Anyone ever used/seen a Coleman Datronic?

[zsas]

I had the pleasure of seeing a Coleman Datronic recently.

If you have no idea what one is, here is what it looks like:
http://www.recycledgoods.com/zoom.aspx?productID=35617

You load 100 feet of 70mm, 35mm film in it and it takes, tons of pictures. It was used often used by portrait photographers who photographed students for the annual school photographs.

What a beauty!

[DarkroomDan]

Now that is a trip down Memory Lane. 40 years ago I used to use one of these things. Mine was a Beattie Coleman "Split 70" meaning that the long dimension of the negative was the width of the 70mm film and that, in portrait orientation, the film magazine would be rotated 90 degrees from the one shown in the picture. The thing was a real workhorse. I ran a heck of a lot of 100 foot rolls through that thing and never had a problem.

Dan

[zsas]

It must have taken a while to process a 100 foot roll? How did you do it?

[Mike Wilde]

I also have a long roll school portrait camera. At least yours has a detachable magazine. Mine has to be loaded in a changing bag.

It shoots 35mm film stock edge to edge, and prefers unperforated stock.

I have yet to shoot anything with it, although it is all set up ready to go. I even have the little strings tied off to length for it's two different focussing distances.

Mine has had the guts ripped out of the between the lens shutter, and instead uses an electrically released shutter that is synched to the electronic fash terminal tripping.

This shutter is cam driven to be reset. The cam action also releases the pressure plate and advances the film.

I am toying with adding some mechanical modification to put a dimple or some other tactile mark manually after about 42 exposures, and then take no pictures a few frames either side of making this mark.

Then when the time came to process the long roll in small tanks the mark on the film could be felt, and used as an index to cut the long roll at the right place. Then the short piece of film could be mounted onto reels for conventional small tank processing.

I also have an adjustable 16/35mm daylight rewind tank that can be used to process 100' lengths of film. It was originally developed for use with movie film. That is an option for me to develop the whole 100' of film if it were b&w. I don't think trying to pull off 100' of c-41 in a manually cranked rewind tank is going to turn out too well.

[E. von Hoegh]

It must have taken a while to process a 100 foot roll? How did you do it?

On a reel. Takes no longer than 35mm, just needs more chemicals and bigger tanks.

[Rick A]

Very similar to the Beatty 70mm long roll portrait camera I used while in the employ of Olan Mills Inc.