Sanity check -- PE or anybody -- Kodak "study"?

Over thirty years ago I took a color photography course at the university. There was a woman painter in the course who used a 110 Pocket Instamatic exclusively throughout the semester and blew all the photo boys with their fancy Nikons and Canons away. It was a humbling experience but taught me a lot about seeing.

Joe

In my previous job we did just that with MPEG-2 satellite TV transmissions. We sent the same video sequence (full of changing chroma and movement) but we varied the symbol rate (and hence RF bandwidth) at which individual sequences were sent and then asked randomly selected viewers at a dozen sites to classify what they had watched and heard in terms of perceived quality. The results were staggering - sequences that to us were virtually unwatchable because of motion artifacts/pixellation seemed perfectly fine for all but the most discerning viewers. Although we refrained from dropping to the lowest common denominator, there was no point in using a symbol rate in excess of what was justified for the intended audience, as the cost of satellite transponder capacity is directly proportional to the RF bandwidth used.

To put it another way, "Horses for courses".

Best wishes,

Steve

As a TV professional friend put it - "Why are Youtube videos so popular when they have such low quality? People just don't care about the quality." I guess the content is what matters.

PE

Remember that the average user choose VHS over Beta and PC over Mac.

In the words of P. T. Barnum, "You cannot loose money by underestimating the intelligence of the average American."

Steve

Stever said:

Remember that the average user choose VHS over Beta and PC over Mac.

In the words of P. T. Barnum, "You cannot loose money by underestimating the intelligence of the average American."

Steve

Click to expand...

I don't think its a question of "intelligence" per se.

Sony failed to properly market the Betamax. And it deliberately chose to go "off industry standard" and paid the price for it. It was a corporate humbling exercise much as the Edsel was for Ford.

IBM wisely leveraged its established marketing clout with the corporate world to ensure the dominance of the PC carrying along with it MS and other software developers who recognized where the real money was going to be made. For years you couldn't get good biz software for the Mac as Apple chose to focus on the education and artistic marketplaces.

My first Camera was a Kodak Instamatic. It cost me 10 bucks at the Safeway store.

The key here is $10

In the early seventies a 35 mm cost hundreds and a Medium format even more.

Kilgallb said:

My first Camera was a Kodak Instamatic. It cost me 10 bucks at the Safeway store.

In the early seventies a 35 mm cost hundreds and a Medium format even more.

Click to expand...

I'm trying to remember what I paid for my Spotmatic back then, and IIRC it was $200 and some with the normal lens, and that was boocoo bux back then! I hate to think of what that is translated to 2007 dollars!

I think I paid $70 for my original Mamiya SD RF (used), and even that was an obscene amount of $$$ for a teenager back in the late 60s.

My first decent camera was a second-hand Pentax SV with standard 55/1.8 Super-Takumar: fifty quid in Bermuda in 1966 or 67, $140 at the then exchange rate. Why did Kodak go for a $10 camera? Not a difficult question.

Mind you, if I'd known then what I know now, it would have been a IIIf for thirty quid ($84) from the same shop.

My mother had an Instamatic. I remember being disappointed when I found out that it didn't make any difference if you turned it through 90 degrees because it took square pictures. Not as cool as my fathers Nikon F. I think I was about six at the time.


Steve.

My first new camera - a Brownie Starmite II - 1964 - present for my 8th birthday:



Apparently its US list price was $11.95.

Just a little bit more complex to use than an Instamatic.

Matt

BTW:

My mother-in-law recently downsized her home by moving into an assisted living apartment. Knowing of my interest in cameras, she gave me her old Instamatic 134.

Is there anyway to get film cartridges for this - and, more importantly, if so, can you get them developed?

MattKing said:

My first new camera - a Brownie Starmite II - 1964 - present for my 8th birthday:

Apparently its US list price was $11.95.

Just a little bit more complex to use than an Instamatic.

Click to expand...

Not to give away my real age, but my actual first camera was a Starflash, very similar to your model, got for my b'day a few years before. This used the larger M bulbs.

Mine also had the EI 13 and 14, with 13 marked color and 14 marked B&W.

Very close to a point-and-shoot of that era. I think it was US$8.95 list.

Stever said:

Remember that the average user choose VHS over Beta and PC over Mac.

In the words of P. T. Barnum, "You cannot loose money by underestimating the intelligence of the average American."

Steve

Click to expand...

And some choose Linux Never could deal with a single mouse button...

I don't really think that the general population is stupid, I think that most people just don't care about certain things, or don't want to take the time to learn. It's like trying to explain to someone who "just wants to take pictures" about changing the ISO setting on their digicam to suit light conditions. Or the pictures they took on their ISO 800 no-name, rebuilt, plastic lens instant wonder all look like garbage. Or paying $0.48 a print and having someone remove the horrific yellow cast, adjust contrast so that their underexposed image isn't gray, lighten their kids' faces on the cute portraits they took backlit by the sun so that the child is recognizable, adjust curves and levels so that the detail on the bride's dress is visible, accomodate specific cropping and colour matching requests at no charge (to a certain extent), take the film they accidentally rewound 6 frames in and put it in a dark box to extract the leader, reload the film, advance it to roughly the point it should be at, then explain the buttons on their camera at no cost, and many other things so that they can "just take pictures" when they can get them done at wallyworld for $0.19 a print. Was that a long sentence or what? Most people don't really want to learn these things. I'm not judging (all of) them, it's just where people put their priorities and interests. Much of the time I am happy with a sliced chicken sandwhich or microwaved pizza, and if I want something better I'll get it from a restaurant. I can cook well, and know that I can make very nice dishes if I put the time and effort in to it, but much of the time I don't want to bother. I "just want to eat."

Okay, I started ranting there but I think I got my point across :rolleyes:

- Justin

copake_ham said:

BTW:

My mother-in-law recently downsized her home by moving into an assisted living apartment. Knowing of my interest in cameras, she gave me her old Instamatic 134.

Is there anyway to get film cartridges for this - and, more importantly, if so, can you get them developed?

Click to expand...

I think that the instamatics all took 126 film (not totally sure) and 126 is the same width as 35mm so the only major problem in developing it is getting the 126 case to crack open. Printing might be another thing as there's only a few sprocket holes down one side of 126 film so most scanning for 35mm will chop off the top few mm from the frame, that's if you can convince the scanner to take it (not a problem if you're doing it at home).

126 colour negative film was produced by Ferrania up until earlier this year so you might get lucky finding some somewhere out there while supplies last.

Heather;

126 is indeed the same width as 35mm, but the sprocket holes in 126 are oblong and spaced at much wider intervals than 35mm. In addition, each frame is pre-exposed at the factory with a square black frame. This required a different replenishment rate, due to the greater percentage of exposure per frame.

PE

Akki14 said:

I think that the instamatics all took 126 film (not totally sure) and 126 is the same width as 35mm so the only major problem in developing it is getting the 126 case to crack open. Printing might be another thing as there's only a few sprocket holes down one side of 126 film so most scanning for 35mm will chop off the top few mm from the frame, that's if you can convince the scanner to take it (not a problem if you're doing it at home).

126 colour negative film was produced by Ferrania up until earlier this year so you might get lucky finding some somewhere out there while supplies last.

Click to expand...

Photo Engineer said:

Heather;

126 is indeed the same width as 35mm, but the sprocket holes in 126 are oblong and spaced at much wider intervals than 35mm. In addition, each frame is pre-exposed at the factory with a square black frame. This required a different replenishment rate, due to the greater percentage of exposure per frame.

PE

Click to expand...

Heather/PE,

Thanks for the info. Looks like it's not going to happen.

Too bad.

Guess it's always a crap shoot when dealing with obsolete formats. My Dad dug up his old Kodalux and I was able to find some 120 film "adapted" to 620. Kind of a treat to shoot him with it last Father's Day.

Was hoping to do the same with my wife's Mom and her Instamatic.

Dwayne's Photo processes it:

http://www.dwaynesphoto.com/newsite2006/disc-126-film.html

The film size is 28mm x 28mm, but the on film masking reduces the image area to 26.5 mm x 26.5 mm. If your scanner can handle slides in mounts, you can put your negatives in slide mounts (you might lose a little on the edges).

Matt

I believe Harley-Davidson uses toothed belt drive to the rear wheel on ALL their models and have for about 20-30 years, with excellent service life. so do the Buell/Harley sport bikes.