Disc film was a still-photography film format aimed at the consumer market, and introduced by Kodak in 1982.
The film was in the form of a flat disc, and was fully housed within a plastic cartridge. Each disc held 15 exposures, the disc being rotated 24° between each image. The fifteen 8 x 10 mm images themselves were arranged like flower petals around the outside of the disc.
Disc was primarily a consumer-oriented product, and most cameras were self-contained units with no expansion capability. The cameras were very simple to load and unload, and were generally completely automated. The cartridge had a built-in dark slide to prevent stray light reaching the film when the cartridge was removed.
Because the film was rotated on a disc instead of by spools, the cartridge was very thin, as were most of the cameras. The completely flat nature of the format also led to the (potential) advantage of greater sharpness over spool-based cassette formats (such as 110 and 126 film). Supposedly, film coming out of such cassettes would sometimes relax, causing the first frame to be unsharp; not a problem with flat Disc film.
Disc film did not prove particularly successful, perhaps because the image on the negative was only 8 mm by 10 mm, leading to what many considered unacceptable graininess in the final print. The film itself was discontinued in 1998, though the cameras had disappeared from the market long before then.
There were several different manufactures of Disc film. Though Kodak was the creator of this format, 3M and Fuji also produced Disc film. While Kodak and Fuji were normally branded as such, 3M made disc film for many retailers (e.g. Rite-Aid, K-Mart), branded with the retailers logo. These can normally be identified by a predominately white label with a small retailer's logo.
Modern usage
There are four labs remaining in North America able to develop Disc film. They are Film Rescue International, Dwaynes Photo, Rapid Photo and Rocky Mountain Film Lab. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some are less expensive but provide a more basic service while others are higher priced but are guaranteed and include digital corrections which greatly help improve the image quality of film that is well beyond its best before date.
External links
Disc film processors operating as of May 2006:-
- Process C-22 UK, Europe and Australia
- Film Rescue USA and Canada
- Dwayne's Photo USA