This a rare special gear, the Polaroid Daylab 300. It
allows to make copies of diapositives on 8x10 inch film. From the 50s to the 70s diapositives were sharper and had more
details than colour negative film, so they were very popular. Nearly
every shop for film and gear had a small daylab to provide paper copies of
diapositives to their clients. Most Daylabs are focus free, but let you adjust colours. There were versions with
fine focus, versions with several bases like one for integral film, and
versions for bigger formats like 4x5 and this 8x10.
The
Daylab 300 also allows to make copies from negative film to photo paper
without a darkroom. The base is a waterproof tank. There are special
bottles for the liquids with nozzles that fit the filler neck. So you
can pour a liquid into the base, tilt the base towards the tray, wait
the appropriate amount of time and pour it back into the bottle.
Changing bottles provides you all the necessary steps to process a
photo.
The Daylab 300 was delivered in a box with sleeves so
that you can load the base either with polaroid material or photo paper
in daylight. In the case of Polaroid 8x10 film, you have to transfer
the exposed material back into a holder for the Polaroid 8x10
Processor. I don't have the box any more, but a big changing bag will
do.
Most
Daylabs were delivered with a converter 12 volt to 120 volt, so if you
live in Europe, pay attention to not plug it into 230 volt without
another converter. But any 12 volt to 230 volt converter of 1 A would
do. The 12 volt plug is standard and easy to find. There were Daylab
versions with batteries, but I would not recommend them.
Some pictures:
The Daylab 300.
Panel.
3 sliders for colour correction. Film type switch, sets ISO: 1
= b&w film, 75 ISO, 2 = 80 ISO, 3 = 100 ISO. View/Off/Print
switch. Lighten/Darken setting. Start button and "flash ready" lamp. Image
preview door open.
Image
preview door open. The image is projected on the white dark slide for
framing. Then close the door, switch to "off" before retracting the
dark slide, after unlocking and pulling the dark slide move the switch to "print".
Wait until the flash is charged. Push the start button, a flash will
print the slide on film. Re-insert the dark slide and lock.
That's it.
View of the base with framelines.
Dark slide pulled, it has a stop.
Base, all 4 locks closed.
Base, locks open. The slide has rubber sealings to keep the base waterproof.
Slide taken off.
Tray taken out. This is a 8x10 tray, it keeps an 8x10 sheet in place.
