APS..? yes

[stuart_templeton]

I tripped over last weekend and hit myself in the head with my F-1. I think I must have concussion, because since then I’ve had a desire to shoot some APS – in fact I ordered half a dozen rolls of Kodak Advantix… not something I’ve shot with since 2000.

 

Now I know APS has bad reputation now, and I fully agree with all of it - 35mm and Digital are much better formats. However if you take away the serious photographers and just look at the family happy snappers – it WAS very popular at the time (and cool).

 

I’ll admit that I loved it. My first camera that was actually mine was a Fuji APS model. It went everywhere I did and I shot hundreds of rolls of film through it. I enjoyed every minute of it, and to my teenage mind I had some great pictures to show for it.

 

It gave me my ever-lasting love of photography (what almost killed it was a Pro Photographer friend of my mum’s telling me that I ‘wasn’t a ‘proper’ photographer without an SLR and selling me a Minolta X-300 that I had no idea on how to use – resulting in very poor images and a complete lack of enjoyment - but that's another story).

 

So over the past 15 years of reading about how crap the format was, and seeing how much general hatred it picks up – it surprises me, as that just wasn’t my experience with the format, in fact I still have a B&W image of my wife taken with that camera on my desk.

 

So I thought I’d give it a go again, to experiment and just to see if I’m just looking at it through rose-tinted glasses, and it is crap, or if it is still what I remember – fun. I’ll have a go with my old Fuji camera first – but then I was thinking of getting one of those Canon IX or IX7 SLR’s to see if shooting through a decent lens makes any difference.

 

I’m also wondering on how much I’ve actually improved. Will my knowledge of Composition and exposure and Light etc. – actually result in better images than the one’s I made 20 years ago?

 

Anyway – Just thought I’d share my ramblings – there’s no other point to this other than I’m at work and bored witless.

 

Cheers!

[Sandy Vongries]

Had a couple of high end Canon Powershots when my kids were small - they were very handy despite the fact I had several film Nikons. Don't know about the UK, Dwaynes still will process Advantix here in the US.

[glen_h]

APS SLRs go for low prices in the usual auction sites and such.

 

Is there still new film, though? I have a few rolls I bought old.

 

Also, I haven't figured out how to home develop it.

[Bill Bowes]

A potential concussion & mega boredom. . .time to see the doctors! Kodak "invented" that nightmare to con a few more dollars out of the public. . . the masses DID NOT BUY INTO IT ! There must be a dozen other variations on 35mm that could feed your crazies!

[glen_h]

I believe APS is 24mm.

 

I have wondered how to home develop it. 24mm reels seem rare.

 

With a camera like:

 

Canon: EOS IX (EOS IX E) Price Guide: estimate a camera value

 

you should be able to get some good pictures.

[ben_hutcherson]

I never used APS when it was current, but I have to admit that I've looked at the Nikon Pronea 6i more than once and thought about buying it.

 

AFAIK, DX lenses will work fine on it(and most will cover the APS-H frame) and it's AF-S compatible so it could theoretically be a capable of making good use relatively modern lenses.

 

I know there was an adapter for the Coolscan series scanners to scan APS film, although I don't recall if my V can use it. That would make handling the film a lot easier since I know that it's customarily returned in the cartridge.

[PaulCoen]

Some of the Minolta Dimage Scan scanners had APS adapters - I know the Scan Elite II had one - we had it at work. I'm pretty sure the Scan Diual models supported the same or a similar adapter.

[Sandy Vongries]

Since aps film is the same width as 35mm, processing reels wouldn't be an issue. Scanning, of course,might be problematic. Edited November 5, 2017 by Sandy Vongries

[Mike Gammill]

The height of a 35mm frame is 24mm (hence 24x36 frame size) but the actual width of the whole APS film is 24mm. The frame height for APS is 16.7mm.

What really killed my interest in APS was no conventional (silver halide) black & white was ever offered and of course the cartridges were not made to reload (no bulk anyway).

[Sandy Vongries]

Film height not frame height is the issue for processing reels. Actually, the Canon Elph cameras and their relatively sophisticated features, along with very small size and high quality images were very appealing. Agfa tried the same kind of thing years earlier on and it failed as well -- forgetting history is always a mistake.

[Mike Gammill]

It is possible to unroll the APS film from the cartridge (various online hacks for this). I did this with a roll of Kodak's C41 Black & White APS film that I shot in my wife's Elph Jr. and made a mask to get it to fit my enlarger.

[davidscott]

I understand the appeal of shooting some APS. I tried it once, a year before they stopped selling the film. The results were lovely.

 

The trick to appreciating APS is, I think, having the same attitude I have adopted for 35mm. Embrace the grain! Embrace the look of the film stock! The smaller the format, the more intimately you are examining the "canvas" so-to-speak. The texture of the film moves more and more to the foreground.

[ben_hutcherson]

Well-I did it. I bought a Pronea 6i with a 24-70 lens.

 

I seem to recall that the 6i will work with most AI and newer lenses(AF-P and E aperture excepted) so I have a pretty nice complement of good optics to stick in front of it. Of course, most(if not all) DX lenses cover an APS-H and will certainly cover if I want to go to APS-C, so I should be set.

 

Now I just need to dig up some film.

[stuart_templeton]

Well-I did it. I bought a Pronea 6i with a 24-70 lens.

 

I seem to recall that the 6i will work with most AI and newer lenses(AF-P and E aperture excepted) so I have a pretty nice complement of good optics to stick in front of it. Of course, most(if not all) DX lenses cover an APS-H and will certainly cover if I want to go to APS-C, so I should be set.

 

Now I just need to dig up some film.

 

That's cool - I'll be interested to see the results.

 

I dropped off my first roll for processing today - looking forward to seeing how bad they are :) I can't help thinking I should pick up an SLR too though.

[stuart_templeton]

I understand the appeal of shooting some APS. I tried it once, a year before they stopped selling the film. The results were lovely.

 

The trick to appreciating APS is, I think, having the same attitude I have adopted for 35mm. Embrace the grain! Embrace the look of the film stock! The smaller the format, the more intimately you are examining the "canvas" so-to-speak. The texture of the film moves more and more to the foreground.

 

That's a really nice way to put it - It's kind of nice to shoot something 'off the wall' for once.

[ben_hutcherson]

That's cool - I'll be interested to see the results.

 

I dropped off my first roll for processing today - looking forward to seeing how bad they are :) I can't help thinking I should pick up an SLR too though.

 

I was in the local camera shop earlier today and the owner gave me a 4-roll pack of Kodak 400 25-exposure((or I should say he threw it in with the Norman kit I bought...which was also priced at a give-away price), so that will be enough to at least scratch the itch.

 

I'll be interested to see other folks' experience, and also to see what I have. I'll probably send it to Dwayne's and get a CD since I dread scanning the stuff.

[stuart_templeton]

I have a couple of rolls of Kodax kicking around, along with a few rolls of Agfa. I'd like to get some fuji as well.

 

One thing I'm wondering about in regards to shooting expired film, with an auto camera is that there's no way to add an extra stop for every decade.

[ben_hutcherson]

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it too much with negative film.

 

Granted therein lies an argument for getting an SLR in your chosen system :) . I think I should be able to dial in +1 EC on the Pronea 6i. I think, but couldn't swear, that it has a manual mode also. I don't know if the Pronea S has EC, and I know it lacks manual.

[glen_h]

 

This is from a compact APS camera that I bought at a thrift store, with unused film already inside. After finishing the roll (and having it sit around a while) I found Walgreens would develop and scan for a reasonable enough price. Many pictures, but not all, have the orange shading, which is either age fog or light leak into the cartridge.

[JDMvW]

When the local camera shop went out of business (sob), they gave me a Nikon Nuvis camera and a roll of Fujifilm APS 200.

 

It's part of my backlog from my long health battles. So if I don't shuffle off this mortal coil, I promise (threaten?) I'll get to it one of these days

[polka]

Before the death of APS (assassinated by digital), by pure curiosity, I bought a little Konica and used it a lot with pleasure. Then I found a Canon-IX body, ridiculously cheap, and tried it with my EOS lenses. Of course, I got fair results, and finally adapted also the standard zoom of my Canon 300D to it. Although said to be fit only for the digital sensor of the 300D, it did not vignet with the APS. Here two pictures :

 

the camera with this lens :

 

 

and an example of the result :

 

 

Polka

Edited November 21, 2017 by polka

[Matthew Currie]

I had a little Canon APS camera for a while, and it was, if nothing else, beautifully made, a solid little brick, and it made decent pictures. What irritated me most about APS was that the supposed advances were either not actually there, or not developed. So for example, the local processors just printed the film without any of the information that was supposedly recorded, and the format differences were not actually format differences on the film. With the electronic operation, it seems silly that panoramic format was still done simply with cropping rather than an actual wider negative. I liked the pocket size of the little Canon, but it wasn't really much smaller than, say, an Olympus Stylus, so without any of the advances actually occurring except for the ability to rewind partway through a roll, it wasn't worth the extra expense of the film.

[ben_hutcherson]

I've run one roll through my Pronea, but haven't had a chance to drop it by the lab(it's not super far away, but far enough that I tend to wait until I have at least a half dozen rolls-I have about that many now, but haven't had the time).

 

In any case, I'll probably opt for just process+scan. I asked about what they could do as far as data on prints, and they told me that they could do things like exposure date if they printed on their Frontier. This lab never makes prints for me, but they also said that they PREFER printing on their Noritsu since "it gives better color" and mostly use the Frontier for scanning but that if I wanted data they'd do it.

 

BTW, mine were all done as APS-H. As I'm sure you all know, APS-C and APS-P are accomplished just by "tagging" the frame with instructions to the printer to only print part of it. I'd rather get all the frame and crop after(and frankly I'd rather start with the ~4:5 a/r of APS-H). The lab did, however, assure me that if they printed the Frontier would print with the tagged crop.

[BeBu Lamar]

I like the APS and willing to pay extra for it but it's too small. If only Kodak has used 35mm film stock. To save film they could make it 24x32mm and it would be great.

[Sandy Vongries]

The film is 24 mm wide, and has three image formats: H for "High Definition" (30.2 ×16.7 mm; aspect ratio 16:9; 4×7" print) C for "Classic" (25.1 × 16.7 mm; aspect ratio 3:2; 4×6" print) P for "Panoramic" (30.2 × 9.5 mm; aspect ratio 3:1; 4×11" print)