Lifetouch Micro-Z Camera

broketimetraveler · Apr 19, 2025

Hello internet goers and forum people. (sorry I have never done this before)
I have a camera I would like a little information on and what it could potentially be worth? If I'm posting this in the wrong spot or am violating some rule let me know and I'll fix it.

I am an ex-Lifetouch employee. Lifetouch as in the Nationwide School Portraiture Company. Pretty well known in the portrait space. Mixed feelings with those who I've spoken with but I digress. I was given this camera when my office got shut down around 5 years ago. I knew nothing about it ant it was kind of a display piece for my job for a long time. Fast forward to today I am not an employee anymore and don't want to look at it anymore.

After doing some research, The Micro-Z camera was engineered by Lifetouch. It was the last camera they used that took their custom made film before transitioning into the digital age. This model camera can be found in some high profile museums like the Smithsonian! What would something like this be worth and where would I even go to sell it?

MarkS · May 6, 2025

I doubt if 46mm film is still being made. That's a problem if you want to use the camera, which was designed to to *one thing*, high-volume studio portraiture.
I'd think there is no professional market for it, and it's not really a collector's item, so placing a value on it is going to be difficult.

Donald Qualls · May 7, 2025

MarkS said:
I doubt if 46mm film is still being made.

That's the film width of 127, and Ilford offers bulk rolls that width in their annual custom cut event (FP4+ and HP5+ only, AFAIK). Unperfed, of course, but "film drive rollers" imply that camera expects unperfed.

ic-racer · May 7, 2025

If it was a gift then maybe It’s value is free or nothing.

neilt3 · May 8, 2025

broketimetraveler said:
Hello internet goers and forum people. (sorry I have never done this before)
I have a camera I would like a little information on and what it could potentially be worth? If I'm posting this in the wrong spot or am violating some rule let me know and I'll fix it.

I am an ex-Lifetouch employee. Lifetouch as in the Nationwide School Portraiture Company. Pretty well known in the portrait space. Mixed feelings with those who I've spoken with but I digress. I was given this camera when my office got shut down around 5 years ago. I knew nothing about it ant it was kind of a display piece for my job for a long time. Fast forward to today I am not an employee anymore and don't want to look at it anymore.

After doing some research, The Micro-Z camera was engineered by Lifetouch. It was the last camera they used that took their custom made film before transitioning into the digital age. This model camera can be found in some high profile museums like the Smithsonian! What would something like this be worth and where would I even go to sell it?

Does it work ?
Is it complete ?

As with everything, without that information no one could even give you a guide to price on even a common item.

As no one is going to use the device and it's not very ornamental, it's value is limited.
Finding a buyer might be difficult.

If you think the Smithsonian would appreciate it , why not donate it rather than skip it ?

neilt3 · May 8, 2025

ic-racer said:
If it was a gift then maybe It’s value is free or nothing.

Or maybe less if it's taking up space ?

Ron Harvey · Sunday at 7:42 PM

neilt3 said:
Does it work ?
Is it complete ?

As with everything, without that information no one could even give you a guide to price on even a common item.

As no one is going to use the device and it's not very ornamental, it's value is limited.
Finding a buyer might be difficult.

If you think the Smithsonian would appreciate it , why not donate it rather than skip it ?

broketimetraveler said:
Hello internet goers and forum people. (sorry I have never done this before)
I have a camera I would like a little information on and what it could potentially be worth? If I'm posting this in the wrong spot or am violating some rule let me know and I'll fix it.

I am an ex-Lifetouch employee. Lifetouch as in the Nationwide School Portraiture Company. Pretty well known in the portrait space. Mixed feelings with those who I've spoken with but I digress. I was given this camera when my office got shut down around 5 years ago. I knew nothing about it ant it was kind of a display piece for my job for a long time. Fast forward to today I am not an employee anymore and don't want to look at it anymore.

After doing some research, The Micro-Z camera was engineered by Lifetouch. It was the last camera they used that took their custom made film before transitioning into the digital age. This model camera can be found in some high profile museums like the Smithsonian! What would something like this be worth and where would I even go to sell it?

I was in charge of the departments that designed and built the Micro Z cameras. Ultimately we built about 2400 of them. In order to make it run it needs the power pack that was in a separate metal box. I don't see it in any of the photos. The camera really has no value (except perhaps as a collector item) as it requires film that is not only 46mm wide but has a single perforation to locate each frame. The power of the system (besides being able to take 1200 photos on one roll of film) was that the camera wrote a bar code adjacent to each frame. The little cards with the bar codes shown in one of the photos were scanned into the camera and that created a link between the student's information and his image on the film. We had a patent on that piece of technology. I would be interested in purchasing the miscellaneous parts you have, ie the film, the cards, the viewfinder etc. I already have a camera in my library. Please let me know. Thanks

broketimetraveler said:
Hello internet goers and forum people. (sorry I have never done this before)
I have a camera I would like a little information on and what it could potentially be worth? If I'm posting this in the wrong spot or am violating some rule let me know and I'll fix it.

I am an ex-Lifetouch employee. Lifetouch as in the Nationwide School Portraiture Company. Pretty well known in the portrait space. Mixed feelings with those who I've spoken with but I digress. I was given this camera when my office got shut down around 5 years ago. I knew nothing about it ant it was kind of a display piece for my job for a long time. Fast forward to today I am not an employee anymore and don't want to look at it anymore.

After doing some research, The Micro-Z camera was engineered by Lifetouch. It was the last camera they used that took their custom made film before transitioning into the digital age. This model camera can be found in some high profile museums like the Smithsonian! What would something like this be worth and where would I even go to sell it?

broketimetraveler · Sunday at 7:51 PM

neilt3 said:
Does it work ?
Is it complete ?

As with everything, without that information no one could even give you a guide to price on even a common item.

As no one is going to use the device and it's not very ornamental, it's value is limited.
Finding a buyer might be difficult.

If you think the Smithsonian would appreciate it , why not donate it rather than skip it ?

I do not now if it works. When it was given to me, I received it wouldn't any usable film or the battery pack that was used to power it. Those battery packs were still being used by my division well until 2020.

The way I figured, if someone was interested in adding it to ther collection of obscure cameras, where would I go to find someone like that and what's the appropriate way to price it.

broketimetraveler · Sunday at 7:52 PM

Ron Harvey said:
I was in charge of the departments that designed and built the Micro Z cameras. Ultimately we built about 2400 of them. In order to make it run it needs the power pack that was in a separate metal box. I don't see it in any of the photos. The camera really has no value (except perhaps as a collector item) as it requires film that is not only 46mm wide but has a single perforation to locate each frame. The power of the system (besides being able to take 1200 photos on one roll of film) was that the camera wrote a bar code adjacent to each frame. The little cards with the bar codes shown in one of the photos were scanned into the camera and that created a link between the student's information and his image on the film. We had a patent on that piece of technology. I would be interested in purchasing the miscellaneous parts you have, ie the film, the cards, the viewfinder etc. I already have a camera in my library. Please let me know. Thanks

Woah what are the odds!

Unfortunately I dont want to part it out either all if it goes or none of it goes.

koraks · Monday at 2:53 AM

@broketimetraveler and @Ron Harvey First of all, welcome aboard both of you and thanks for sharing your information & experience with this unique piece of equipment.
From a moderator's perspective, we're generally not enthusiastic about regular threads involving requests to purchase materials. However, this case seems to be unique in several ways, so I'd like to encourage the both of you to move discussion of the possibility of a purchase to private messaging. I have enabled this option for both of you to support this.
Good luck and thanks for your consideration!

Ron Harvey · Monday at 1:02 PM

koraks said:
@broketimetraveler and @Ron Harvey First of all, welcome aboard both of you and thanks for sharing your information & experience with this unique piece of equipment.
From a moderator's perspective, we're generally not enthusiastic about regular threads involving requests to purchase materials. However, this case seems to be unique in several ways, so I'd like to encourage the both of you to move discussion of the possibility of a purchase to private messaging. I have enabled this option for both of you to support this.
Good luck and thanks for your consideration!

broketimetraveler said:
Woah what are the odds!

Unfortunately I dont want to part it out either all if it goes or none of it goes.

A little more information about the Micro Z system. The power pack (which ran only on AC) also handled the interface to 3 proprietary monolights that were built by Bron in Switzerland. The camera automatically calibrated the lights for each job. The goal of the system was to create exposures that were consistent within 2/10 of a stop between all the cameras on a job (which could be up to about 10 or so) and all the pieces of film. That made the high volume production much easier. At its peak Lifetouch took photos of approximately 40% of all the children in the US (some 24 million as I recall). All of this happened within a 10 week window in the fall of each year. Another interesting tidbit is that each of the 3 production plants had only one (very high speed) film processor. Again eliminating variability was the goal.

Ron Harvey · Monday at 3:36 PM

koraks said:
@broketimetraveler and @Ron Harvey First of all, welcome aboard both of you and thanks for sharing your information & experience with this unique piece of equipment.
From a moderator's perspective, we're generally not enthusiastic about regular threads involving requests to purchase materials. However, this case seems to be unique in several ways, so I'd like to encourage the both of you to move discussion of the possibility of a purchase to private messaging. I have enabled this option for both of you to support this.
Good luck and thanks for your consideration!

How do I do private messaging? thanks so much

MattKing · Monday at 3:48 PM

Click on the person's screen name beside one of their posts.
Then when you see this on the screen, click on the "Start conversation":

Then you will see this screen:

Fill in a title where indicated - the red mark - and the body of your message - the yellow mark - and finally don't forget to click on the "Start Conversation" link at the bottom.
When you see a red flag alert at the top right of the screen, you have a response, so click on that.

The Alert flag will show up here:

Lifetouch Micro-Z Camera

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