There are two basic camera types used for microfilming. These are the planetary and the rotary cameras. There are several types of both kinds of camera, each with different capabilities, including filming of oversize documents on the planetary MRG camera.
Some rotary cameras can read barcode sheets which are inserted at the beginning of the file.
Because this camera films only the size of the paper rather than the whole camera bed, each image size may be varied, making rotary film difficult to load to jackets. Up to 10,000 images can be contained on a 100 foot roll of film. The rotary camera is ideal for filming for CAR systems, although not all rotaries can produce the high resolution images required to be considered archival. It films at a reduction of 32X at a rate of about 4,000 an hour, single side only. Although this camera is very rapid, the film is difficult to load to jackets and is not considered archival.