The last film format ever invented?

[Reiska]

Next stop, Thrift Shop !.

When I saw it and the seller weren't too grasping and the money was burning my pocket, I bought it. Although it has a rather modest kit lens, it represents a vanishing technology and it is only few years old, I bought it. A hasty calculation attested me, that after twentyfive years it is more than a quarter of the century old and it will be OK in my collection. (The cost for me is then one Euro / Year)

It is obvious, that all cameras using film are soon called history. Advanced Photo System was released in 1996 by Canon and some other major manufacturers, including Agfa, Fuji,
Kodak, Minolta and Nikon. Was it Kodak as a starter? APS system has some advancements like the ability to record shooting data to film, a possibility to change negative formats, change a film in the middle of the roll etc.

[nikonbob]

Everyone should have at least one APS camera in their collection just to cover all the film format for posterity. Nice find with that Canon. A couple of weeks ago my cousin gave me his Minolta Vectis outfit with two lenses. Too bad APS appeared just when digital took off or it might have stood a chance of being popular instead of just a flash in the pan oddity.

Bob

[ebolton]

I have an EOS IX just like that. I bought it new about the time it was discontinued. It's actually a great camera to use. Obviously small, its quick and reliable to load. It's really quiet for a motor drive camera, the controls work well (for me at least), and the metering and autofocus work great. I don't exersize it often, but whenever I do I love using it. It's a shame APS has earned such a stigma.

[PeterW]

Sorry, Reijo, Bob et al, I seem to have missed this thread.

Some time ago I picked up a little Canon Ixus FF APS format, brand new and still wrapped inside its opened box but with no film. It was cheap, and I bought it because it was a Canon and because I hadn't got an example of an APS camera.

Haven't tried it yet because I haven't come across any APS film except at silly prices plus postage.

APS was a good idea, as were many of Kodak's innovations in film format, though this was a joint development by Kodak, Canon, Fuji, Minolta and Nikon. Unfortunately, not many small laboratories wanted to process it because the volume wouldn't repay the cost of modifying their existing automatic machinery. It was a true 'you press the button and we do the rest' idea but didn't catch on. Maybe, as Bob said, it was a pity it appeared just as digital was taking off.

Several things against using it now, from my point of view. It's very expensive to run, not many places want to process it. I'm told it's not easy to get the film out of the cartridge to process it yourself unless you've got a special opener, and I haven't heard of a tank to take 24mm wide film. I haven't come across anyone who has successfuly cut down other film sizes to 24mm, who knows how to reload an APS cartridge and how to get the film to advance without having the coded information on the film.

Seems my Ixus is destined to be a shelf queen.

PeterW

[Andrew]

It was a popular format down here, for family point and shoot type things and holiday snaps. i would often see friends and family showing off their panoramic prints.

it never appealed to me at all really though. thats not to say i didnt admire the technology but i just didnt see the sence in it for me. it reminded me of 110 film but with some fancy coding and extra benifits. and i just couldnt see any benifit over 35mm film. Smaller film so less resolution (to me 35mm was poor enough compared to MF) ,i could crop 35mm for panorama if i wished, with the latest 35mm Canons cameras if i wanted to change film mid roll, they could be rewound leaving the leader exposed still, i used to write (or scratch) which frame i was up to on the cassette.

to refresh my memory of the exact dimentions of the film i did a little search and came across this site www.cameraquest.com/aps.htm

it made me laugh when i got to the end...it started out more or less saying how good the format and system is, then is updated a few years later complaining about the costs and disadavantages and then was last updated in 2002 and said...

APS seems dead at this point, my gawd what a surprise. Many APS cameras are either discontinued, or on their way to being discontinued. I can't help but wonder how much the promoters of this bonehead film format ended up losing, not to mention the gullibles who bought expensive top of the line APS cameras, only to see their investment plunge. The next time the powers that be introduce a wonderful new film format, think twice.

the bonehead comment made me laugh, taking into account, thats what the feeling must have been at the time this film system was introduced (and then dimised), like no other with the internet available and was commented on...since then the page hasnt been updated

[Deleted]

Personally, I'm rooting for the return of the Kodak Disk Camera. Now THAT was real innovation.

[camerastoomany]

Recently I've made a couple of forays on Ebay looking for an EOS IX for my Canon collection. So far, I've found the selling prices a little rich for me. The last was a couple of weeks ago and the price passed $90.00. Somebody wants them. Is it users or collectors?

[Reiska]

Hej folks!

Now my cameras are at home again after six weeks exhibition in the local Emil Cedercreutz Museum. Every second day also I was there and luckily most of the time with visitors.

As ebolton writes, EOS IX appears to be a decent camera. The small frame size (16.7x30.2 mm) obviously was one reason for the short exploitation time. It is still in use but like Peter tells, the developing service etc. is expensive and floundering.

It was a popular format up here too but as mentioned, only a few years time. The last nail in the coffin was "digitalization" . Disk format was a total disaster like Wayne so tactfully brings out.

Anyway they both (APS and Kodak Disk) lived longer than some of the "great" digital innovations today.

[chrisy]

Hi all I think the main thrust of aps was the ease of loading, aimed at people that couldn't load 35mm and didn't want to learn. Bet we all know a few like that! A friend of mine who worked in the trade called them the 'Brownie 127 brigade'They then migrated to digital en mass. Now all we want is for someone to invent a camera that they can give instructions to so they dont actually have to bother to touch it. It just does it all for them and delivers the pics straight to their computer!
Could it happen.....? I remember when auto focus was just a dream......
A happy and peaceful Christmas to you all.
Chris

[ebolton]

I'd echo brac's remarks. There is a Wal-Mart local to me that processes the APS film (locally) at the same price they do 35mm film, so that was my solution. Unfortunately, they had a personnel change, and now their quality isn't good. One reason I don't use the EOS-IX much anymore.

[sl]

Dec 26, 2008 11:34:33 GMT -5 @brac said:

It's a pity APS came in just as digital began to take off. I'm very fond of my Minolta Vectis S-100 SLR which gives good results. But APS film isn't designed for home processing and the negatives are best kept in their original cassette.

My first post to this forum...

I have a Vectis S-1. It's a pity the V system lenses are so rare. My S-1 came with the 22-80 mm zoom, so it's pretty useful as it is, but sometimes you would need a bit more reach. I also have Vectis 25 and Konica Revio Z3 compacts. I don't use them much, but when I do I shoot only APS-H. Using an APS camera for APS-C is waste of film and the Panoramic mode is simply a joke.

By the way, I don't think APS was killed by digital. Sales were already plummeting in 2000, two years before digital went mainstream. I believe high processing costs and smaller 35 mm compact cameras killed the APS. When APS was launched in 1995 most 35mm zoom compacts were still pretty big, but they got a lot smaller by 2000. Of course they also lost about 2/3 and sometimes one full f-stop of lens speed, but most consumers do not know about f-stops and the slower lenses were partially compensated by better ISO 400 and 800 print films. Only partially though, since most 35 mm zoom compacts made after 1997 or thereabouts are real pain to use due to the slow lenses. You can pretty much forget about the long end of the zoom with slower than ISO 400 film.

[Deleted]

Welcome to the group and I agree with you. Digital didn't kill APS. It already was dying because of the more compact 35mm point and shoots.

[mickeyobe]

I think APS was a format(s) whose time was never to come.

All pictures were recorded on film 30.2x16.7 mm - just 56% of full frame 35 mm. That was called H for High Definition. Truly a misnomer.

C for Classic Provided the same 3:2 format as 35 mm but only 25.1x16.7 mm that was cropped from H. What a reduction in quality compared to 24x36 mm.

P or Panoramic at 30.2x9.5 mm was not a true panoramic picture. The already too small H was cropped to provide a long, narrow pseudo panorama. It was usually very disappointing.

The exorbitant costs of camera, film and processing doomed APS from the start.
The usually poor processing sealed its fate.

Mickey

[sl]

Feb 7, 2009 15:07:38 GMT -5 mickeyobe said:

I think APS was a format(s) whose time was never to come.

All pictures were recorded on film 30.2x16.7 mm - just 56% of full frame 35 mm. That was called H for High Definition. Truly a misnomer.

C for Classic Provided the same 3:2 format as 35 mm but only 25.1x16.7 mm that was cropped from H. What a reduction in quality compared to 24x36 mm.

P or Panoramic at 30.2x9.5 mm was not a true panoramic picture. The already too small H was cropped to provide a long, narrow pseudo panorama. It was usually very disappointing.
Mickey

On the other hand APS was never intended to be a professional format. 56% of the 35 mm film area is also slightly misleading, since it actually means 75% of the resolution... The human eye does not see the difference in areas or total number of image forming elements, whether they are dye clouds, silver particles or pixels. That's also why twice the pixel count is actually only 40% more resolution when it comes to digital cameras. It is also the reason why formats between 35 mm and 645 never survived for very long; they simply were not that much better than 35 mm. (Yes, I do know that 127 and 4x4 was fairly popular for a while. )

I find APS-H quite acceptable for 8" x 15" prints with ISO 200 print film and if I overexpose just right (1/2-1 stops) even 10" x 18" is OK. The lab I use offers those sizes at a same price as corresponding sizes from 35 mm. Unfortunately I never got to try the Fuji APS slide film, which I gather was the same film as the "New" Sensia 100. It probably would have produced much better results still.

Of course what people find acceptable varies greatly. Some people never print larger than 8" x 12" from 35 mm. In any case, for 4"x 6" (APS-C) and 4" x 7" (APS-H) prints APS had plenty of resolution. They are essentially indistinguishable from 35 mm prints. That was NOT the case with earlier sub-35 mm formats such as 110 and disk film when they were introduced. On the other hand, with modern films you can get very good 4" x 6" prints even from 110. In fact I have seen pretty good 4" x 6" prints from Minox (8x11 mm), which means that the film area of APS-C was actually unnecessarily large for the most commercially important print size ;D

[olroy2044]

That was NOT the case with earlier sub-35 mm formats such as 110 and disk film when they were introduced. On the other hand, with modern films you can get very good 4" x 6" prints even from 110

I must respectfully disagree with you on the 110 being limited to 4x6 prints. I shoot a Pentax auto 110 extensively, and the results are staggering. Of course, it is a very high-quality, top end camera, and was quite expensive in its day. The Minolta 110 SLR was also very high quality, and capable of outstanding results. The knock on 110 and APS in general is that most gear made for those formats is, quite frankly, junk! The poor disk format never had a chance.

With high-end equipment, 110 and APS both are capable of very good results. The biggest issue with both is finding a processor who is willing to deal with the non-35mm format. Both formats are still available at my local Wal-mart, as is in-house processing. I am fortunate in that I have developed a personal relationship with the techs at W/M, and they take special care with my film, and the results are all that one could ask for.

Roy