A method and associated apparatus for initializing a rotatable frame counter in a camera to a preliminary setting from a random setting, in which an engagement element is placed directly on a surface of the frame counter in a ready position to engage and thereby arrest the frame counter when the frame counter is rotated from the random setting to the preliminary setting. According to the present invention, the frame counter is rotated relative to the engagement element to bring an off-axis hole on the frame counter into contact with the engagement element only when the frame counter is at the preliminary setting, whereby the engagement element will arrest the frame counter at the preliminary setting.

In a photographic camera, a cassette carrier having a chamber for receiving a film cassette is movable outwardly from the camera body to permit one to insert and remove the film cassette. A drive spindle for the film cassette and a coaxial gear are rotatably mounted on a spring-urged slider supported on the carrier. Datum projections extend from the camera body to enter the chamber when the carrier is moved to return the chamber to inside the camera body, to shift the cassette from a centered position in engagement with the drive spindle to a datum position in the chamber. Simultaneously, a datum stop located in the camera body abuts the slider to shift the slider with the cassette and to limit the extent to which the coaxial gear will mesh with a driving gear rotatably supported in the camera body.

A frame counter in a disposable single-use camera is initialized to a preliminary setting from a random setting, rather than from a predetermined setting as in prior art counters. According to the disclosed method, an actuator is rotated in engagement with successive teeth of the frame counter during factory prewinding of an unexposed filmstrip onto a take-up spool to rotate the counter to its preliminary setting from any other setting. After the counter is initialized to the preliminary setting, the actuator continues to rotate in the same direction during continued prewinding of the filmstrip, but it is rotated substantially within a space between two of the teeth of the counter to prevent it from engaging anyone of the teeth to rotate the counter out of the preliminary setting. Thus the counter remains initialized.

Each time an actuator is rotated in engagement with respective teeth of a frame counter in a disposable camera, the counter is rotated the equivalent of one frame to its next setting. To initialize the counter from a random setting during factory prewinding of an unexposed filmstrip onto a take-up spool, the counter includes an elongate rise located between two of its teeth. When the counter is rotated sufficiently in a prewinding direction to locate the elongate rise immediately ahead of the actuator, the counter is initialized. Since the actuator cannot surmount the elongate rise, continued rotation of the actuator in a prewinding direction will not rotate the counter to another setting. Thus as the filmstrip continues to be factory prewound onto the take-up spool the counter remains initialized.

The use-registering reel for flexible tape has a pair of lateral disk-like members in spaced parallel relationship united to an axially centered core structure. The core structure includes an axial hub and a cylindrical tape-support member at its radially outer perimeter. Between the hub and tape-support member, within a radial segment of the core structure, is a walled housing having a transparent window. The housing is united to the core structure and undergoes orbital movement about the hub axis during rotation of the reel. A counter assembly is mounted in tamper-resistant condition in the housing for orbital movement with it. The counter assembly includes an actuatable indicating means for registering revolutions of the reel, an action means for actuating the indicating means responsively to rotation of said reel, and selective means responsive solely to the direction of rotation of said reel. The selective means effectively causes the indicating means to register revolutions of the reel in one predetermined direction only; and the registration is viewable through the aforenoted window.