Questions about Disc Film

[pauliej]

Yes, APS, Disc, etc were the next GREAT idea in photography. So why are they all dead? Hey, it happens, get over it and move onto the next GREAT idea... RIP.

paulie

 

[analogsnob]

The image quality of APS was actually quite good but if you didn't do enough of it to afford all the fixtures for it (especially the fancy printer that allowed printing multi formats without rehandling the film) the attachers and the detachers ect which were not cheap, the format was as much a pain in the *** as disc.

Reprints were extra painfull.

 

[Brac]

I remember a programme on BBC TV, I think it was Tomorrow's World, showing off the new disc format cameras and saying they were the most wonderful development in photography, and that the one speed only ISO 200 films would make under-exposure a thing of the past, as well as reducing problems like lack of sharpness. Despite this, I didn't go out and buy one. But some while after their introduction, I took some black & white photos in a local park, of a friend's daughter. She wanted to be a fashion model (in which she succeeded) and wanted these photos to enter into a competition run by the local newspaper. She won (can't remember what her prize was) and there was a prize for the photographer. This turned out to be a plastic Halina fixed focus disc camera made in Hong Kong. This was a bit ironic as the camera I had used to take the photos was a Mamiya C220 TLR and the value of that was at the very least 12 times that of the Halina.

Anyway I did persevere with the Halina for about 10 films. The results, regardless of brand of film used, were quite disappointing with the graininess being the most objectionable feature. The fact the camera was a cheapo didn't help. There were some well-known brands such as Konica making quite sophisticated disc cameras, so maybe these would have given better results. Nevertheless the truth is that the 110 format which preceded disc, outlived it by many years. Indeed you can still get novelty 110 cameras today & the film. Both disc film & the processing facilities were only on the market for a few years.

As for APS, the last in the long line of film formats put before the public, I have to say I like it. My Minolta Vectis S100 gives very satisfactory results and the film can still be obtained, though the processing has to be hunted down, and isn't particularly cheap.

 

[wogster]

The APS format was introduced to directly compete with Digital. It used the same frame size as a digital sensor, and the information recording capacity along with the picture was as great or greater than that currently done with digital. So, even though the APS system had great potential, it was downplayed by "real photographers" and digital kept going. If more people had bought into APS, that would have surpassed digital by far today.

There were great plans in store for APS data recording, and can you imagine Ektar 100 in APS format? It could record the name of the picture, the location of the picture, time, date, best size for cropping, all on a side stripe on the film. Oh well. No one here, so far has said anything good of APS except Tim.

PE

I think that APS would have been more successful if it were a camera based enhancement to 35mm rather then a separate format. Like DX you would have some data pre-recorded, using holes, such as film manufacturer, type, speed, number of frames, punched into the film, a reader in the camera would read this data, and then optically below the frame (slightly smaller frame to give room for the data) it would record all of the pertinent information, using a bar code like system. Each frame would have the film manufacturer (coded), film type, speed, frame number, date taken, speed, f/stop, camera brand and model, etc.

Older cameras would simply use the film as they currently do, newer cameras would contain the digital recorder. Scanners could have been made that would read the data, so that scanned images would have the information embedded in the files, just like digital. Would actually be better in that the film cartridge becomes the archival storage.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Advantix film has provisions for all you state and more in separate encoding layers and encoding areas on the film. The camera is equipped to record that data on the film. That is how you can change the format of an image from full to wide to panoramic. The problem was that most cameras were not equipped to handle it or most people did not care.

Data was also able to be recorded at the time of printing, but again, often was not. You could record the total number of prints ever made from a given negative.

If it had continued, I would imagine by now that voice could be recorded and photos could have been named. I have seen models of talking still photos at EK. I have also seen 3D photos possible with such a system.

So, we have lost a lot.

PE

 

[wogster]

Advantix film has provisions for all you state and more in separate encoding layers and encoding areas on the film. The camera is equipped to record that data on the film. That is how you can change the format of an image from full to wide to panoramic. The problem was that most cameras were not equipped to handle it or most people did not care.

Data was also able to be recorded at the time of printing, but again, often was not. You could record the total number of prints ever made from a given negative.

If it had continued, I would imagine by now that voice could be recorded and photos could have been named. I have seen models of talking still photos at EK. I have also seen 3D photos possible with such a system.

So, we have lost a lot.

PE

The problem with most of this stuff is that it seemed that only Kodak was interested in the technology, the camera companies only had eyes for digital. What they didn't realise is that if they would have pushed this kind of thing, everyone would have been replacing cameras to get this new technology.

What I was thinking would not require a change in the 35mm cartridge, so older cameras would be 100% compatible with it, just missing the recording technology. Writing could be on either a magnetic strip, or optical bar code, if the film was intended to stay in the cartridge like APS. Another option would be to write the data as a block on one frame, meaning only that film would be one frame longer (a 24 exposure roll would contain 25 frames, a 36 exposure roll would contain 37). All films would need the identifier data punched in, so Kodak would need to get Ilford, Fuji, et al involved. I could see the technology developed in such a way that 120/220 cameras could do it as well.

Heck this should be something designed into 120/220 cameras, think of all the new film backs that could be sold, to record data optically on the edge of film, the film manufacturer,type,length (120/220) and speed would be printed on a block on the backing paper. Each frame would have complete data. So that when cut, the film would still have the data, so scanners could read it off the edge. Personally I would design it so that data is printed on one side in Latin characters, computers using OCR can easily read such data and people can to, although writing it in Latin followed by a bar code version would easily be doable with 120, although you might need a slightly smaller frame.

Can you imagine how cool it would be to see on your 120 frame EKTMY-400-05-09/01/23/01/09/00-HB500CM-90-F/8-1/500

The above would be, EKTMY - Eastman Kodak - TMY
400 would be the film speed in ISO
05 is the frame number
09/01/23/01/09/00 would be the date and time YY/MM/DD/HH/MM/SS UTC
HB500CM would be a Hasselblad 500CM
90 is the lens length in mm
F/8 aperture
1/500 shutter speed

A scanner built for this kind of film would copy the data into a comment or Exif data on the image file.

 

[removed account4]

my brother had a disk camera he got for christmas when he was a kid.
from what i remember, our crazy irish setter chewed it, and then knocked over
the xmas tree with his tail.
im a big fan of 110 ( still ) while the negative size is tiny,
the optics in my pentax are pretty amazing.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well Paul, first off, Kodak did not design APS! This is a common misconception.

There was an international ANSI committee set up to define new standards for analog film. Several of my associates were members representing Kodak.

This group included members from Agfa, Fuji, Kodak, Canon, Nikon, Konica and many others who defined the APS features and format. This format was donated to the public domain in that each company that participated could freely use all of the features that adhered to the common definition and that committee action was needed to add or alter any feature.

Now, as far as what you describe, I can get a bit of that with my Nikon 2020 and the data back. But then that is a far cry from the APS information when you just have date and time.

In any event, there were great plans for the future of APS, but it was stillborn in the earliest times. And, there is nothing keeping any consortium of manufacturers from doing what you propose - except cost and profit (ROI) and in today's film market even APS cannot survive.

PE

 

[Ralph Javins]

Good morning;

The disk camera was not one that I purchased, although I did look at the Canon Dial.

One that I do still have is a Minolta Vectis 40 APS camera that still works. I can imprint the date on the film with it, but I must manually set the date in the camera; it does not have a clock. Other than that, it is very much like a P&S 35 mm camera. It always seemed like a nice sort of a "novelty" camera to me. I am still impressed by the range of the built-in zoom lens. Perhaps my sense of traditionalism for 35 mm film cartridges got in the way of my appreciation of the potential of the APS "system". I had reasonably dextrous fingers and did not mind loading my own film.

 

[tim_walls]

Can you imagine how cool it would be to see on your 120 frame EKTMY-400-05-09/01/23/01/09/00-HB500CM-90-F/8-1/500

The above would be, EKTMY - Eastman Kodak - TMY
400 would be the film speed in ISO
05 is the frame number
09/01/23/01/09/00 would be the date and time YY/MM/DD/HH/MM/SS UTC
HB500CM would be a Hasselblad 500CM
90 is the lens length in mm
F/8 aperture
1/500 shutter speed

A scanner built for this kind of film would copy the data into a comment or Exif data on the image file.

This sort of thing was already possible with cameras like the Canon EOS-1V. The data was stored internally in the camera, and then downloaded to computer (sadly not using a standard cable.) The camera exposes a serial number onto the beginning of every roll of film.

Sadly, the fact that while you can still buy a 1V, Canon no longer sells the required cable, suggests that this wasn't much of a killer feature. (Although Canon did add their usual ludicrous accessories markup for the cable, which probably didn't help.)


Personally, I think it's a real shame - the cables can barely be had for love nor money, otherwise I'd make use of the feature. I still use the serial numbers as the basis for my filing system for 35mm anyway!


If I ever find a cable on Fleabay, I'm going to dismantle the thing, stick it into a logic analyser and see if I can't publish some specs for people to build their own. I strongly suspect it's a matter of pence in components (I suspect the protocol is just a simple serial affair like I2C, so you wouldn't need much more than a USB interface chip.)

 

[bob100684]

APS was, and still is sort of a pain in the butt in a lab. Not so much the developing and printing of it, that is simple enough. Its the dealing with customers who seem to always set their camera on panoramic then wig out when you hand them a stack of 15, 25, or 40 4x12 photos. Then they demand re do's at the 4x6 size. I'm more than happy to do them, if they pay for them. 40 prints at 4x12 definitely affects the bottom line, especially when it seems to happen with the majority of APS we take in.

 

[RellikJM]

APS was, and still is sort of a pain in the butt in a lab. Not so much the developing and printing of it, that is simple enough. Its the dealing with customers who seem to always set their camera on panoramic then wig out when you hand them a stack of 15, 25, or 40 4x12 photos. Then they demand re do's at the 4x6 size. I'm more than happy to do them, if they pay for them. 40 prints at 4x12 definitely affects the bottom line, especially when it seems to happen with the majority of APS we take in.

What annoyed me was setting the different formats H,C,P and getting all 4x6 back!

 

[bob100684]

What annoyed me was setting the different formats H,C,P and getting all 4x6 back!

your lab was doing something wrong......

 

[AutumnJazz]

This sort of thing was already possible with cameras like the Canon EOS-1V. The data was stored internally in the camera, and then downloaded to computer (sadly not using a standard cable.) The camera exposes a serial number onto the beginning of every roll of film.

Sadly, the fact that while you can still buy a 1V, Canon no longer sells the required cable, suggests that this wasn't much of a killer feature. (Although Canon did add their usual ludicrous accessories markup for the cable, which probably didn't help.)


Personally, I think it's a real shame - the cables can barely be had for love nor money, otherwise I'd make use of the feature. I still use the serial numbers as the basis for my filing system for 35mm anyway!


If I ever find a cable on Fleabay, I'm going to dismantle the thing, stick it into a logic analyser and see if I can't publish some specs for people to build their own. I strongly suspect it's a matter of pence in components (I suspect the protocol is just a simple serial affair like I2C, so you wouldn't need much more than a USB interface chip.)

The software only runs on 95 or OS 8/9 (poorly), or XP (unusable). The Nikon F5, F100, and F6 use a cheap cord that downloads data onto a CF card, in plain text form.

 

[nickandre]

APS was, and still is sort of a pain in the butt in a lab. Not so much the developing and printing of it, that is simple enough. Its the dealing with customers who seem to always set their camera on panoramic then wig out when you hand them a stack of 15, 25, or 40 4x12 photos. Then they demand re do's at the 4x6 size. I'm more than happy to do them, if they pay for them. 40 prints at 4x12 definitely affects the bottom line, especially when it seems to happen with the majority of APS we take in.

Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool

I had a panoramic camera once. It was kindof cool until I discovered that panoramic meant using narrow slits in the middle of the 35mm film frame. I got my first roll back of 4x6s with most of them black and decided not to use that camera again.

 

[nickrapak]

APS was, and still is sort of a pain in the butt in a lab. Not so much the developing and printing of it, that is simple enough. Its the dealing with customers who seem to always set their camera on panoramic then wig out when you hand them a stack of 15, 25, or 40 4x12 photos. Then they demand re do's at the 4x6 size. I'm more than happy to do them, if they pay for them. 40 prints at 4x12 definitely affects the bottom line, especially when it seems to happen with the majority of APS we take in.

My lab had the same problem for a while, except it was that the person took the photos in "H", and wanted them in "C". What ended up happening is that when the film was dropped off, the person at the counter had to make sure to ask and mark on the envelope whether they wanted the prints "as set" or "all 4x6". If the envelope wasn't marked, the manager would call the person and check, because he didn't want to lose the money involved in printing the "wrong" size.

 

[tim_walls]

The software only runs on 95 or OS 8/9 (poorly), or XP (unusable). The Nikon F5, F100, and F6 use a cheap cord that downloads data onto a CF card, in plain text form.

Oh, indeed. It would be beyond trivial to write some software for modern machines that did the same job, though, once the protocol is reverse engineered.

 

[wogster]

This sort of thing was already possible with cameras like the Canon EOS-1V. The data was stored internally in the camera, and then downloaded to computer (sadly not using a standard cable.) The camera exposes a serial number onto the beginning of every roll of film.

Sadly, the fact that while you can still buy a 1V, Canon no longer sells the required cable, suggests that this wasn't much of a killer feature. (Although Canon did add their usual ludicrous accessories markup for the cable, which probably didn't help.)


Personally, I think it's a real shame - the cables can barely be had for love nor money, otherwise I'd make use of the feature. I still use the serial numbers as the basis for my filing system for 35mm anyway!


If I ever find a cable on Fleabay, I'm going to dismantle the thing, stick it into a logic analyser and see if I can't publish some specs for people to build their own. I strongly suspect it's a matter of pence in components (I suspect the protocol is just a simple serial affair like I2C, so you wouldn't need much more than a USB interface chip.)

Such data really should be embedded into the film, I may not want or need the data today, but 5 years from now, when I want to use one of those images, then being able to retrieve the data would be helpful. If it's stored somewhere else, then there is a good chance that by the time I want it, it's long gone. Canon seems to have a history of liking to use proprietary accessories that come with a huge markup. Wouldn't kill them to put a shutter release on an electronic camera that worked with a standard cable release for example.

 

[bob100684]

My lab had the same problem for a while, except it was that the person took the photos in "H", and wanted them in "C". What ended up happening is that when the film was dropped off, the person at the counter had to make sure to ask and mark on the envelope whether they wanted the prints "as set" or "all 4x6". If the envelope wasn't marked, the manager would call the person and check, because he didn't want to lose the money involved in printing the "wrong" size.

yeah, making the call was the worst....a lot of people would assume we were talking crazy talk and just hang up.

 

[Fredrik Sandstrom]

The Nikon F5, F100, and F6 use a cheap cord that downloads data onto a CF card, in plain text form.

Cheap? Are you talking about the MV-1? Please tell me where I can find it cheap! Or at all! UK Amazon seems to have them for about twice what I paid for my F100, but they won't ship that item to me in Finland (have no idea why, they ship other items worldwide...). I'd really like to have one, but they never turn up on eBay either.

 

[tim_walls]

Cheap? Are you talking about the MV-1? Please tell me where I can find it cheap! Or at all! UK Amazon seems to have them for about twice what I paid for my F100, but they won't ship that item to me in Finland (have no idea why, they ship other items worldwide...). I'd really like to have one, but they never turn up on eBay either.

Ouch, I see your point - $185 on B&H! Actual component cost about $5 at most.

Apparently Nikon are not immune to marking up accessories into the stratosphere, either...

 

[AutumnJazz]

I see them go for $50-80 on ebay from time to time. Not exactly cheap, but it seems to be the only way to get EXIF info from any film camera reliably.

 

[B&Wpositive]

Wow, looking at the picture of disc film, it looks like a viewmaster reel. Is there any relation?

 

[Mark Antony]

If anyone is interested I found a picture of our Noritsu QFP 50 disc film processor. It's the white one in the foreground, it is attached to a Pako/Copal C41 processor the picture was taken in the mid 1980's.

Mark

 

[donbga]

Canon seems to have a history of liking to use proprietary accessories that come with a huge markup.

All manufacters are guilty of this at one time or another.