripod mount are worth more together than the €10 to €15 price difference, and when folded in, the star filter also serves as lens protection. If you want to save money or find a used H35 at a good price, you are not missing much: The older camera takes the same kind of pictures, just a little softer. With a camera whose appeal lies in its imperfections, that is not a dealbreaker.

Accessories cannot be swapped between the two models. The bodies are the same size, but the lens fronts are not. RETO explicitly writes on its own color filters from the H35N Premium Kit: “Filters do not fit on the H35 model.” The reverse also applies to accessories designed for the H35. According to the manufacturer, only the RETO underwater case fits both models. Before buying any accessory, check which of the two models it was made for.

Which film you should load

The Ektar has no light meter, aperture selection, or ISO setting. The aperture and shutter speed are fixed. The only control left to you is your choice of film—and the flash switch.

Photo: Friedrich Haag, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

What happens at f/11 and 1/100 s in different lighting conditions:

Situation	ISO 200	ISO 400	ISO 800
Bright sunshine	works	plenty of reserve	far too bright, but harmless
Lightly overcast, bright shade	barely	works	reserve
Overcast sky	too little	barely	works
Deep shade, indoors, evening	Use the flash, or nothing will come of it

Color negative film tolerates overexposure much better than underexposure. That is why the higher sensitivity is the safer choice when in doubt. An overly bright negative can be recovered during scanning; a dark one cannot. ISO 400 covers most situations, ISO 200 is enough for a summer vacation, and ISO 800 is insurance for autumn and indoors.

The YouTube channel Anjroo has summarized the most common questions after taking more than 400 photos with both Ektar models. He recommends sensitivities “between 200 and 400” and explicitly advises using inexpensive film instead of expensive film—that is, Kodak Gold, Color Plus, or Fujifilm 400 instead of Portra. His warning about exposure is brief and accurate: “all of your pictures are probably going to come out darker than you think.” This leads to his second piece of advice: use the flash much more often than feels natural. And if a subject is important to you, simply press the shutter twice. In half-frame format, that only costs you half as much.

If you rarely take photos, choose the 24-exposure film. 72 photos sound great until the film has been sitting in the camera for half a year and photos from last summer only come back in winter. A 24-exposure film gives you 48 half-frame shots, still twice as many as usual. That way, you get through it in a manageable amount of time and see your results while you still remember taking the photos.

Which film is suitable for which purpose and what ISO means in detail is explained in our introductory article Buying analog film: which film, which ISO, which format. Our map of analog photography stores shows where you can buy film in person in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Six mistakes that can cost you half a roll of film

The Ektar has few controls, but each one can cost you photos. These six points keep coming up in tests and community reports.

Getting closer than one meter. The camera has fixed focus. Anything closer than one meter will be blurry, and the great depth of field will not save you there. Selfies with your arm fully extended are borderline; selfies with your arm bent are hopeless.

Trusting the viewfinder. The viewfinder is a hole in the body, not a rangefinder, and it shows a different frame from the lens. Gregory Gross describes it this way: “The viewfinder's field of view is a bit smaller than what actually gets captured on film.” The closer the subject, the greater the offset. If you deliberately want to position a foreground element, expect it to end up somewhere else.

Using the flash too rarely. This is the most common reason for black photos. The flash range is about one to three meters; it is not enough for group photos from five meters away. It also needs a moment to recharge. It is ready only when the indicator light is bright.

Shaking at 1/100 s. A fixed shutter speed of 1/100 s is not fast. Bring the camera to your face, keep your elbows against your body, exhale, then press the shutter. It sounds trivial, but it is still the cause of most soft images.

Throwing the camera unprotected into your bag. Experiences differ here, and that should be said. The tester from ExpertPhotography reports that the shutter button requires firm pressure and never went off by itself: “it never went off while in my camera bag.” Our customers regularly report the opposite, especially when the camera is loose among keys and headphones. Regardless, the lens remains unprotected, and acrylic scratches more easily than glass.

Anyone with an H35N can swing its star filter into place as an improvised lens protector. That is exactly what the Anjroo channel does in its video. The H35 does not offer this option. Photo: Ausgeknipst

Forgetting the star filter. This only applies to the H35N. The filter has no prominent indicator, and if it is accidentally left swung into place, a piece of plastic sits in front of the glass element. That means losing exactly the advantage you paid for. Shoot It With Film explicitly names this as a design weakness.

Video in German: “analogue photography | The perfect camera for beginners? | Kodak Ektar H35” by shhluu. Shows handling and results from a beginner’s perspective.

Where to have a half-frame roll developed

This is the part almost nobody considers before buying, and the part that goes wrong most often. Developing machines and scanners are set up for 24x36 mm. A half-frame roll has twice as many, half-size images in unfamiliar positions, and the software has to be able to handle that.

Drugstore processing is a matter of luck. The APHOG forum offers a sober assessment: “it all comes down to asking questions and/or gambling.” The films from dm and Rossmann are forwarded to large central labs, and whether someone there reads the handwritten note “half-frame” determines the result. There are reports where everything went well, and reports where the half-frames were printed individually and crookedly.

Specialist labs can process half-frame, but charge a surcharge. They have to handle the films differently, and most list this openly in their price lists. A few specific figures, as of August 2026:

Lab	Basic, 35mm with development and scanning	Half-frame
blFOTO (DE)	€15.95 in size L	“For half-frame, panoramic, and special formats, we charge a €5 surcharge per roll.”
Fotospeed (AT)	15,00 €	“Surcharge for 35mm half-frame (negative format 18x24 mm): €8.00/roll”
Spieker Film Lab (DE)	from €12.50	“Please book half-frame with XL; they can scan at nearly 16 MP there.”
MeinFilmLab (DE)	see price list	Half-frame not listed, ask beforehand

One sentence on the film bag saves you the hassle. Write “Half-frame 18x24 mm, please scan individually, not in pairs” on the bag or in the order form, and ask briefly the first time before sending off three rolls at once. A test roll at a new lab is cheaper than 72 images coming back as 36 double frames.

Excerpt from our lab map. Screenshot: Ausgeknipst, map data by OpenStreetMap contributors

We maintain an overview of all active film labs in German-speaking countries, with shipping and in-person filters: Have Film Developed in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. You can find out what else to look for when choosing one in Finding the Right Photo Lab.

How to digitize small negatives properly

This is where the second pitfall lies. When a lab offers a “scan in size L,” it usually means a fixed pixel count for a 35mm negative. Your half-frame image is half the size and therefore receives correspondingly fewer pixels at the same scanning level. That’s why Spieker Film Lab recommends ordering half-frame in XL. Only then do you get nearly 16 megapixels in the small image.

Method	Resolution for half-frame	Effort	Cost
Lab standard scan	low, often under 4 MP	none	included in the price
Lab large scan as XL or TIFF	good, around 16 MP	none	surcharge per roll
Flatbed scanner with transparency unit	medium, limited sharpness	high, very slow	device from around €150
Photographing with a digital camera	high, depending on the sensor	one-time setup	existing camera plus holder

With 72 images per roll, photographing negatives quickly becomes the most practical option as soon as you take photos regularly. The setup takes time once; after that, you can get through a roll in just a few minutes. The catch is the initial setup, because the camera, macro lens, light source, and flat film holder all need to work together.

A typical setup for photographing negatives. Photo: Ausgeknipst

Exactly how a setup like this works, which mistakes can cost you sharpness, and what each component needs to do are covered in our guide Scanning Film with a Digital Camera. If you prefer having your film scanned by a lab, you can do so without feeling guilty. With half-frame, the scanning level matters more than the method.

What accessories are available for the Ektar

Disclosure up front: We make accessories for the Ektar H35 ourselves and earn money from them. So here’s what else is available first.

From the manufacturer itself. RETO offers an underwater case up to 5 meters for USD 17.99 that fits both models. The H35N Premium Kit for USD 89.99 additionally includes a cable release and two color filters, which however fit only the H35N. Both cameras come from the factory with a case and carrying strap.

What is missing from the factory. Neither camera comes with a lens cover. On the H35N, you can use the retracted star filter as a workaround; the H35 has nothing at all. Neither camera has a filter thread either. So anyone who wants to use color, effect, or UV filters needs an adapter.

What we contribute. Our parts close precisely these two gaps, and they are for the H35, not the H35N. The Pro lens cover also covers the viewfinder and shutter button, physically blocking the shutter. The filter adapter accepts standard 30.5 mm filters, the small and widely available standard size.

A standard 30.5 mm filter on the H35. Photo: Ausgeknipst

Our parts are designed for the H35, not the H35N. On the H35N, the star filter mechanism sits in front of the lens, so the front is built differently. We have not tested the fit there and therefore make no claims. If you have an H35N and are unsure, it is best to ask us first. That is cheaper than a return.

Whether you need that is up to you. If the shutter has never gone off by itself and you transport the camera in its included case anyway, you need neither a cover nor an adapter. The adapter is especially worthwhile if you want to experiment with color filters or a diffuser. With a fixed aperture and shutter speed, the filter is the only creative control you have left.

When another camera is the better choice

The Ektar line has a narrow range of applications: bright light, short distances, and no need for control. If you recognize yourself in any of the following sentences, you should look elsewhere.

“I want half-frame, but with a proper camera.” The Pentax 17 is the only newly built half-frame camera with automatic exposure, zone focusing, and a fast 25mm f/3.5 lens. In Germany, it costs from around 449 euros (Geizhals), six to eight times as much as the Ektar. In return, it can also take photos under overcast skies without a flash.

Photo: MIKI Yoshihito, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Video: “Film Wars: Pentax 17 vs Kodak Ektar H35N” by Amateur Photographer TV. A direct comparison between the more expensive and cheaper new half-frame cameras.

“I want half-frame, but affordable and made of metal.” The used market is full of half-frame cameras from the 1960s. The Olympus Pen EE series is the best known, joined by the Canon Demi, Ricoh Auto Half, Yashica Half 17, and the Russian Agat 18k. Many of them have automatic exposure and a faster lens than any Ektar. The trade-off is the usual risk that comes with buying used: gummed-up shutters, dead selenium cells, and brittle light seals. analog.cafe’s “10 Half-Frame Film Cameras for Under $500” provides a good overview.

Olympus Pen EE-2, the classic among half-frame cameras. Photo: Banffy, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

What to look out for when buying used, so your bargain doesn’t turn into a repair job, is explained in Buying a Used Analog Camera: Where to Look, What to Check, and What to Pay.

“I don’t care about half-frame; I just want a small camera.” In that case, a used compact camera from the 1990s is almost always the better choice. Olympus AF-10, Minolta AF-E, Canon Sure Shot, and dozens of similar models have autofocus, automatic exposure, and apertures of around f/2.8 to f/3.5. They therefore let in three to four stops more light than an Ektar. For 40 to 80 euros, you get a much more versatile camera, though without a warranty.

“I want something new with more ambition.” Alongside the Snapic A1 from the same company, the Lomo MC-A is the second serious new release of recent years, with autofocus, manual control, and a metal body, but also at a completely different price. Our assessment can be found in the Lomo MC-A technical review.

Yashica Half 17, built around 1965. Photo: Thomas Backa, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

Conclusion

The Ektar H35 and H35N are not good cameras in the technical sense, nor do they pretend to be. They are cheap, light, robust enough for a backpack, and in sunshine they produce images that look the way many people imagine analogue photography. The 72 shots per roll lower the barrier to pressing the shutter at all. For a camera you take with you, that is worth more than better optics.

Anyone buying one should plan for three things: an ISO 400 film, using the flash more often than expected, and a lab that can process half-frame film. If you want sharp, controlled images without flash under overcast skies, your money is better spent on a used compact camera or the Pentax 17.

The continuously updated collection on half-frame photography is hosted by the Half Frame Club, including its own review of the H35. You can find our H35 accessories in the Shop, and the other buying guides and instructions in the blog overview. If you own an H35 or H35N and have discovered something missing here, write to us. These guides depend on people correcting what we have overlooked.

Sources

• Official manufacturer specifications: Ektar H35 and Ektar H35N from RETO Production Ltd.
• License notice from Kodak for the H35N
• Casual Photophile: Kodak Ektar H35 Review
• My Favourite Lens: Kodak Ektar H35N Review
• Shoot It With Film: Kodak Ektar H35N Review
• PetaPixel: Kodak Ektar H35 Review
• ExpertPhotography: Kodak Ektar H35 Review
• Gregory Gross: Kodak Ektar H35 Hands-on Review
• 35mmc: Announcement of the Ektar H35N
• Camera-wiki: Ektar H35N
• APHOG Forum: Half-Frame Development Through the Drugstore
• analog.cafe: 10 Half-Frame Film Cameras for Under $500

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