The Rise and Fall of APS Film : Kodak Point and Shoot
Vložit
- čas přidán 2. 09. 2020
- Well here we go, another point and shoot from my box of cameras!
Camera:
Kodak Advantix c650
Film:
Kodak Advantix
IG:calebknueven
Email: badflashes@gmail.com
#kodak #film - Krátké a kreslené filmy
I love how refreshing your videos are! Sometimes I get tired of lofi for every film photography video
Glad you like them! I like trying new things from time to time hahah 🤩
APS was the Great Yellow Father's attempt at addressing consumer complaints about 35mm film. Back in the day folks (my mom, for one,) complained that it was too hard to get the film leader onto the take-up spool. Most people wanted little 3x5 or 4x6 (inches,) snapshots the y could put into photo albums and didn't know what to do with the negatives and didn't want to have to decide whether to keep them... somewhere, or throw them away. They complained that cameras had too many buttons and dials and levers and they hated to have to make all these decisions. So Kodak said, 'fine. We'll make it so simple even your senile grandmother can get a nice picture of her cat.' and people loved it. Turned out they loved digital point 'n shoots even more and APS died a hurried death but for a while lots of folks loved it. I will always remember the sad look in my mother's eyes when I had to tell her that they'd stopped making film for it. I bought her a 2 megapixel Olympus point and shoot and showed her how to put the pictures on to her computer and send them to her friends. Inside of a week I believe she had forgotten that APS ever existed.
Damn. This is a wonderful story from the past. I believe that’s how it happened for a good portion of the population. But digital was the way during that time for sure.
At that time (2011, when APS film had stopped manufacture,) digital was NOT the solution. Resolution was worse than APS, color fidelity was... challenged etc. But it was obviously where consumer photography was going and even then was adequate for snapshots, especially when shared digitally and not printed. And digital got better, very quickly. APS was actually a pretty good idea for consumer photography; it was just unlucky that it came along when digital was an even better idea. I'm grateful to the digital revolution: if it hadn't come along and murdered film camera prices I would never have been able to afford large and medium format gear.
Oh damn. That’s the truth!!!
I'm gonna watch this on my birthday.
😆 Please do! hahah
Oh my gosh!
This video is so funny that l had to watch it all over again. My laugh didn't allow me to hear the whole information. Yes l will watch it again on my B-day. You made my day
Thanks
Your comment made my day!!!!!!!!! So glad you dig it :)
Nailed it. I remember thinking when this format was released “who in their right mind will buy this?”
Hahaha right, I guess Kodak has to have a few fails 🤣
Huuuge throwback w/ this vid!! You should do another dive into APS film with one of the SLRs they have! I’m going down the rabbit hole rn and it’s surprising how cheap some of these cameras are!
Well it’s bc the format is dead hahaha 😆
I love how I saw one of these at good will but it was damaged I was so curious about it glad you put this out
Yeah ... these cameras are something
i recently found my mom's old Kodak advantix t550, i was wondering if i could a different kind of film instead of the advantix as i cant find it anywhere?
I mean no not really. You are kinda stuck to that system and whatever is available for it. eBay’s the place I got mine.
I'm pretty sure the only redeeming/memorable detail about APS is that we all decided the APS-C ratio was/is the perfect size for a CMOS sensor in modern digital cameras. At least they're cheaper than full frame!
I agree with that. I was going to bring that up but forgot! Hahah
My first digital mirrorless was a sony nex with aps-c. It wasn't until this year that I learned it came an analog format from way back
Same! I had no idea till Techmoan did a video about it, lol
TIL why they called it APS-C / H
Fuji gang represent. The lighter setup of APSC digital is certainly my favorite.
Just say NO to APS. I did! Inferior to 35 mm, cost 2x-3x overall.
i bought a very old home and found a roll of film in the basement for this kind of camera, on the side of the film is 4 slots. the slot blocked is "#4 processed". what does this mean and is there still photos in there i can get out or has it been processed and no good. are the negatives still in there? im clueless on this. i would think they would of thrown this out if it was no good.
🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
@@BadFlashes thanks for literally answering none of my questions and just giving me stupid emojis lol
I have an APS camera, so here goes..#4 processed means that the pictures have been developed. In that little film case there are negatives that can be turned into pictures. The chemical process that labs do has already been done. It's the exact same as the negatives that are included with the prints that you get back from the lab. You can see the pictures if you either take it somewhere to have prints made, or if you carefully break the film case open, those negatives are on a roll and if you have a scanner that can scan film, then you can see them on your computer. Hope this helps.
@@DanielSnyder-bz8kp thanks! i found a walmart after that last post who said theyll take them. so i had them sent out to be processed. i should be getting them back any day now
Can we load 35mm film and shoot it with an Advantix film camera?
Unfortunately no 😞
Very funny. Love it. Thanks!
Haha no prob
Glad you enjoyed 🥳
I think you kinda missed the mark on APS film cameras. You didn't mention 2 important qualities about it. The big thing was the ability to switch film roles with partially exposed film. In other words while on vacation, on the same day with the same camera I would shoot with 200 speed during the day, 400 later in the day and 800 color or 800 b&w sometimes. You could rewind the film mid-roll, put another speed of film in and it would automatically advance to the next unexposed pic. They called this "Mid-Roll Change". The 2nd feature was that the camera encoded information called PQI about each picture and whether it was over or under-exposed. So then when you got the pictures developed, the lab would, for example, bring up the brightness of an under-exposed picture. This way you got more "keepers". Mine had 5 modes; full auto,portrait, infinity focus, nighttime and center spot focus. Lastly this format was to be compared with 110 format and was a big improvement over it. It wasn't trying to compete with 35mm. I have prints from that the Advantix C750 from 2006 when they were still selling and develping the film and they look really good. Way better than 110 or 35mm disposable cameras. Another cool feature was when you put the camera in panoramic mode, you automatically got those pan pictures back from the lab in a 4" x 11.5" print. That 20 year old film is not really fair to judge. Instead you should have scanned some prints from people who had prints made during that time and shown them.
I liked the format back then. The Canon IXUS cameras were so cool.
yeah I feel that! More accessibility and whatnot
are there still labs developing APS films?
Yep, there are a few out there for sure!
Another great vid 👌😁
Ahhhh thanks 😊
Too bad you got a camera where you can't change the ISO. I got a Canon IX Lite SLR and the first thing I did was drop the ISO down by two stops.
Can I also use c200 fujifilm? In a fujifilm Nexus 20auto?
Does it take 35mm film?
@@BadFlashes i have heard 24 mm film
Kind of curious how the Contax APS cameras handle / cost now, I guess it’s a cheaper way to try a T3?
It better be free! haha
Cool camera to have. But..... Not worth it. It better be under $50
@@BadFlashes Pulling a solid $200 on ebay, when one sells. The Contax point-n-shoot camera which depriciated rather than inflating to absurd prices.
@@GregoryVeizades The seller needs to pay you $50 for that fancy APS turd. le stinkee!
My gosh ! i have one of them but i couldn’t develop the films as the labs in my area don’t develop them anymore :(
I sent my film to The Camera Shop in MN
Bad Flashes damn ! the photos came out pretty nice didn’t expected that result
I got like 3 of these things with a couple of other cameras I picked up recently, and I'm going to eventually try it. The hopes are not high ...
If anyone can get good results... it’s you my friend!
@@BadFlashes Thank you! My film actually just showed up, so I guess I'm finding out soon.
I was here for your rug cleaning demo, what happened?
Oh darn…I forgot
I might be the only one, but I always second take advantix cameras when I come across them in person or online. They are generally all really good looking to me. Refined, usually made small and out of some aluminum or something nice, good layout, just nice. But then I realize the 'A' symbol and say..."danng" and pass it by. Is it just me? Haha
Hahah nope. Not just you… I definitely do the same thing!
I have 2 pronea 600i's in my collection. I found a partally broken one in a junk bin at my camera store for €3 and found it so charmingly terrible i couldn't resist a €50 working ebay specimine complete with IX lens.
I hsve what is imo the best F mount camera in my collection (F5) its nice to have the worst too :D
🚀🚀🚀
APS was a well intentioned misfire. People wanted to just load their film and shoot but the format was crippled by the fact it could never compete with 35 mm and the up and coming point and shoot digicams put the whole film loading thing out of its misery. If you don’t want the hassle of manually loading and spooling your 35 mm film into the camera, there are cameras that will assist you with it as well as well reload your film when you’re done. The only other format that’s survived is instant film which is even more idiot-proof and fun than the deceased APS format was. Thanks for the tour of the forgotten side of photography history. 😊
I really like APS film and shoot it quite frequently. Unfortunately, my local lab closed down in May of 2021, the last one i know of that was still able to process the metadata captured on the magnetic strip of the film correctly. That´s the biggest struggle with the format, because there is so much more information on the film than the print format. Titles on the front, the back, exposure settings, the date... I wish i´d be in the USA, there are still quite a lot of labs that can handle this kind of stuff properly, and do OPTICAL prints. I hate The prints from scans that you get everywhere these days... It´s kind of retarded to shoot on film and then get a print from a digital source...
Great! Now this video has motivated me to find an APS format SLR so that I can experiment with it...I have a problem😔
Hahah that’s what you got from the video 😝 …. I’m sorry 🤣
😄👍🏿
I remember APS. I was so annoyed when I realized the panorama setting was just a mask. Was kinda neat getting the prints, I guess.
A gimmick to get people to buy but I could see getting Togolese prints back were pretty cool lol
Isn't APS the newest and the hottest trend in analogue photography, sweeping the world by storm?
Maybe it will be soon... get ready for terrible pics haha
Lol ur funny i just had to sub
Omg thanks so much! Welcome to the fam 😄
I loved your intro, how did you make it? Can you make me one? I’ll pay you
Your film was too expired to get a NOICE picture, mate. What was your film's expiration date?
2005 ... wasn’t that expired. :/
Pretty funny review. You were going for funny, right?
Seriously, you may consider it a fail, but it did increase picture taking by about 15% world wide so that's actually a win.
A bit of history...
The two largest complaints/concerns that were logged by Kodak MTS (Marketing Technical Support) agents from consumers with 35mm cameras was blank films (some little brat would inevitably wind the tongue of a fresh roll back into the can and mom would think it's used and get it developed) and double exposed films (lots of point & short 35mm cameras in the 80's didn't fully rewind the tongue back into the can, so mom would load it back into a camera thinking it was new),
Kodak saw this as an opportunity to improve something that they always felt was an imperfect format i so many regards.
35mm was designed for motion picture, not still work.
With the numbers on the end of the APS cassette, it was impossible (unless someone used a tool to spin the spool) to process a blank roll or double expose a roll. The mid roll exchange (position 2) recorded frame information on the film magnetically that the camera would use when the roll was reloaded to prevent to double exposing.
There is also a small square that gets punched out during processing (like a VHS cassette) to prevent accidental re-processing attempts.
There was no relationship between the sprockets and the framing - this varied between cameras and presented opportunities for printing equipment to accurately position the frames. Other formats like 110 and 126 had a fixed sprocket to frame relationship, and film gates were simple and reliable. APS film would have a fixed sprocket to frame relationship.
The meta data that was recorded on the film was used to help print the images better, and it did help tremendously.
The system was not for the pros, it was for the moms.
Kodak originally was designing a cartridge loading format based on 35 mm film with a new sprocket design. They did this because using the same width would give a reasonably sized negative, and would require little changes to film manufacturing lines and photofinishing equipment. Working on the hardware to thrust the film out of the cassette, they encountered some Fuji patents. Someone made the call to Japan and found they too were working on a new film format to combat essentially the same concerns. They ended up creating a consortium of companies to work together on the design of the new format. Nobody wanted another VHS vs Beta war so late in the film game.
Each participating company presented their design thoughts and it everything was voted on. Fuji's biggest push was to have the cameras small enough so people could carry them everywhere (and take even more photos) and as a result, the film had to be smaller... and new slitting equipment had to designed, and a lot of photofinishing equipment was deemed obsolete.
A lot of the designed functionality was never implemented as digital adoption was faster than Kodak had hoped for.
Damn! That’s a lot of good info there! So it was all the moms fault this happened ... thanks mom! 🤣
But seriously good info ☺️
@@BadFlashes Actually, I forgot about dad... Because he was so cheap, he would always try to get as many pictures on a roll that he would often shred the sprockets at frame 24A to fit the 25th photo on it. This wreaked havoc with automated film splicers in photo labs.
They were both to blame.
Noooooo why!!!!! Daddy!!! How could he do such a thing. He should have just gotten into home development 🤣
You didn't mention the ability to mid roll reload!
There are definitely a few things I left out... but that doest save the format haha
Video starts at 2:35 with tons of filller throughout and too many poop references. I had that exact same camera for a 1999 Walt Disney World trip. Loading & unloading was easy but pictures were poor and disappointed by the cropping as it only reduced your frame size. Would have been better to use full frame all the time. My cheap 35mm Nikon point and shoot had better photos.
Really love your energetic vibes !!!!!!
🥰
Oh gawd, I remember when this crap was introduced. It was such a huge pain in the ass for us to develop and print. It required special leader cards for the film processor and a special film unloader/reloader machine. The results were disappointing at best for the photographer.
Oh wow… yeah I can totally see that! It seems like a pain
@@BadFlashes By the way, nice video. Very entertaining for both my wife and myself. You suddenly had us reminiscing about our time together at the photo lab in DC back in the late '90s. Thanks.
Aw thanks for sharing that. I’m so glad you enjoyed the video :)
I had completely forgotten about this terrible format. Thanks for the flashback. I had abandoned photography during those years, selling off most of my gear to pay the rent. Up until then I always processed my own film for best results.
Yeah. It’s definitely not my fav out of all the formats. 🥶🫣😂
I came down here to say; f**k APS film. This is all. Oh and keep the videos coming!
Haha thanks will do ☺️
And ... your are totally right! 🤣🤣🤣
My Dad was all in on APS film... it’s a shame it was a goddamn scam...
Oh no 😭 so sorry!!!
Where the F*** can you still get APS film developed? Or perhaps even more important, find the damn stuff?
It helps that Caleb develops his own rolls. But I do have the same question on where one could still find these rolls.
@@MiracleWinchester I thought that unless you want to destroy the cartridge, you actually need special machinery to develop APS film. Those cartridges where designed to be wound back after development.
Thedarkroom.com still develops APS, but who's gonna shoot that garbage then pay for it to be developed lol. I assume its mostly for old family stuff shot on it.
haha this was relateable, waste of money now a days. I got super muddy results :( ohhh well lol
💯 right there with ya! Haha
The classic expired film look.
Very expired haha
No way I'm first.
And I’m 4th 😱
Stupid review. People love shooting half frame cameras on 135 film, which is about same size, so why not APS? You can develop yourself, which I do and get much better results than you. I also scan the film myself and can compensate for much of the colorshift of older film. There is nothing wrong with APS itself, but only the economical model around it forcing labs to buy expensive equipment.
But why choose it over 35mm ... half frame I get... it’s still normal 35mm and you don’t need anything special for it. I just see no benefit in shooting APS format at all.
One advantage is having the film stored safely within the canister, another - provided that you have a scanner like me, the Canon FS4000 that can scan directly from the canister - is that you can scan all up to 40 images in one go. And I actually do the development in a tank in which I can do 110 film, 35mm, 120, 127 and then also APS - so nothing special required there. And I do C41 and sometimes E6 cross process as I also do it for all the other films - again nothing special there.
A great advantage though not possible on all cameras is, that you can change roll mid roll if you want to use another film. That is at least possible on my Canon IX7, Nikon Pronea, Canon IXUS II, and the very tiny Canon IXUS III - the smallest camera I have ever owned. Unfortunately, black & white APS are getting very rare to come across, but when offered I buy it immediately. But I have a lot of different color negative films from ISO 200 to 1600, and different color films with renditions from typical cold Kodak to vivid Fuji Velvia. Changing mid roll is a very pleasent feature even when not having b/w film.
All in all a number of quite nice advantages.
But yes if the development was done by a lab it would require special equipment.
This film killed the industry
It was pretty pretty bad lol
Damn that film sucks
But your videos don't so good job bruh
❤️🧡💛💚🥰
I remember the introduction of that stupid film format. Remember, that was in the late 90's, before iPhones and to be truth digital cameras in general. And yep it was geared towards complete amateurs. Wait, no... It was geared towards mams and dads so they could shoot holidays with their families, and towards teenagers and college kids to shoot all that stupid crap they do when they are not "learning". So they all can go to the stores and buy some new cameras. Course there wasn't a new iPhone or Samsung Galaxy around the corner. What's crazy considering that in that time cameras like Olympus Stylus which where actually even smaller already existed. Every single photographer and even advanced amateur laughed at that attempt to extort money. But we all didn't laughed in the end. Apple & Samsung did...
Now there are soooo many cameras everywhere haha
I mean I like you Caleb, but the cringe is too strong.
I’ll take that! 🤪☺️😆
Very funny. Love it. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it!