The invention relates to a film strip holder with parallel longitudinal edges which define a flat web and form guide grooves of U-shaped cross-sections in which a film strip is movably guided.

A known film strip holder of this type consists of translucent material and serves to hold a short film strip for a single image frame. The holder can be placed on the document platen of a contact printer or into a negative carrier of an enlarger.

The gap widths of the guide grooves of this known film strip holder are narrow. Since this holder is to accommodate one single short film strip for a single image frame only, said single image frame can be shifted and positioned in spite of increased friction. If, however, a long film strip of at least five image frames is used, friction becomes too high and shifting and positioning of the film strip in the film strip holder will be difficult therefore.

It is the object of the invention to provide a film strip holder in which long film strips can be easily and smoothly shifted and positioned without difficulties and yet do not slip if the film strip holder is speedily inserted into an apparatus.

According to the invention this object is attained in that at least one of the guide grooves includes a leaf spring whose free spring ends are loosely mounted in the longitudinal web of one of the longitudinal edges of U-shaped cross-section and whose clamping surface is supported by the web of the film strip holder in the area of said guide grooves.

The invention is described in the following with reference to an embodiment illustrated in the drawing in which

Fig. 1 shows a plan view of the film strip holder accor¬ ding to the invention,

Fig. 2 shows a lateral view of the film strip holder ac¬ cording to Fig. 1,

Fig. 3 shows an enlarged sectional view along line II-II in Fig. 1,

Fig. 4 shows an enlarged perspective partial view of the film strip holder according to Fig. 1, illustrated partially in section and seen in the direction of the arrow "X", and

Fig. 5 shows an enlarged sectional view along line V-V in Fig. 1.

The ilm strip holder denoted 1 can be made from aluminum sheet or plastic. At its parallel longitudinal edges 2 which define a web la, it is U-shaped so that guide grooves 3 are formed into which a slide strip with five image frames sized 24 x 36 mm can be slid for example.

Web la of ilm strip holder 1 includes an opening lb which extends over almost the total length of the holder and is divided by transverse webs 4 into a number of windows whose

size corresponds to that of the image frames. The width of the transverse webs 4 is substantially equal to the distance between adjacent images on the film strip.

The faces 4a of the transverse webs 4 of film strip holder

1, which face the film strip, are curved and may be slightly lower than web la.

At least one of the guide grooves 3 includes a leaf spring 6 whose free spring ends 6a and 6b are loosely mounted in the longitudinal web 2a of one of the longitudinal edges 2 of U-shaped cross-section.

For this purpose two bores 5 extending at right angles to guide groove 3 are provided in one of the longitudinal edges

2. As illustrated in particular in Figs. 4 and 5, the bores 5 are deep enough to provide cup-shaped recesses 5a in the longitudinal web 2a, in which the two spring ends 6a and 6b are received. The recesses 5a are each limited by a small web 2b.

Leaf spring 6 is arranged such that it is held biased by its clamping surface against web la of film strip holder 1, which extends in the area of guide groove 3, and by its spring ends 6a and 6b in the recesses 5a.

A film strip is introduced into the film strip holder 1 from the side and shifted between the clamping surface of leaf spring 6 and the web la of film strip holder la, which extends in the area of guide groove 3, until the image frames are in register with the windows lc formed by the transverse webs 4 in web la.