FILM AND BATTERY LOADING METHOD FOR A SINGLE USE CAMERA SUCH AS A SINGLE USE APS CAMERA AND A CAMERA LOADED ACCORDING TO THE SAME

A method and an apparatus for pre-loading a single use camera with film (24). The camera is pre-loaded in non-darkroom with the back cover assembled to the camera without exposing any substantial portion of the film (24). The camera has a film advance mechanism (22) that employs a manual advance wheel (40) which is rotated in opposing directions to pre-load film from a film cassette (26) in the camera to a film spool compartment and to wind film back into the film cassette (26) from the film spool compartment (16) as exposures are taken. The film advance mechanism (22) also opens and closes the film cassette's light lock door (28) and employs a film sensor to disable the film advance mechanism (22) from operating the light lock door (28) when film is present in a film path (68a) of the camera. The battery (90) is inserted inside the film spool compartment (16) to minimize the camera size.