APS film?

[Sergey Ko]

My efforts so far have failed. I got the film cut to the right size, got the perfs lined up. The camera will load the film but just wind to the end and then rewind it. I've tried in Top of the line cameras, mid and cheap. So far no luck. I wonder if Mr. Chong knows something I don't.

The same happened with original expired APS film with bad magnetic strip!

 

[Sergey Ko]

Ok, four months later, I found my one APS cartridge and Advantix camera. The idea of taping 16mm film to the APS film did NOT work. It bound up in the camera.
Even a strip of 16mm film only 20cm long still bound and jammed the camera.

I think I'll stick to reloading sheet film holders, 35mm, 16mm and Minox cartridges for now.

View attachment 358922 View attachment 358923 View attachment 358924

Excellent idea! You have to use some 16mm microfilm, it usually have a 0,12-0,15mm thick base. And it is unperforated.
The APS frame height is 16,7mm, but for panoramas is 9,5mm -so 16mm unperforated film is enough.
Tо glue only the beginning to properly roll the film... Ideally, make a cutout 0.5 mm deep and 16 mm wide in the frame window plate...
But the problem how will camera understand the multi exposing of the film?

 

[Cholentpot]

https://cohost.org/ogtronix/post/6064394-reloading-aps-film-w

This guy built a contraption and has reloaded APS film. He claims the magnetic layer is not an issue. So it seems that it's possible to do...somehow.

 

[xkaes]

He says it all in his report -- a total PITA. In my book that means APS is DOA.

At least there still are a ton of great 35mm half-frame cameras out there for people interested in the format (almost exactly the same) and smaller cameras -- like the Pentax 17 and Ektar H35.

http://www.subclub.org/shop/halframe.htm

 

[Cholentpot]

He says it all in his report -- a total PITA. In my book that means APS is DOA.

At least there still are a ton of great 35mm half-frame cameras out there for people interested in the format (almost exactly the same) and smaller cameras -- like the Pentax 17 and Ektar H35.

http://www.subclub.org/shop/halframe.htm

Yes, but there's a chance...

I've been using my EOS IX and it's a shame once my APS stock runs out that the camera is basically useless. I really like the camera, it feels good in the hand and is very responsive. I like the wide APS format too. Be nice if a modern digital camera would have that.

 

[MattKing]

When Canon first introduced their APS film camera(s), they hadn't yet designed lenses which were specific to the smaller frame, or a lens mount designed for that purpose. So the initial camera(s) and lenses used a full frame EF mount, and those first lenses were usable on full frame EF mount film cameras.
I have a fun, useful and small 22-55mm zoom lens from that time which is very handy on my EOS film bodies, and worked well on the APS digital body I had for a time.

 

[Cholentpot]

When Canon first introduced their APS film camera(s), they hadn't yet designed lenses which were specific to the smaller frame, or a lens mount designed for that purpose. So the initial camera(s) and lenses used a full frame EF mount, and those first lenses were usable on full frame EF mount film cameras.
I have a fun, useful and small 22-55mm zoom lens from that time which is very handy on my EOS film bodies, and worked well on the APS digital body I had for a time.

I've been using a 17-40 f/4L on my APS SLR and it really fits the format. I'd love a way to reload some Tmax100 into the cans.

 

[xkaes]

I like the wide APS format too. Be nice if a modern digital camera would have that.

They do. It's called cropping. I do it more often than not -- but I know that's blasphemy to some.

 

[Cholentpot]

They do. It's called cropping. I do it more often than not -- but I know that's blasphemy to some.

I like to see what I'm shooting through the viewfinder as I'm shooting. I also like the idea of a native aspect ratio. Sure I can crop a 6x6 any way I want, and it can handle it. But I like composing for 6x6 on a 6x6.

 

[xkaes]

I like to see what I'm shooting through the viewfinder as I'm shooting. I also like the idea of a native aspect ratio. Sure I can crop a 6x6 any way I want, and it can handle it. But I like composing for 6x6 on a 6x6.

Last time I heard there is no law against composing that way. I do it all the time on my 4x5. I also have marks on my ground glass for 6x7 shoots -- for my 120 holder. And I'm also able to visualize 1x5" panoramas -- which I can see panoramas with my 35mm half-frame cameras, too.

 

[Bill Burk]

I went through a bunch of old photos yesterday, looking for some negatives. As I came across a couple of rolls of APS films I though to myself "wow, this did not age well". Sorry to be of no help.

You mean the format came and went so fast you could blink and miss it? At least it lives on as a popular digital sensor size because the size had a lot going for it in terms of smaller cameras smaller lenses and good enough image quality

 

[Bill Burk]

Was there anything else other than the Nikon 5000 (and some predecessors) that could scan APS film?

Minolta Multiscan is the one I have. Reminds me… the SSD failed on computer I setup last year so I had to get another SSD and set it up again.

It’s setup and ready to go but I am rolling it aside to try to get back into the darkroom.

 

[Bill Burk]

Sometimes you have to go to eBay when a scanner needs service. My other scanner is a 35mm-only Acer Scanwit 2740s. When the drive gear broke, I bought a 2720s for the part.

While setting up the scanner station this time around the Scanwit 2740s stepper motor failed and the one from the 2720s was a drop-in replacement.

Mind the SCSI ID’s. At on point after setting up on the bench, I took everything apart to reassemble on a cart. I accidentally clicked a SCSI ID into conflict with the Zip drive and the scanner stopped working until I figured it out.

Turns out it wasn’t the lack of terminator or bend in the wire after all.

I also took better notes and saved all the drivers to a usb drive for the future. It’s a pain going through all the steps.

That’s why I like the darkroom better

 

[Bill Burk]

I bought a slide tray from Laser and this discussion reminded me of him.

Kodak was really interested in making a success of APS

 

[xkaes]

Kodak was really interested in making a success of APS

Minolta certainly wanted it to succeed -- with it's SLRs.

 

[cerber0s]

You mean the format came and went so fast you could blink and miss it? At least it lives on as a popular digital sensor size because the size had a lot going for it in terms of smaller cameras smaller lenses and good enough image quality

Yep, the format came and went fast. I put it in the same category as MiniDisc, something absolutely brilliant that happened to hit the market in the wrong time; APS as digital cameras started to become available to the general public, and MiniDisc as MP3 players became popular.

 

[armadsen]

Yep, the format came and went fast. I put it in the same category as MiniDisc, something absolutely brilliant that happened to hit the market in the wrong time; APS as digital cameras started to become available to the general public, and MiniDisc as MP3 players became popular.

Minidisc came out in 1993, quite a few years before MP3 players. It wasn’t hugely successful in the US, but it was ubiquitous in Japan. Last time I was there, in 2019, you could still easily buy blank minidiscs at any electronics store.

 

[cerber0s]

Minidisc came out in 1993, quite a few years before MP3 players. It wasn’t hugely successful in the US, but it was ubiquitous in Japan. Last time I was there, in 2019, you could still easily buy blank minidiscs at any electronics store.

That’s five years prior to the mp3 player. Even so I’d argue that mp3 killed what MD could have become.

 

[koraks]

mp3 killed what MD could have become.

Apart from a couple of niche applications. I had a girlfriend in those days who was a stage performer. Minidisc was used extensively in that scene to record and evaluate rehearsals. In fact, it was the de-facto standard. Contrary to CD or early-day MP3, minidisc allowed live recording, which was a killer feature in that particular niche. For the mass public that just wanted to play back studio recordings, this was irrelevant, however.

 

[cerber0s]

Apart from a couple of niche applications. I had a girlfriend in those days who was a stage performer. Minidisc was used extensively in that scene to record and evaluate rehearsals. In fact, it was the de-facto standard. Contrary to CD or early-day MP3, minidisc allowed live recording, which was a killer feature in that particular niche. For the mass public that just wanted to play back studio recordings, this was irrelevant, however.

That’s pretty cool, I didn’t know that.

I wonder if I still have my old MD player, and how the discs stood the test of time?

 

[koraks]

That’s pretty cool, I didn’t know that.

Yeah, as said, it was a niche application, but it persisted into the first decade of the 2000s. I think what ultimately killed that application of MD was the iPhone, basically.

I still have an MD player but AFAIK it broke long ago. I don't have any MD's, so I can't really test it...and the device it's integrated into is buried in storage anyway.

 

[armadsen]

I own 3 MD players, and a hundred or so disks. I last played some of them a week or so ago, and none had any problems.

 

[Agulliver]

I still have two portable MD recorders, both working fine and discs from the 90s are all good too. A durable format. ATRAC was a bit strange but less horrible on the ear than most MP3 files, especially until relatively recently when the compression software got better and bit rates also typically increased with storage space. If I had chosen to, I could still have bought discs from my local Maplin up to the moment they closed in 2018. I do recall taking one of the machines on a flight from London to various parts of the USA (and back) circa 2011 and at the London end nobody batted an eyelid.....on the way back the staff at both US airports where I had my bags scanned (I think XNA and Atlanta) were dumbfounded....had no idea what it was. I had to explain it was a music player. It does look like Sony still manufacture minidiscs for the Japanese market. I may investigate this when I visit in april next year.

EDIT - it looks like Tascam discontinued their final MD recorder as late as 2020!

As for APS, I always got the impression Kodak wanted it to be a success in their traditional market of everyday amateurs....the problem was that a few years after APS appeared, we started to get viable compact digital cameras.

 

[Bill Burk]

I sync’d a slide show to an MD last Superbowl weekend. I simply played a side of The Eagles “Desperado” into its input. I used a cassette deck to record audio sync track for a Digicue. I planned for them to play their CD, assuming they had it. But no, glad I had the MD.

Normally I would mix a few different songs but I was planning to use their audio and it’s not hard to fit “Deulin’ Daltons” to a drive up the mountains behind a pickup truck

 

[Dziki_Jam]

About winding unexposed film -may be it also depends of camera.
It hapened to me with a new unopened film. Some years ago I bought from Ebay different sets of 10-20 new expired films, Fuji, Kodak, Konica.
I talk to my friend, he is a owner of photolab in Vilnius, the only who works with APS, he said that the poor magnetic strip that give instruction to lab machine can be the problem.

Hi. Could you share the contacts of this lab? If it's still open.