35mm papers

[AgX]

I just saw in Agfa dealer-pricelists of 1977 and 1979 that they were offering 35mm paper, double-perforated in lengths of 17, 30 or 60 metres.

(fibre based: Brovira, Record-Rapid; PE: Brovira, Portriga-Rapid, MCN310 [colour])

I never came across something like that before. Am I lacking power of imagination? (Or just slow on the uptake today?) What were they used for? Any ideas, or rather knowledge?

Well, one could print tiny id-photos in a film copy device...

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Answer: Leitz ELDIA or similar items.

You could make a great wallet photo by contacting a 35mm negative.

 

[Ian Grant]

I remember finding some 35mm single weight paper back in the early 70's, and also remember people at school getting negatives processed with a roll of 35mm contact prints.

Ian

 

[AgX]

Thanks!

Michel, I thus was quite right with my desperate idea of optical printing.

Ian, I guess contact printing, short strips, of 35mm film on dp 35mm paper would not have been the most economical way to do it, especially as this might have been a special order item However with a light tight dispenser at hand, one could just have pulled out as much as needed…

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

From the ELDIA manual:

"Paper contact prints can be made by loading the printer with perforated strips of printing paper which are available commercially. Operation is the same as when using film, but the spool will only take about 63 inches (1.6 metres) of perforated paper."

My ELDIA is a neat little thing to make B&W diapositives. I use blue-sensitive movie film in it, and develop in Dektol. I wish I had some perf paper to use, just for the heck of it!

 

[AgX]

Michel,

I thought the ELDIA was a device to make optical prints, thus making use of only one strip, may it be film or paper. Thanks for making it clear that it was (also?) a contact printing device.

Before reading your post I talked to someone very photohistorical minded and he told me that he not only has got still rolls of such paper in house, but that it was used in a German make `single frame automatic exposure contact printer´. Thus even in contact printing such a perforation would make sense (as in the ELDIA).

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

AgX, the ELDIA is exclusively for the purpose of doing contact prints, either on film or on paper strips. You can't use it to project a negative. It's just a contact printer with two spools for the printing material, film or paper.

Our good friend Roger Hicks wrote a nice article about it in Shutterbug a while ago:
http://shutterbug.com/equipmentreviews/classic_historical/0607classic/

 

[AgX]

Two spools. Yes, that made me think it was a copy devise for optical copying, just holding the material to be exposed. To be used as a (ideal) contact printing device it should have, to my understanding, 4 spools, 2 sets of two.

But I'll see what Roger wrote about it.

There is quite a good photo: The film to be copied is just adjusted manually for each frame, whereas the copy material is transported via sprockets, seemingly framewise.

 

[Andy K]

I have many of my father's 35mm contact prints made using this paper.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Two spools. Yes, that made me think it was a copy devise for optical copying, just holding the material to be exposed. To be used as a (ideal) contact printing device it should have, to my understanding, 4 spools, 2 sets of two.

But I'll see what Roger wrote about it.

There is quite a good photo: The film to be copied is just adjusted manually for each frame, whereas the copy material is transported via sprockets, seemingly framewise.

If you want more explanation, I can post pictures of my own ELDIA...

Basically, the swinging door has two little tracks to hold your negative. When you close the door, the neg and the printing material are sandwiched together between two sheets of glass: one that is part of the swing door, and another one that is below the printing material. The exposing light comes through the glass in the swinging door.