Fotron
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| Fotron |
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The Fotron was a plastic camera from the early 1960s made in Glendale, California by a company called Traid Corporation. It had some unusual features for the time, with electronic flash, power winding and rechargeable batteries, and a peculiar button-controlled exposure system - making it heavy and bulky. The film was 828, pre-packaged into proprietary "snap-in" cartridges, that had to be sent back to the vendor for processing and reloading. Each cartridge held only ten 1x1inch frames. There were three versions, labelled, oddly, "Fotron", "Fotron III" and "Fotron" - in that order. The camera had to be charged for 18 hours to shoot just one 10-exposure cartridge, and 72 hours for more than one![1] It was sold door-to-door at very high prices - from $150 upwards. A number of purchasers have taken out a class action against Traid Corporation, having paid $491.60, alleging that the true value was closer to $40[2] |
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