Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

[Agulliver]

It also strikes me that 126 cameras were made in great numbers from the mid 60s into the 80s. Whereas disc cameras were never very popular and were only available for a few years. There are far fewer functioning disc cameras around today than there are 126 cameras. Indeed I would put money on the last 126 camera being made at a later date than the last disc camera. At any rate, there is 10-15 years worth of good quality (if mostly "point and shot") 126 cameras out there compared to maybe 5 years worth of poor selling low end disc cameras.

It's easier to process 126 film, indeed B&W can be done by anyone who has a 35mm spiral and tank...colour is quite similar to 35mm though I guess the lab needs the ability to deal with the cartridge. Contrast disc which needs a far more specialised set of equipment.

I'd agree that making the film from a disc had a certain novelty and cool value in 1983.....CDs were just becoming a thing around that time and floppy discs for computers were definitely cool and something to aspire to.

 

[Agulliver]

Kodak Disc occupied the ecological niche of the 110 format: a camera which could be always in a woman's purse, to capture moments of her children, school parties, holidays, happy hours with friends etc. Good for having always with you, just in case. Probably 126 had the same intentions initially, but the cameras were not small enough.

126 had the advantage of the light-tight cartridge in respect to 135 which requires you to learn to load a film into the camera. That might seem trivial, but I remember, when I was a child, my parents going to the photolab, or to the photo shop, with the camera (Voigtländer Vito C) to have it unloaded and loaded. As easy as it is, some people just fear complications. 126 was brilliant, because you would be "dead sure" that you could load and unload your camera without risking the film to catch light. At 7 years of age I could load my Kodak Instamatic, and they couldn't load their serious camera (!).

And therein lies another problem....the 110 format already provided fair quality photos from a device which could be fitted in the pocket, handbag or purse. It also was fool proof and cheap. Kids and people who *nothing* about photography could take snap shots with a 110 camera. The only advantage disc had going for it was the cameras being slimmer. Even then, the total volume of a 110 camera was possibly smaller and you could actually get a half decent 4" print from even 400ASA film.

You're 100% correct that many people wanted something fool proof because they feared messing up with 135 or 120. I've never quite fathomed this because I've been able to use 120 rollfilm since I was four or five and view even the 135 cassette as superfluous...but I guess a lot of people experienced fogging of films or saw a relative's photos fogged with roll film and felt that a cartridge was easier. What 126 and 110 have going for them is that they are quick, and one can even hot swap (eg change film speed) only losing one frame. I remember doing that with the Minolta 110 SLR back in about 1982 going from bright sunlight and 100ASA film into a theatre and changing to 400ASA film.

What killed disc was the fact that the photos looked poor. It did nothing better or even as well as 110 and was clearly inferior to 126 and the more professional formats.

 

[MattKing]

The problem with 126 was that the cartridge was both expensive and wasteful, and the film flatness was terrible.
110 had similar problems with the cartridges EDIT: but film flatness was good.
The reason for disk film had more to do with the efficiencies it promised for the photofinishers. Those promises didn't really come to fruition.
APS would have provided the same or even better efficiencies, with higher quality, but its timing was terrible.
All of these formats had one huge advantage over 35mm film - they were simple to load into the camera, and you didn't have to rewind them at the end.
Unless you worked in retail during the time that 126 and 110 was common (like I did) you wouldn't necessarily realize how much difficulty many people had with loading and rewinding 35mm film!

 

[cmacd123]

It seemed that, at the time, 126 sales had reached a saturation point, and Kodak needed some new system to stimulate sales (rather like APS some years later?). Disc gave new cameras and accessories to sell, plus whole new processing lines being needed by labs.

Kodak back in the 70s and 80s made quite a bit of sales in keeping the Labs up with the latest equipment to process film. And that was all under service contracts to ensure the fellows in teh suits and ties with a tool box came in regualrly to adjust it and push the labs to update and upgrade. Both 110 (which was 16mm wide rather than 35mm wide) and disk, which had its own C-41A process required updates or additional processing machine. Printing machines would need new film holders and new lenses.

Noritsu managed to break this stranglehold by changing the nature of the processing business. Kodak even ended up selling re-badged Noritsu Processors.

110 was mall but the form factor was awkward with the camera having to have a certain depth.

BTW, the 110 Cartridge was designed to curve the film, so that a simple lens could give sharper edges.

 

[railwayman3]

There were some very high quality 126 cameras produced (Rollei, Zeiss, etc.) and even a few for 110 (Pentax, Minox), but nothing equivalent for disc. Should 126 film reappear, I would be tempted to pick up one of the SLR cameras, if available at a reasonable price.

 

[Agulliver]

I had the Minolta 110 SLR (first version)....which was pretty good to be honest. I still have it but there's something wrong with the shutter mechanism.

 

[benveniste]

There were some very high quality 126 cameras produced (Rollei, Zeiss, etc.) and even a few for 110 (Pentax, Minox), but nothing equivalent for disc. Should 126 film reappear, I would be tempted to pick up one of the SLR cameras, if available at a reasonable price.

I looked at buying a Kodak Instamatic Reflex a few years ago. Not only do you have to worry about film availability, but you'll need to figure out what to do about PX625 batteries.

 

[flavio81]

And therein lies another problem....the 110 format already provided fair quality photos from a device which could be fitted in the pocket, handbag or purse. It also was fool proof and cheap. Kids and people who *nothing* about photography could take snap shots with a 110 camera.

My first camera was a 110 camera as well... !

The problem with 126 was that the cartridge was both expensive and wasteful, and the film flatness was terrible.
110 had similar problems with the cartridges!

I didn't know 126 had problems with film flatness. And I thought 110 film had no problems with film flatness. At least, some scans of film taken by the Pentax Auto 110 camera show no problems of flatness.

BTW, the 110 Cartridge was designed to curve the film, so that a simple lens could give sharper edges.

Are you sure? All 110 cameras i've seen have a square, flat window for the image frame, and last time i saw a 110 cartridge with its film exposed, the film appeared to stay flat.

 

[Agulliver]

I've never seen a curved 110 camera. I think there are issues with 110 film "breathing" in the cartridge due to not having a proper pressure plate. Doesn't 126 have some sort of plastic pressure plate?

Either way, I found it was possible to make reasonable photos with cheap pocket 110 cameras when conditions were good...and pretty good photos with the Minolta 110 zoom SLR

 

[railwayman3]

The problem with 126 was that the cartridge was both expensive and wasteful, and the film flatness was terrible.
110 had similar problems with the cartridges.

The 126 "pressure plate" is part of the cartridge (the whole cartridge in held in place against the film aperture when the camera back is closed). As the cartridge is evidently a precision moulding and is held in place while the film is in the camera, I think that the film flatness was more of a theoretical worry. I have a large number of family slides on 126 Kodachrome and Ektachrome and have never noticed any focus faults attributable to film flatness issues, even on projection.
(And I don't see that the cartridge, being just two pieces of plastic moulding plus a paper backing paper, is any more wasteful than a 35mm cassette and container with metal and mixed plastic parts? Presumably the plastic and paper left over from a processed 126 film would all be easily recycled these days. )

 

[railwayman3]

I looked at buying a Kodak Instamatic Reflex a few years ago. Not only do you have to worry about film availability, but you'll need to figure out what to do about PX625 batteries.

There are work-arounds on mercury battery substitutes....try googling the Small Battery Company, in London, there's a lot of useful information on their site as well as a variety of substitute batteries for sale. Got my Yashica 124G meter working, and also substitute batteries for the 5.6v mercury cells for the flash (cubes!) on my basic Instamatics.

 

[MattKing]

My understanding is that 126 film did suffer from film flatness problems, which caused problems particularly when cameras like the Instamatic Reflex were used with the longer lens(es) available for it.
As for my comment about 110 film, I was trying to say that it suffered from similar problems with the cartridges, but I was trying not to say anything about film flatness - 110 film didn't suffer from them.

 

[afriman]

Film flatness and precise positioning of the film at the focal plane was always a concern with film formats supplied in cartridges. This was not only the case with 126 and 110, but also with Super 8 movie film. I remember reading an article according to which this was one of the reasons that not many manufacturers were interested in developing advanced cameras for these formats, which were seldom used by professionals or serious hobbyists. A cartridge system simply could not provide the degree of precision required for critical focusing, e.g. in macro photography or with long telephoto lenses.

 

[benveniste]

There are work-arounds on mercury battery substitutes....try googling the Small Battery Company, in London, there's a lot of useful information on their site as well as a variety of substitute batteries for sale. Got my Yashica 124G meter working, and also substitute batteries for the 5.6v mercury cells for the flash (cubes!) on my basic Instamatics.

The MR-9 adapter and silver oxide 386 cells are probably the best substitute, but paying $75+ for battery adapters for a $50 camera is bit more of a commitment than I wanted to make. For a camera I'd only use on a whim 1-2 times a year, zinc-air (Wein) cells are a non-starter, since I'd have to buy a new set every shoot. Of course, you could also just roll the dice with the Russian 625's available on eBay, but those came on the market after 126 film had disappeared.

 

[FILM Ferrania]

However for 'easy to use' cameras 126 format is the winner due to the image quality.
FILM Ferrania would be a bit silly if they don't release the P30 film in 126 format very soon. It will immediately find a market. There are tons of 126 cameras out there.

When we were salvaging equipment from the old buildings, we were able to take almost everything we wanted - however there was a point when we had to make a choice...

Nicola sent me a message one day - "Do you think we should take the APS converting and finishing machines, or the 126?"

I immediately responded 126!!! And so that's what now sits in our storage.

APS was a great format, but we follow a rule of thumb that cameras heavy with electronics (like APS) will "die" long before fully mechanical cameras. APS was also somewhat short-lived and thus there are simply fewer of those cameras versus millions of 126 cameras produced over a 30-year or so stretch.

Granted, the bulk of 126 cameras were crappy Kodak Instamatics - but their crappiness is not necessarily a problem.

I have a feeling that for many people who are coming to film for the first time, or are perhaps "on the fence" about film use in some way or another - 126 offers an ease of use that could be pretty attractive...

We also saved the 127 converting/finishing equipment...

Before someone says "So when can I buy 126/127?" - we have no idea at all. There's a LOT to do before we can consider spending the money necessary to pull these machines out of storage and incorporate them into our workflow.

There's obviously a chance that we will never make these two formats. We have the potential and the desire - but it remains to be seen if there is a real market.

 

[Europan]

The Kickstarter promise was for motion-picture film, 16mm and Super-8. Remains to be seen whether Film Ferrania will first make small gauge movie film or not. Forget 127 and 126, think of the thousands of 16mm and 8mm cameras that are not crappy at all! There are plastic Kodak Brownie 8s, no doubt, but the vast majority of small gauge ciné cameras are full metal. Ciné-Kodak, Ciné-Kodak Special, Kodak Reflex Special, Victor, Bell & Howell, Paillard-Bolex, Agfa Movex, Pathé, Keystone, Zeiss-Ikon, GiC, Beaulieu, Stewart-Warner, Miller, Ercsam, Eumig, Bauer, Niezoldi & Krämer, Suchánek-Meopta, Zenit, Canon, Sankyo, Fujica, Crown, Nikon, Elmo, Mamiya, Arco, Valiant, Mansfield, Simplex, DeVry, DeJur, Revere, Debrie, Geyer, Arnold & Richter, SEM, Crouzet, Cinéric, Armor, Emel, Noris, Cima, Pentacon, Dekko, GB-Bell & Howell, Bencini, Wittnauer, Fairchild, Mitchell, Maurer, Ditmar, Bolex, Bolsey, CP, Frezzolini, Argus, Facine, Kiew, Christen, Lévêque, Croydon, Morex, PLB, Schalie, Siemens & Halske, I’m not becoming tired naming them. If Ferraniachrome doesn’t get a foot in that door, Ektachrome will.

 

[Agulliver]

Glad to hear the 126 and 127 finishing equipment was saved, and I think I understand the logic behind the decision. I've never used a 126 camera but I am certainly aware that there must be loads of them around, largely mechanical (as opposed to electronic) and working or able to be coaxed into life. Far more available 126 cameras than APS cameras, and processing is probably less of an issue. At least a B&W 126 film can be hand processed by anyone who can do 35mm...for example.

As for super 8 colour reversal....that's what I am really waiting for. My Elmo Super 110, Elmo Super 103, Chinon 1200SM, Beaulieu 1008XL and Nizo S156 need some food!

 

[fdonadio]

I’m not becoming tired naming them.

And, still, you forgot Leitz! I have a beautiful Leicina Special with an Optivaron 6-66mm waiting for some color reversal film! All it has seen all this time is Tri-X!

 

[afriman]

The Kickstarter promise was for motion-picture film, 16mm and Super-8. Remains to be seen whether Film Ferrania will first make small gauge movie film or not. Forget 127 and 126, think of the thousands of 16mm and 8mm cameras that are not crappy at all! There are plastic Kodak Brownie 8s, no doubt, but the vast majority of small gauge ciné cameras are full metal. Ciné-Kodak, Ciné-Kodak Special, Kodak Reflex Special, Victor, Bell & Howell, Paillard-Bolex, Agfa Movex, Pathé, Keystone, Zeiss-Ikon, GiC, Beaulieu, Stewart-Warner, Miller, Ercsam, Eumig, Bauer, Niezoldi & Krämer, Suchánek-Meopta, Zenit, Canon, Sankyo, Fujica, Crown, Nikon, Elmo, Mamiya, Arco, Valiant, Mansfield, Simplex, DeVry, DeJur, Revere, Debrie, Geyer, Arnold & Richter, SEM, Crouzet, Cinéric, Armor, Emel, Noris, Cima, Pentacon, Dekko, GB-Bell & Howell, Bencini, Wittnauer, Fairchild, Mitchell, Maurer, Ditmar, Bolex, Bolsey, CP, Frezzolini, Argus, Facine, Kiew, Christen, Lévêque, Croydon, Morex, PLB, Schalie, Siemens & Halske, I’m not becoming tired naming them. If Ferraniachrome doesn’t get a foot in that door, Ektachrome will.

Yeah, many of those are indeed wonderful tools to shoot with! It's interesting that the film flatness issue turned out to be less of a problem with Super-8 cartridges. The long focal lengths, wide apertures and close focusing capabilities of the lenses on those cameras made for very shallow depth of field, and I'm not aware of any problems with focusing.

 

[railwayman3]

APS was a great format, but we follow a rule of thumb that cameras heavy with electronics (like APS) will "die" long before fully mechanical cameras. APS was also somewhat short-lived and thus there are simply fewer of those cameras versus millions of 126 cameras produced over a 30-year or so stretch.

Granted, the bulk of 126 cameras were crappy Kodak Instamatics - but their crappiness is not necessarily a problem.

I have a feeling that for many people who are coming to film for the first time, or are perhaps "on the fence" about film use in some way or another - 126 offers an ease of use that could be pretty attractive...

We also saved the 127 converting/finishing equipment...

Before someone says "So when can I buy 126/127?" - we have no idea at all. There's a LOT to do before we can consider spending the money necessary to pull these machines out of storage and incorporate them into our workflow.

There's obviously a chance that we will never make these two formats. We have the potential and the desire - but it remains to be seen if there is a real market.

I'm sure that you made the right choice keeping the machinery for 126. APS was an ingenious product, but overcomplicated and expensive for the ordinary snapshotter who just wanted nice holiday and family pics (rather like all-dancing, all-singing, smartphones....when many users really just want a simple reliable phone!), but nothing to attract the "serious" photographer from his existing gear, whether 120, 35mm, LF or whatever.

126 is/was a relatively simple, bomb-proof, system for the snapshotter....and I think that you are being rather harsh in dismissing Instamatics as crap. Simple, maybe, but little to go wrong, bit like a Box Brownie. I've a 50 y.o. Instamatic on my desk right now (simple shutter, couple of springs, been thrown around in bags and dropped a few times, but still working just fine), next to a Pentax MX body (about half the age) waiting to go off for repair of a seized shutter ! Not to mention a disc camera in a drawer.....even if film were available, the non-user-replaceable battery gave up years ago !

 

[flavio81]

@FILM Ferrania Thanks for the reply Dave! I think if 126 is made, it will create a lot of good publicity and demand for P30. Because most likely many online stores would want to carry it.

 

[flavio81]

. This was not only the case with 126 and 110, but also with Super 8 movie film. I remember reading an article according to which this was one of the reasons that not many manufacturers were interested in developing advanced cameras for these formats, which were seldom used by professionals or serious hobbyists. A cartridge system simply could not provide the degree of precision required for critical focusing, e.g. in macro photography or with long telephoto lenses.

Advanced/deluxe cameras were created for 126 and 110 format. Some of them were fitted with really good lenses. I don't think flatness was a issue with them.

If pros didn't buy them, it is obviously because they do know how to load and unload 35mm film... Or they have a Minox, in case of subminiature format.

 

[Craig75]

The Kickstarter promise was for motion-picture film, 16mm and Super-8. Remains to be seen whether Film Ferrania will first make small gauge movie film or not. Forget 127 and 126, think of the thousands of 16mm and 8mm cameras that are not crappy at all! There are plastic Kodak Brownie 8s, no doubt, but the vast majority of small gauge ciné cameras are full metal. Ciné-Kodak, Ciné-Kodak Special, Kodak Reflex Special, Victor, Bell & Howell, Paillard-Bolex, Agfa Movex, Pathé, Keystone, Zeiss-Ikon, GiC, Beaulieu, Stewart-Warner, Miller, Ercsam, Eumig, Bauer, Niezoldi & Krämer, Suchánek-Meopta, Zenit, Canon, Sankyo, Fujica, Crown, Nikon, Elmo, Mamiya, Arco, Valiant, Mansfield, Simplex, DeVry, DeJur, Revere, Debrie, Geyer, Arnold & Richter, SEM, Crouzet, Cinéric, Armor, Emel, Noris, Cima, Pentacon, Dekko, GB-Bell & Howell, Bencini, Wittnauer, Fairchild, Mitchell, Maurer, Ditmar, Bolex, Bolsey, CP, Frezzolini, Argus, Facine, Kiew, Christen, Lévêque, Croydon, Morex, PLB, Schalie, Siemens & Halske, I’m not becoming tired naming them. If Ferraniachrome doesn’t get a foot in that door, Ektachrome will.

and 16mm stills cameras. I can only get Kodak Double x for my Mec - it would be cool to have another option

 

[tim_walls]

I'm sure that you made the right choice keeping the machinery for 126. APS was an ingenious product, but overcomplicated and expensive for the ordinary snapshotter who just wanted nice holiday and family pics (rather like all-dancing, all-singing, smartphones....when many users really just want a simple reliable phone!), but nothing to attract the "serious" photographer from his existing gear, whether 120, 35mm, LF or whatever.

I have to respectfully disagree with the former (of course you're quite right about the "serious" photographer bit.) APS was incredibly simple and convenient for the holiday snapper - and I have plenty of packs of photos somewhere in my mother's loft to prove it ;-). Much more convenient and compact than 126 or 110 (my first camera was a 126 so I do have a soft spot for it), and features like the ability to choose 'panoramic' for certain photos in camera and have your prints come back accordingly were genuinely "wow, that's cool" for people (sure, we realise it was just a crop instruction for the printer, but it was still pretty cool.)

APS's only problem was it was too late. I had a Canon Ixus APS camera and loved it - but it was only a very short while later that I replaced it with the first Digital Ixus (which was, like its APS forebear, pretty much the pinnacle of what a holiday-snap-point-and-shoot camera should be, in my view. Whatever you think of APS or digital P&S cameras, I don't think the brand loyalty I got from them served me badly - my three go-to cameras are an A1, T90 and my EOS1v ;-))

 

[Agulliver]

Flatness/sharpness did not seem to be an issue with the Minolta 110 Zoom SLR that I had in the early 80s. Those photos were pretty sharp, I even had a few large prints made from 100ASA film. The 400ASA film did result in grain, as one would expect from such a small negative...but it was still OK for 4" prints which was generally the envisaged final product. It's possible that some of the more simple 110 cameras with fixed focus lenses produced inferior results though even those cameras were not a disaster.

The problem with APS was that it was aimed at the kind of person who would have bought a "crappy instamatic" in the 60s and 70s. But the very reason that 126 sales dwindled was because by the 80s those users could buy an automated 35mm compact camera from Canon, Konica etc. with auto or semi-auto film loading, auto or fixed focus, auto exposure...some had reasonable zoom lenses (eg Canon Sure Shot). Why should the average Joe buy a new camera, with limited types of expensive film available...which costs more to process? The chief selling point of APS, from what I remember at the time, was that it was fool proof. But by the 1980s, a decade before APS, so too was 35mm. The different aspect ratios, in an attempt to be cool with names like "HDTV", didn't appeal to most people and it was quickly realised that they were just crops from the full neg when you got the index print back because you could see the full image with the ruddy crop lines on it!!! People realised they were being fooled.

126 on the other hand had more than a decade of mainstream success, and continued into the late 70s only really being displaced in it's part of the market by the electronic, automatic 35mm cameras. Therefore, there will be in existence a lot of working 126 cameras and very few APS or disc cameras. Those 126 cameras designed for quick snapshots are still fully capable of performing that job with "instagram like" results. The better 126 cameras are surely capable of very nice photos in the now unusual square format. I'd think that Film Ferrania would tap into a small but extant market with 126 film....whereas disc or APS will have far fewer devotees. Both formats failed within a few years of introduction, and both require dedicated film production/packaging systems and processing.

The formats which succeed, generally do so because they solve a problem and actually have a market. Eg, 35mm was "miniature" compared to what came before and allowed for pocketable and certainly portable cameras. 126 succeeded because it solved the perceived problems of difficulty loading, rewinding and handling films and most cameras were fairly automated. 110 enjoyed some success because it allowed much smaller cameras even than 135 and 126, suitable for children or a lady's handbag. Disc failed because sub-mini cameras already existed. APS failed because fool proof pocketable cameras already existed.