Kodak 35 Kodak 35 The Kodak 35 was introduced in 1938 as the first US manufactured 35mm camera from Eastman Kodak Company. It was developed in Rochester, New York when it became likely that imports from the Kodak AG factory in Germany could be disrupted by war. While Kodak had invented the "Kodak 135 daylight-loading film cassette" in 1934, prior to 1938 they only offered the German made "Kodak Retina' to work with this cartridge. US built 35mm cameras used the 828 paper backed 35mm roll-film (Bantam Series). The first Kodak 35 has no rangefinder. It slightly resembles cameras like the German
Kodak selling inexpensive cameras and making large margins from consumables – film, chemicals and paper. As late as 1976, Kodak commanded 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S. Japanese competitor Fujifilm entered the U.S. market (via Fuji Photo Film U.S.A.) with lower-priced film and supplies, but Kodak did not believe that American consumers would ever desert its brand. Kodak passed on the opportunity to become the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; Fuji won these sponsorship rights, which gave it a permanent foothold in the marketplace. Fuji opened a film plant in the U.S.,