I've pulled my F-100 out of the cupboard to use this weekend and remembered that it has an MF-29 date back. However I can't remember exactly how the date back works, neither do I have a manual for it, and can't find any information about the MF-29 online (albeit there are some sketchy websites that purport to have a PDF for download)
What I do know about the MF-29 is that it is fairly simple, and there are only 3 buttons on it:
- Mode - Cycles through the "display" modes of the unit (Off, and 4 date/time formats - YYMMDD, MMDDYY, DDMMYY and DDHHMM)
- Select - Is used to select the current date part (Day, Month, Year, Time) to change
- Adjust - Is used to change the selected date part in order to set the current date/time.
And there is an LCD that displays the data that will be imprinted on the film:
- Off - (no data imprinted) displays as "------"
- YYMMDD - Year/Month/Day, displays as (EG for today) "201127"
- MMDDYY - Month/Day/Year, displays as "112720"
- DDMMYY - Day/Month/Year, displays as "271120"
- DDHHMM - Day, Hour/Minute, displays as "27 2:15"
There is also a bar on the LCD that indicates that a date will be imprinted on the film (linked to the "Print" text printed on the date back itself), and a an indicator that identifies the currently selected date format. See this example image for the YYMMDD format (the long bar in the top right indicates that the data will be imprinted):
What I can't remember about the MF-29 is where on the film the date information is imprinted. I thought that it was interspersed between frames (I used to have an F-80 with dateback that did that), but in the F-100 manual it states for Custom Setting 18:
18. Data Imprint (year/month/day/hour/minute) on Frame #0
Options:
0 - Disabled (initial setting)
1 - Enabled
With optional Data Back MF-29, data (year/month/day/hour/minute) can be set to be imprinted on frame #0. To imprint data on frame #0 only and not on frame #1 on, cancel the data imprint on the MF-29 after film is automatically advanced to the first frame
But this implies to me that the data is imprinted on the frame itself. (and that you can get it to start imprinting before the first user frame - EG frame #0)
So where on the film does the MF-29 imprint the data, and are there any examples online that show this information?