Kodak Disc - have expired film lying around- cameras are cheap- should I bother?

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GarageBoy

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I have some disc film from 1988- about 45 shots worth- cameras are a few dollars on ebay- unrefrigerated film- should I even bother wasting the money?
 

AgX

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There are cameras with built-in batteries and those that take replacable AA cells.
 

trythis

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What will you do with the negatives? Print from lab? I can't imagine using an enlaeger. Scanning a radically symmetric cluster is nightmare. I tried so I could find out what was on some 1980s negatives. Sell on eBay and use the money for something useful.


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RPC

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In addition to the poor quality from the long expired film, you will have the overly grainy images from the tiny negatives of disc cameras. I owned one and can't figure out how Kodak even considered such a format.
 
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GarageBoy

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Ebayed a camera for 99 cents- $6 shipped
$9 for the lowest fi photography possible - i've done dumber
 

trythis

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Gotta pay for processing and prints too. I suppose if you develop C41 at home its cheap enough but dropping a hammer on your foot is free and probably more pleasant than using a disc camera. :blink:
 
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GarageBoy

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Yeah, it's $9 to process and print at Dwaynes - I was always a glutton for punishment
This might be the most hipster thing I'll do - not only am i shooting film, I'm shooting crap expired film, in a crap format, which was crap new, in a 25 year old camera of questionable quality
 

trythis

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Haha!
Yeah, $9 is ok... I look forward to seeing the results. I've spent $15 to find out how terrible a roll of old slide film was so yeah I get it.


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MattKing

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While disc cameras were current, I saw a high quality, approximately 4'x 6' poster printed from a disc negative where the colours and detail were excellent, and the grain was quite pleasing.

It was printed by Kodak in Rochester, as part of a retirement party celebrating a Kodak retiree who was required to retire at age 65, just a few months short of his 50 year anniversary with Kodak Canada.

Undoubtedly, the poster required high end printing techniques, but it still came from a disc negative.

And much of the improvements we enjoy in current films resulted from the research and development behind disc film (and the Vision series of motion picture film).
 

RattyMouse

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In addition to the poor quality from the long expired film, you will have the overly grainy images from the tiny negatives of disc cameras. I owned one and can't figure out how Kodak even considered such a format.

The disc camera might just have been the beginning of the end for Kodak. It was an appalling film format.
 

MartinP

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The aim of the disc camera, as a replacement for the drop-in 126 and 110 cartridges, was to require the processors to purchase huge quantities of new machinery and gear from Kodak, in order to print the negs, and to pay assorted licensing costs. Not a great profit strategy really. APS came later and seemed sort-of in the same direction.

Of course, I am probably wrong and the reason for the disc-film introduction was to reduce the number of baby-seals clubbed to death during production of 110 and 126 cartridges . . . or something like that.
 

cl3mens

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Like when they claimed their 620 spools were necessary to build smaller cameras than 120 would permit...
 

nworth

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For fun, maybe. But these cameras took terrible pictures (17 mm is just not very big), and the unrefrigerated film will probably show its age.
 

ambaker

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Get the camera, and give it a go... Half the fun in life is when you don't know exactly what is going to happen.
 
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GarageBoy

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Well - camera arrived today- dead...
I'll see if I can spend another $5 or less on one that works
 

1920

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punishment

I'm loving the masochism here, I totally get it. :munch:

I'll keep my eyes out when I hit the yard sales this weekend
 
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