Tougodo Colly camera and film Q's

[ccross]

Happy holidays everyone! I'm not sure I am posting in the right spot as I have a couple of questions.

I was gifted a Tougodo Colly sub miniature camera and found this morning that it still had a film inside it. The film 'feels' pretty old, I'm afraid that's about as technical as I can get. There are no markings on the film backing and I know nothing about the camera or film other than its diminutive nature.

Any suggestions on a developer for an unknown film? ID-11 and Pyro PMK are all I have on hand right now, but have access to a few others if needed.

How do you process miniature film? I have reels and tanks for 35mm up to 4x5 but nothing that would fit something so small.

Any advice is appreciated, thanks for any help in advance.

Craig

 

[Donald Qualls]

The fun thing here is that most of the HIT type cameras like that one use 17.5 mm film, so it won't even fit a 110 size developing reel. I'm sure it would be possible to 3D print a reel or reel plate that would fit a Paterson or Jobo tank and core, but it might be easier to (in the dark) tape the film, base side to base side, on a strip of fixed out 35 mm film and load that in your regular 35 mm reel.

The film will probably be ISO 100 B&W, so you'll get close by treating it as FP4+ or Foma 100 (yes, those aren't the same, but splitting the difference ought to get you images).

And if you're careful with the backing, you can split unperfed 35 mm (or slit down 120) to get strips you can tape onto the old backing, or make your own by cutting strips out of 120 backing to run between the framing tracks and mark your own numbers every 16 mm (= 5/8 inch).

Cameras like this are in the "toy" category, generally (there were a few with decent lenses and adjustable shutter and aperture, but the vast bulk were meniscus and fixed-everything). They used to be sold in gumball type machines as recently as the 1970s.

 

[ccross]

Thank you for your reply Donald. It was meant as a bit of a gag gift, but I don't think anyone realized there was still a film in it...curious to see if anything turns out.

Thanks again for your help.

Craig

 

[Donald Qualls]

If I had one, I'm pretty sure I'd at least slit three strips out of a roll of ISO 100 120 film (Fomapan or GP3 would be good choices due to cost); that would get at least six, probably nine rolls to try. Results I've seen from cameras like this are about like you'd expect from a Holga, only shrunk to 1/4 size. Potentially fun, but surely not worth spending a lot of money on equipment unless you have one of the ones with a triplet and adjustable exposure.