Unperforated film...

[Kenj8246]

CAN be used successfully IF you're persistent enough. Why one would want to do that is a fair question. I bought a 100' roll off the auction site because I wasn't paying attention. 🙄

Turns out that an old Canon EOS 10s (sprocketless drive) from the same auction site for the whopping price of $14 did the trick. I had to punch a few holes in the leader, as the take-up spool does have a 'tooth'. After that, it loaded right up. Here's a few shots of a bronze sculpture in a nearby park.


Bronze sculpture details by kenj8246, on Flickr

Bronze sculpture details by kenj8246, on Flickr

Bronze sculpture details by kenj8246, on Flickr

Kenny

 

[Tijmendal]

I've always wondered what unperforated film was used for. Glad to see you were able to put it to good use.

 

[Kenj8246]

I'm still wondering. But since I can use it for stills, I'm happy.

 

[grapejohnson]

good thing you found a use for it!! i always end up with stuff like that and no easy answer (such as my medium format enlarger which arrived without its $50 negative carrier) and it takes up space and makes me sad. this was funny though. i had no idea canon made something like that.

 

[Kenj8246]

...i had no idea canon made something like that.

Me either; only the second Canon I've ever owned.

 

[Noll]

Sorry OT but is that statue supposed to be Jack Nicholson or is it just a coincidence?

Does the canon still leave a masked bar at the top and bottom? If so, any decent (non-lomo) cameras out there that normally shoot the sprocket holes but don't need the sprockets to wind?

 

[Kenj8246]

Jack Nicholson. That's funny, Noll. It's a sculpture commemorating the American War of 1812 so I doubt Jack was around to pose. 🙂

The masked bar I don't understand so I can't say. My research indicated a number of folks who said they'd shot unperforated film in any number of cameras. Most notably: Nikon F100, FM2. I've not tried the F100 yet but was unable to get the FM to wind the film successfully after loading it. I'll probably give it another go at some point.

Kenny

 

[sevo]

I've always wondered what unperforated film was used for.

The cheaper variation of "superslides", mostly. From the mid eighties on, AV projector makers tried to push "superslide" image formats that exploit the full area small format projectors are capable of - the higher end version was a 40x40mm format (trimmed from medium format) that only could be shown in professional projectors with special condenser and lens, and was popular among touring travel/adventure slide show presenters (which had a small boom in the same period).

The lower end version used unperforated 35mm film, for a image size up to 33x33mm, could be shown on unmodified regular projectors. It was popular in the early to mid nineties for text and (business) graphics slides, printed to film from a workstation PC, when Polaroid was marketing a special "superslide" camera back for its slide printers, but that came to an end when Powerpoint video beamer presentations took over...

There never were general purpose cameras that took the format (or unperforated film) natively - it was purely a matter of duplicates or computer slide prints.

Superslides were never used for consumer/amateur applications, if you run into obviously amateur square slides, these are not superslides, but 126 Instamatic (and slightly smaller - Instamatic are nominally 28x28mm).

Another application for unperforated (black and white only) film is microfilming with automatic recorders/copiers - where you will not run into everyday film types, but Tech Pan, Agfaortho, Copex and the like used to be about in huge amounts for that purpose.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . Superslides were never used for consumer/amateur applications . . .

I'm pretty sure they were, from 127. In fact, I'm pretty sure that 127 was was the origin of the format. Of course I could be wrong, and (to be honest) I'm too lazy to go through my 1950s literature to find out.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sevo]

I'm pretty sure they were, from 127. In fact, I'm pretty sure that 127 was was the origin of the format.

Ah, 127, 4x4cm - yep, that might be. But whether it defined the format? 127 slide film must already have grown scarce before extruded plastics ready-made slide frames became standard in the sixties (and I don't even know whether anybody made ready-made Superslide frames before the eighties). In the fifties and before, slides were simply placed between two 5x5cm glass sheets and the edges taped together, and people may not even have thought about what inner format they used (as long as it fit) - these were the days when my grandfather routinely cropped his slides as he pleased...

 

[KoNickon]

I'll have to check, but I think the Hexar RF operates the same way -- you pull the leader out to the mark and close the back; no sprocket teeth to engage. What I don't know offhand is whether the camera uses some sort of infrared sprocket counting device internally to know how far to advance the film.

In any event, I'm glad this wasn't a wasted purchase!

 

[Scrambler]

I'll have to check, but I think the Hexar RF operates the same way -- you pull the leader out to the mark and close the back; no sprocket teeth to engage. What I don't know offhand is whether the camera uses some sort of infrared sprocket counting device internally to know how far to advance the film.

In any event, I'm glad this wasn't a wasted purchase!

The Hexar RF does use the sprockets but as you state not mechanically.

 

[zuiko85]

Unperforated 35mm film was used in Kodak Batam cameras. The film was paper backed and had an image area of 28X40mm if I remember right. There were 8 exposures on a roll. B&H still sells 828 film, Tmax 400, for $14 a roll. It is probably hand rolled.

 

[sevo]

Unperforated 35mm film was used in Kodak Batam cameras. The film was paper backed and had an image area of 28X40mm if I remember right. There were 8 exposures on a roll. B&H still sells 828 film, Tmax 400, for $14 a roll. It is probably hand rolled.

Instamatic evolved from Bantam, by adding a plastics cartridge. Both had a single perforation per frame - self-loading stock for either would have had scarce rather than no perforation. If it ever existed, which I doubt - anybody who ever tried to roll up a 120 film knows that self-loading a paper backed film is tricky even with a darkroom at hand, and way beyond the skills and patience of the "you push the button and we do the rest" customers targeted by Bantam and Instamatic.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Ah, 127, 4x4cm - yep, that might be. But whether it defined the format? 127 slide film must already have grown scarce before extruded plastics ready-made slide frames became standard in the sixties (and I don't even know whether anybody made ready-made Superslide frames before the eighties). In the fifties and before, slides were simply placed between two 5x5cm glass sheets and the edges taped together, and people may not even have thought about what inner format they used (as long as it fit) - these were the days when my grandfather routinely cropped his slides as he pleased...

You are no doubt right about its rarity and decline, but I think that glass mounts were on the way out as early as 1950. Gnome were advertising transparency frames "in metal and art board" as early as 1938 (BJA 1939) at 4/9d in art board and 10/- in metal, though these may have been only masks designed for use with conventionally bound glass; Kodachromes were supplied in cardboard mounts from All Fools' Day 1939 (picture and date http://www.zoggavia.com/Kodachrome_Slide_Film.html ); the earliest reference I can easily find to Leitz Automounts is 1945 ( http://photo.net/leica-rangefinders-forum/00aiSy); one source refers to Perrotcolor being bought out in 1954, by which time it must already have been an established business; Gepe was founded to make slide mounts (among other things) in 1955, and I'd be surprised if they hadn't made superslides at the time; and my 1956 Gevaert guide (11th ed.) shows two different kinds of 35mm slide mount, as if they were nothing unusual.

All right, a bit obsessive, but then, my A History of the 35mm Still Camera (The Focal Press, 1984 or so) shows a certain talent for this. The minutiae of some kinds of history fascinate me...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Gareth Rees]

Brings back memories of my school days in the late sixties/early seventies and cutting up and mounting 127 slides in square grey plastic mounts. can't remember who made them.
I still project them occasionally.

 

[Muggins]

Wasn't the original Voigtlander Vito built to use unperforated 35mm film?

Adrian

 

[sevo]

Wasn't the original Voigtlander Vito built to use unperforated 35mm film?

It had a pressure roll rather than a cog wheel counter - but the film window is the regular 24x36mm. So they obviously had no unperforated film in mind. The odd transport is the same as on their roll film cameras, just smaller, so they could make these with their already existing tools, while a 35mm cog wheel would have meant new tooling (the Vito was their first 35mm camera) - it probably was a design choice driven by economics...

 

[Kenj8246]

Wasn't the original Voigtlander Vito built to use unperforated 35mm film?

Adrian

According to Camerapedia, the Vito was originally designed for un-perforated 135 film, yes. Hmmmm, I wonder. They are plentiful on the auction site.

 

[sevo]

According to Camerapedia, the Vito was originally designed for un-perforated 135 film, yes.

According to that page, it was designed for 828 film, but switched to 135 and a 24x36mm film gate before marketing started. That is quite possible.

But I doubt the war can be blamed, as that page states, since several facts are wrong. 828 was a paper backing film intended for cheaper cameras that had a red window in place of a mechanical counter, and the Vito does not appear to have been ever sold in a 828 version, even though it is officially dated as 1939. Which would leave a mere three months between the start of the war and end of the year for the change, production and roll-out, which seems way too short for the then common product cycles, given that the change from red window to counter and a bigger spool compartment would have affected the entire design. There can have been no wartime material restriction banning 828 in favour of 135 - it used paper where the latter used metal, and the war shortages indeed pushed a variety of 828-like daylight self loading rolls for 135 onto the Germans. Besides Kodak hat a vehemently German branch and was producing locally, and even after the US war entry, Kodak Germany was nationalized and their products continued. And last but nor least, Voigtländer made/marketed their own film for their cameras, so it can't have been a matter of "828 film only available from enemy nations".

It is more likely they dropped 828 earlier in the design process and switched to the already mainstream 135 format when it became obvious that no other relevant European/German maker had released 828 cameras and all competition used the superior (much longer, "auto" counting) 135.