Hello APUG from FILM Ferrania (PART 2)

[tim_walls]

APS failed because fool proof pocketable cameras already existed.

Completely genuine question - can you point me to a 35mm camera of comparable size to that old Canon Ixus of mine? I would really, really, really love such a thing. (Maybe I need to look for an Olympus PEN, although I fear still a long way from pocketable. Coat pocketable, maybe, but not jeans pocketable.)

 

[cmacd123]

Completely genuine question - can you point me to a 35mm camera ........ Coat pocketable, maybe, but not jeans pocketable.)

Smallest pockatable 35mm Camera I know is the Konica AA35. they are rare, and subject to electronic issues. they are also half frame so a touch (but not much) smaller than APS.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

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.
.

You're not the first person to "report" that "film flatness problems" caused issues when using longer lenses with the 126 cartridges.

However, let's take a close look at the situation involved. When it comes to the flatness of the film plane and depth of field, the effect is the reverse of what you would expect with relation to the focus on the subject.

Try placing two identical exchangeable-lens cameras next to each other, install a wide angle (short) on one, and long lens on the other. Set both lenses at infinity, then turn each lens from infinity to a closer focus (e.g., 2m or 7'). Notice that the long lens has made a longer throw away from the film plane than the short lens has. Consider that a non-flat film plane is essentially a plane on which one/some part(s) are different distances from the lens from other(s), and you will notice that the same amount of imperfections on the film plane cause more degradation to the image with the short lens than with the long lens.

Your fuzzy telephoto shots happened because you had less depth-of-field than you thought you had.

Where film plane flatness is the problem, the 200mm lens is not likely to be an issue, and can be ignored with a 1000mm lens. The "nightmare" lens for an imperfect film plane would be a 35mm/f1.4.

 

[afriman]

When it comes to the flatness of the film plane and depth of field, the effect is the reverse of what you would expect with relation to the focus on the subject..

Thank you for that explanation! Just shows how easy it is to make wrong assumptions. Without thinking it through, it seemed perfectly logical that a shallow depth of field would lead to less tolerance at the film plane.

As Matt King pointed out, film flatness was a real problem with 126, but not so with 110. Nevertheless, there was a widely held assumption that because 126 suffered from this problem, the same was true of 110. The real shortcoming of 110 was the small size of the frame, which produced images that were much grainier than those made with 35mm or 126. This was especially a problem when larger prints were required. Kodak had clearly misjudged consumers' expectations regarding image quality. One would have thought that they would have learned from this experience before introducing the ill-fated Disc format! As we all know, there have been great advances in colour film technology since then, and it would be interesting to see how the 110 format fares with today's emulsions.

 

[MattKing]

You're not the first person to "report" that "film flatness problems" caused issues when using longer lenses with the 126 cartridges.

However, let's take a close look at the situation involved. When it comes to the flatness of the film plane and depth of field, the effect is the reverse of what you would expect with relation to the focus on the subject.

Try placing two identical exchangeable-lens cameras next to each other, install a wide angle (short) on one, and long lens on the other. Set both lenses at infinity, then turn each lens from infinity to a closer focus (e.g., 2m or 7'). Notice that the long lens has made a longer throw toward the film plane than the short lens has. Consider that a non-flat film plane is essentially a plane on which one/some part (s) are different distances from the film lens from other (s), and you will notice that the same amount of imperfections on the film plane cause more degradation to the image with the short lens than with the long lens.

Your fuzzy telephoto shots happened because you had less depth-of-field than you thought you had.

Where film plane flatness is the problem, the 200mm lens is not likely to be an issue, and can be.ignored with a 1000mm lens. The "nightmare" lens for an imperfect film plane would be a 35mm/f1.4.

As I think about it, you are probably right about short focal length lenses being more demanding of film flatness than longer ones.
But then I think about the fact that most short focal length SLR lenses are actually retrofocus lenses, and my head starts to hurt.
In any case, that 126 film is held in place a lot more loosely than 135 film is, so I am pretty sure it isn't kept very flat.

 

[1L6E6VHF]

I can't remember if it was Modern Photography or Popular Photography, but one of those two did an article in the day (circa 1965) where they adapted a 126 film back onto a Leicaflex and got excellent results.

The worst thing to happen to the reputation of the Instamatic line was to give their top-of-the-line models (700/704/800/804) a Cooke triplet bored out to f 2.8. The less expensive Instamatic 500 (from Kodak's German subsidiary) was a far better tool. Kodak would put a four-element lens on their top Instamatic later, but Minolta and Zeiss were introducing better 126 models by then.

As for "crappy Kodak Instamatics", I would maintain that the only lousy 126 format Instamatics made by Kodak were the 44/11/Tira Teima, with their single lower shutter speed, and a shutter trip that needed considerable thrust, conspiring to cause camera shake blur (as well as overexposing slides in sunlight). Even the entry level 100/104/124/X-15 did their assigned tasks well, and were extremely durable. My aunt loved her 100 before someone stole it on vacation in New Zealand.

There were a lot of 126 format cameras made by others that were truly "crappy" (and a very few excellent ones, too).

As for APS, that was less of a technology enterprise than a legal exercise (intellectual property). APS was released immediately after the 1954 consent decree was reversed. A consortium of companies sought to create a Still Picture Patents Company, but by the time all the lawyering was complete, the Digital Steamroller was coming down.

 

[Europan]

Yeah, forgot a lot of brands: Leitz, Silma, Rexer, Cinklox, ICA, Wollensak, Redlake, Photosonics, Panavision, Milliken, Excel, Eclair, Auricon, RCA, Aaton, Olympus, Krasnogorsk, Moviematic, Kemco, Bell, Irwin, ETM, Univex, Franklin, Sekonic, Carena, Minolta, Ensign, Vinten, Microcine, Jelco, Yashica, Sanshin-Chinon-Edixa, Seiki, Plank, Koma, Moskinap

 

[BMbikerider]

I seem to remember that the top model of the 126 format Instamatic was made by Kodak. It was a simple auto only SLR with a Xenar lens. It was quite heavy and gave the impression of quality and a good finish. This would have been around April 1964 when I worked at a photographic shop in Newcastle (UK) and just before I went to join the Army.

 

[railwayman3]

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.)

Not wanting to disagree either, as I also have stacks of good APS family pics taken by my wife back in the early 2000's. OTOH, the "panoramic" size seem to be straining the limits of the lens/film for sharpness compared with a similar sized print from 35mm. I'm also not sure that Kodak's QC for the "Made in China" cameras was all that good....my wife's camera was OK, but an identical one which I bought for her as a spare (new, factory sealed, bought retail) was definitely not sharp by comparison.

 

[benveniste]

OTOH, the "panoramic" size seem to be straining the limits of the lens/film for sharpness compared with a similar sized print from 35mm. I'm also not sure that Kodak's QC for the "Made in China" cameras was all that good....my wife's camera was OK, but an identical one which I bought for her as a spare (new, factory sealed, bought retail) was definitely not sharp by comparison.

The "panoramas" from APS were merely enlarged crops, so the "ask" was to create a 4x11" print from a 30.2 by 9.5mm crop. That's about the same as asking for a 9x13.5" print from a 35mm negative, which to this day still requires a decent lens and technique. I still have a Nikon Pronea S and a few cartridges of frozen APS film. I've gotten got a few decent panoramas using a Nikon 20mm f/2.8 AF.

The debate over APS's failure to thrive probably belongs in its own thread.

 

[Agulliver]

The debate over APS's failure to thrive probably belongs in its own thread.

No argument there.

I think the debate's purpose was to discuss the relative merits of Film Ferrania saving the equipment to produce 126 and not APS. And from my point of view I'd say they made the right choice.

 

[Diapositivo]

I think the debate's purpose was to discuss the relative merits of Film Ferrania saving the equipment to produce 126 and not APS. And from my point of view I'd say they made the right choice.

Yet, I'm sad they couldn't save the APS equipment as well. Wasn't all that saved from the hand of the scrap metal industry?
I hope that whoever bought the APS equipment keeps it in good conditions.

APS was not useful only for the small camera market. For a tourist, going around with only one body, and being able to change film very fast, very easily, would have been very valuable. Somebody building their system at the time of APS could have chosen it. 135 did not displace 120 in one day, it took decades before it would become the dominant format. APS is like 4:3 or "APS" in the non-analogue realm, a different format that somebody building a system from scratch could have considered very seriously. Most people already have a "system" and thus would go on with the system they have. New formats need a lot of time in order to prove their marketability, and APS did not have the time to establish a presence in the market. The idea, though, was brilliant. The "cropping trick" was there for mere convenience, like the "digital zoom" in modern phones. It saves some time and hassle. The "ISO trick" in non-analogue cameras is not less prone to criticism.

APS could appeal to both serious photographers (once camera makers begin introducing systems for it) and for pocketable cameras (which were smaller, and more convenient, than small 135).

 

[Brady Eklund]

Around the lab we say APS stands for "A Piece of Shit". Labs had to buy yet another set of complicated machinery to deal with APS. Honestly we wouldn't be so upset about it if all of that machinery was working like new, but it's hardly worth buying a bunch of machines to find one that works at this point considering we only process a dozen or so APS rolls a month. Of course it is possible to use a hand tool to detach and reattach the APS leader, but it's an art I haven't yet mastered. APS offers some real advantages from a consumer standpoint, it's more compact, rolls can be changed out, you've got that magnetic strip to store information, etc... This comes at the cost of image quality and camera and processing complexity. It really wasn't the best strategic decision as digital cameras were emerging. There were no compact consumer digital cameras in 1996, but the writing was on the wall. It's hard to imagine the trade-offs for a larger format with similar features would have been effective though, but by the early naughts superior image quality was the only selling point film cameras still had over digital and the smaller size of the APS format did it no favors there.

Pretty much all of the APS film we process now is expired, and I've noticed that the color shifts of expired APS tend to be considerably worse than those in even much older 35mm rolls. I wonder why that is.

 

[cmacd123]

Around the lab we say APS stands for "A Piece of Shit". Labs had to buy yet another set of complicated machinery to deal with APS. Honestly we wouldn't be so upset about it if all of that machinery was working like new, but it's hardly worth buying a bunch of machines to find one that works at this point considering we only process a dozen or so APS rolls a month.

The whole idea of keeping the negatives saved away from the consumer was a good one, if you have ever seen a customer rubbing a negative with their fingers to try and see if it is the one that they want to print...

the Labs at the time were expected to get"certified" on the new format, whch meant they had to be equiped to remove the film, AND re-attch the processed film into the cartridge. they needed to be able to read the mag stripe on the film to see if a panorama was called for, or a cropped shot which was not masked on the film, but what a processing call. A nasty side effect of all this was the consumer got the impression that not every corner drug-store or mini-lab could handle this "High tech" process and so the very sophistication worked against the adoption of the format.

 

[Agulliver]

The whole idea of keeping the negatives saved away from the consumer was a good one, if you have ever seen a customer rubbing a negative with their fingers to try and see if it is the one that they want to print...

the Labs at the time were expected to get"certified" on the new format, whch meant they had to be equiped to remove the film, AND re-attch the processed film into the cartridge. they needed to be able to read the mag stripe on the film to see if a panorama was called for, or a cropped shot which was not masked on the film, but what a processing call. A nasty side effect of all this was the consumer got the impression that not every corner drug-store or mini-lab could handle this "High tech" process and so the very sophistication worked against the adoption of the format.

Yep that was my impression at the time, as an end user, that Kodak was kind of pushing labs into getting certification by buying horrendously expensive new equipment (I was told the sum was in six figures!) in order to retain that important Kodak certification. A lot of labs had Kodak certification before APS emerged, and feared losing it by not taking on the official equipment and training would leave customers feeling they were inferior. It did smack of a money making scheme by the photo companies.

I do accept that it had one advantage, which was the ability to swap films mid roll much more easily than 35mm. But honestly....if I want a small film camera I'll pocket my Agfa Super Silette or even Halina 35X...which still today have a greater variety of film options than APS had at it's peak.

 

[Nzoomed]

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.

Well I think you made the right choice to keep the 126 machinery.
There is definitely a market for 126, especially in the lomo community who will be crying out for the stuff.
You could probably settle a nice partnership with lomography and give them a supply contract to sell them 126 quite easily.

That was the whole idea of instagram if only these young kids actually knew what an instamatic really was and why the filters there actually were for lol.

126 for this very reason could attract a whole new market of young film photographers

Yes its sad that APS machinery could not be saved, but at the end of the day it was a real crap format that never took off.
135 gives better resolution anyway.

 

[Meyer Trioplan]

The two labs I recently sent APS film to didn't even print the panoramics as 4x10 prints, but everything the same size? I'd presume the format printed sideways on a 4" wide roll initially, but may now be printed on a 6" wide roll due to equipment or supply issues.

 

[flavio81]

Yes its sad that APS machinery could not be saved, but at the end of the day it was a real crap format that never took off.
135 gives better resolution anyway.

126 probably gives better resolution than APS... After all, the negative size is bigger.

I think what would really be good is an "APS-like" cartridge for medium format. Make it big so many shots fit inside, but keep all the automatism. So medium format cameras can be loaded and unloaded really quick.

Or even better, make a 126-like cartridge but for 120 format. That would be nice. Although lengthy forum wars will follow, of people wanting it to be 6x7 / 6x6 / 6x4.5 ...

 

[faberryman]

I think what would really be good is an "APS-like" cartridge for medium format. Make it big so many shots fit inside, but keep all the automatism. So medium format cameras can be loaded and unloaded really quick. Or even better, make a 126-like cartridge but for 120 format. That would be nice. Although lengthy forum wars will follow, of people wanting it to be 6x7 / 6x6 / 6x4.5 ...

And who will be making these new cartridge loading medium format film cameras?

 

[Photo Engineer]

126 probably gives better resolution than APS... After all, the negative size is bigger.

I think what would really be good is an "APS-like" cartridge for medium format. Make it big so many shots fit inside, but keep all the automatism. So medium format cameras can be loaded and unloaded really quick.

Or even better, make a 126-like cartridge but for 120 format. That would be nice. Although lengthy forum wars will follow, of people wanting it to be 6x7 / 6x6 / 6x4.5 ...

Due to the differences in film generations between the 126 films and the more modern APS films, I would say that the images could be nearly of the same quality.

PE

 

[klownshed]

Or even better, make a 126-like cartridge but for 120 format.

Or you could make permanent cartridges that can be preloaded with 120 film allowing you to change film mid roll. That way there's no waste or additional machinery required by the film manufacturers.

I am going to patent this idea!

 

[cmacd123]

Due to the differences in film generations between the 126 films and the more modern APS films, I would say that the images could be nearly of the same quality.

but a modern 126 cartridge would likely be loaded with a similar emulsion to the top end APS films at the time they were discontinued.

I am sure if and when our pals in Italy get arround to making a colour negative film, they will start with the last formula that Imation made and try to tweak it.

 

[cmacd123]

Getting back to Ferrania related items:

I got a roll of Foma Equicolor back from processing today. When I got a couple of rolls of this from an e-bay seller, I THOUGHT it looks "Ferrania-ish".

The sprocket space has the array of Plus signs and the edge print includes "400 87-7" which sound like the Ferrania sort of generation codes.

Colour was not bad considering that it has be be a couple of years out of date.

was 87-7 the LAST generation of Ferrania Negative?

 

[tim_walls]

Around the lab we say APS stands for "A Piece of Shit". Labs had to buy yet another set of complicated machinery to deal with APS. Honestly we wouldn't be so upset about it if all of that machinery was working like new, but it's hardly worth buying a bunch of machines to find one that works at this point considering we only process a dozen or so APS rolls a month. Of course it is possible to use a hand tool to detach and reattach the APS leader, but it's an art I haven't yet mastered.

So your lab sucks. I'm not sure that's an argument against the format.

APS offers some real advantages from a consumer standpoint

...but that's not what mattered to you.

That's probably one of the reasons for the death of film labs.

 

[Brady Eklund]

So your lab sucks. I'm not sure that's an argument against the format.

How many APS extraction and reloading machines do you own and how many thousands of rolls have you put through them? What a hostile and trollish comment.