Anybody use APS?

[fotophox]

What has your experience been with this format? My only time with it was a Fuji disposable I took to London, where I got nice panoramas of the Thames.

 

[Eric Rose]

you can still buy film for it??

 

[blaze-on]

Yeah I do-for floss when i run out...

 

[Dave Parker]

Kodak, and Fuji, have both commited to continue to supply film for the next 7 years, even though the cameras have been discontinued.

Dave

 

[ann]

i have a wonderful little Nikor APS, i use for "travel trash", playful things around the house cat things, very sharp, very elegant little camera

 

[MattCarey]

There are some really cool things about the technology. There is actually magnetic tape embedded in the film to record data.

I never tried applying a magnet to a roll and sending it in, though...


Matt

 

[Bighead]

Well, When I decided I wanted to "take pictures" 4 years ago, thats what I got. I was intemedated by film and digital and this looked really easy. Kodak APS point and shoot. 3 sizes to shoot with, one being the panarama, which was kind of cool.....

This was a great camera for outdoor stuff, low light situations were not all that great. But consider, I think they only made 100 and 400 film. The best of pics were fantastic, considering.

I think its a near gone technology though. Film is hard to find and who knows about processing.

 

[Sino]

Plus, you can't enlarge that much, as the film format is tiny...


-Sino.

 

[modafoto]

Almost anywhere in Denmark you can drop off your APS films for dev. Photo stores, supermarkets et.al.

I have tried it once with a friends P&S and Kodak's APS Advantix black & white chromogenic film. Nice to be able to use black & white film in APS. My friend uses it a lot after we tested the film.

Dead Link Removed

 

[ElrodCod]

What has your experience been with this format? My only time with it was a Fuji disposable I took to London, where I got nice panoramas of the Thames.

It ranks right up there with the Disc and 110.

 

[Robert Hall]

It ranks right up there with the Disc and 110.

Hey, watch what you say about 110 mister!

 

[127]

Hey, watch what you say about 110 mister!

I second that!

Any one who diss'es 110 has to answer to my girlfriend (A fight you don't want to get into ;-)). She uses a Pentax 110 for a lot of her art stuff - extreme close ups, and lots of grain. Lovely cameras. The Rollei A110 is pretty cool too.

Ian

 

[BradS]

I wound up shooting a couple of disposable APS cameras by mistake once....pretty interesting...how does one get the film out of the little casette?

 

[Bighead]

I wound up shooting a couple of disposable APS cameras by mistake once....pretty interesting...how does one get the film out of the little casette?

Step 1: Grab hammer

Step 2: Oh, well, you get the point.....

There is even attachments for your NIkon coolscan, and such, to drop the whole cartridge in... Obviously, a cartridge thats been developed.. I'd like to get one for archiving my exsisting 40 rolls of aps film.....

 

[modafoto]

Any one who diss'es 110 has to answer to my girlfriend (A fight you don't want to get into ;-)). She uses a Pentax 110 for a lot of her art stuff - extreme close ups, and lots of grain. Lovely cameras. The Rollei A110 is pretty cool too.

You two are doing weird formats

 

[Flotsam]

My Konica Qscan Came with an APS scanning carrier. I only tried it once when someone gave me a roll that they had shot. It really was a convenient way to handle film but I was never interested in buying a camera.

It is funny to think of how many small film formats have come and gone since 35mm was first put in a still camera.

 

[Bighead]

My Konica Qscan Came with an APS scanning carrier

Or maybe I'll just pay you to scan my film and mail me some CD's....

 

[BradS]

My Konica Qscan Came with an APS scanning carrier. I only tried it once when someone gave me a roll that they had shot. It really was a convenient way to handle film but I was never interested in buying a camera.

It is funny to think of how many small film formats have come and gone since 35mm was first put in a still camera.

but...does the scanner read the secret messages from the magnetic strip on the film edge?

 

[Brac]

The good thing about APS is you can pick up some real bargains in new cameras, there are even a few new SLR's still lurking about if you look hard enough. I bought a shop-soiled Minolta S100 SLR for £42 (which is cheap) back in 2000 and have had some very nice results from it. In the UK, colour print film from Kodak, Fuji & Agfa is readily available in various speeds, as is processing and if you want most processors still offer the facility of producing a CD when you have your film processed.

Sadly it is a format that's clearly on it's way out so how many more years these options will be available is anyone's guess.

You can get from www.7dayshop.com and no doubt elsewhere APS film cassette storage cases that store ten cassettes & thumbnail prints and provide an index. These are exactly the size of a VHS cassette which is very handy.

 

[fparnold]

When I saw APS, I always wondered why they didn't reintroduce the 1/2 frame 35mm cameras instead, and save themselves the packaging, marketing, and consumer confusion of yet another format.

Personally, i'm waiting for 616 to come back, but that's just me.

 

[Sanjay Sen]

Why did the APS technology/format not work out, in your opinion?

I have a friend who bought a Canon APS camera in 2000, and I was expecting the format to be popular among snap-shooters because of the convenience of loading/unloading, and the choice of formats (regular, panorama, etc.) at the flip of a switch.

 

[Flotsam]

If anything was in the sights of digital from the gitgo it was APS. If it wasn't for digital. it might have lasted even longer than disk film.

 

[mfobrien]

I have a Minolta S-1 APS SLR with a zoom and a macro lens. Actually, it's not a bad camera for fun stuff, and in panorama mode, it's a blast. If you shoot the C-41 B&W Kodak film, you can always make your own prints (the cartridge actually opens easily once you know how), on B&W paper.
I agree, it was DOA against digital. The same sized cameras (Digital Elph vs Canon Elph) that used APS as P&S, are now replaced by their digital offspring. I note that my Minolta S-1 now has a very similar-looking non-relative, the Olympus E-volt 330, which has a sideways prism and body shape like the S-1.
Half-frame -- my Olympus Pen D is a wonderful piece of work.

 

[Brac]

Why did the APS technology/format not work out, in your opinion?

I have a friend who bought a Canon APS camera in 2000, and I was expecting the format to be popular among snap-shooters because of the convenience of loading/unloading, and the choice of formats (regular, panorama, etc.) at the flip of a switch.

The biggest thing going against APS unfortunately is that almost everywhere it is more expensive to process & print than the equivalent 35mm film. When Kodak announced in the UK that they were dropping APS cameras (but not film) that triggered a big post mortem in the photographic press. One of the biggest amateur labs in the UK (the Bonusprint group) said the problem was that when the format was developed by Kodak & its APS partners they did not consult with the photofinishing trade and the resulting product was inherently more expensive to process than 35mm. A great pity and of course digital P & S cameras have put another nail in the coffin but at the moment you can still get cameras, film, processing and scanning to CD, so it's worth enjoying its benefits while you can!

 

[PB001]

Miffed a little!

I was in my local lab one day and I spotted this incredible sunset coming out of the printer, it was big too 24x16. When I asked who took and what with, in my imagination picturing some wonderful piece of kit, I was told some dude took it as a snap with an APS while on holiday.

The week before I'd just bought a Bronica, I'll let you imagine the discusting look on my face....

Paul Berry