[Helios 1984]

No more so than any of their other products IMO.

APS offered capabilities beyond regular film formats, some useful.
A number of APS cameras were quite interesting as well.

Had it not been marketed just prior to the advent of digital photography
APS might have become quite popular with the average photo consumer.

Chris

Well their other products did brought down smaller labs by dozens, it was either buy the equipment necessary to process APS or close shop. Ironically APS was not here long enough to make profitable the purchase of this equipment. One could argue that these labs would have closed anyway due to digital but I believe the industry could have been left in a better shape.


Note: Things are looking better now, when I read news like Ferrania coming back from the dead, Adox revamping their factory & Kodak about to re-release Ektachrome.

---------- Post added 02-26-17 at 09:06 AM ----------

Things are much brighter for 135 format. In the last few weeks I've noted: Kodak bringing back Ektachrome, Ferrania bringing back P30, Bergger introducing Panchro400, and ADOX announcing construction of a new factory to produce "paper, chemicals and photographic film".

For the records I did not read your comment before posting mine hhaha Indeed things look much brighter.

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Last edited by Helios 1984; 02-26-2017 at 09:07 AM.

[cooltouch]

In response to the OP's questions, I had to sit here and think about it for a while. I still shoot film -- a lot. At least as much as I do digital. I started out as a film photographer almost 35 years ago. I shot slides almost exclusively, and a bit of B&W on the side, especially medium format. When digital sprang up, I was still shooting film, but eventually I relented. My biggest pet peeve with digital was and continues to be its cost. When I finally bought my first DSLR, an entry-level model with a 10.1mp sensor, I paid more for that camera than I'd paid for any other camera in my life. And I've owned several pro cameras over the years. Canon F-1s, Nikon Fs, F2s, and F3s. (and most recently, an F4 and a Pentax LX) The most expensive of these cameras, bought in clean used condition, didn't even cost half what I had to pay for that entry-level DSLR. And I'm not talking about today's deflated prices, either. But if I wanted to get serious with digital and buy a full-frame camera, well they sell at such high prices, I simply can't justify the expense. I paid less for my car than what a good full-frame camera with at least one good lens to go with it costs. So that remains a big pet peeve with me. If I wanted to stick with EOS, I reckon I'd have to wait for a 5D Mk VIII or so to be releasted before I could justify the cost of a working 5D Mk III.

I now have the largest collection of cameras that I've ever had. And it is almost entirely film. I own only two interchangeable lens digitals, and three P&S digitals. 35mm and medium format cameras number somewhere around 50 at last count. Just my Pentax collection includes:

LX
MX
KX
KM
K2
Program Plus
Spotmatic SP 1000
Spotmatic F
Pentax 67
(plus a Spotmatic SP 1000 for sale on eBay right now)

Almost all of the above cameras were acquired within the last two years. Why so many? Well, except for one -- the Program Plus, which came to me as part of a package deal I bought -- all of the cameras I bought out of respect for what they are. Do I use them all? Well, I try to, but it takes a while to get through them all. The only ones I've used lately are the MX and the 67. I shot Tri-X with both and developed and scanned it, but I haven't made any prints yet.

Now, as to why I shoot film, I find there are several reasons. One is I just like the process. Loading the film, winding the crank, picturing in my mind's eye the photo I just took and judging without seeing whether it was a keeper or not. You film guys, remember doing that? There's something unique about an SLR in this matter. Because the image blanks out for an instant in the viewfinder, I am often left with a mental image of the subject at that instant, and it is that image that I evaluate. It's true that a DSLR does the same, but with a DSLR, the temptation to chimp is often too great, so this process of evaluation of the image the moment the mirror flips becomes lost.

I liken an exposed roll of film to a little bundle of potential energy. It has power that is yet to be realized. And on occasion, that power can be tremendous.

Another big reason why I still shoot film is because of its archival characteristics. I miss Kodachrome, by the way. With digital, any path toward archiving images becomes complicated. CDs and DVDs often don't last for more than a few years, so they're no good. The gold CDs and DVDs are much better, but man-o-man, are they spendy! Storing the images on hard drives is risky and it's just a matter of time before the drive fails, so hard drive storage is no more than a temporary solution. Store them in "the cloud" perhaps. Perhaps. I dunno if I trust anything as tenuous as a "cloud" for photo storage, though. Buy a domain and set up your own website? I've done this and I have a lot of images stored online these days, but I did have an instance where my hosting service's server crashed with insufficient backups, and I lost everything. And what about in the distant future? I know that this has been discussed to death, but there are still fundamental issues that are likely to remain unresolved. The image file formats of today will probably have been long obscolesced in 25, 50, 100 years time. But Kodachromes and B&W images will have most likely weathered the test of time. I've found that even many of my E6 and C41 images to have remained very stable, even as much as 34 years after shooting them. Analog will always have an edge over digital because it is a direct, observable representation of the actual subject. Digital files must always be passed through some sort of interpreter before they can be realized. And we are presuming, really as a matter of faith, that there will always be an interpreter for our files. Most recently, I've decided on a cheap way to store my digital files. Since the cost of memory cards has dropped precipitously (I can buy a 32gig card for $8 now), I just leave the raw files on the card, and when it fills up, I just buy a new card. I used to offload the files from my card onto my computer's hard drive. Problem with that is, it starts filling up the hard drive pretty fast, and again there's the issue of the non-permanence of hard drives. So I just leave my files on the cards and hope they have some level of archivability about them. In the meantime, though, I'll continue to shoot film for as long as it remains available. At least I won't run out of cameras to use.

[jtkratzer]

I wish I had taken more pictures of my children with film. I need to pick my favorites and get the digital images printed before I have a drive crash.

[Tony Belding]

-- all of the cameras I bought out of respect for what they are.

I know that feeling. Yesterday I received a Contax Tix. Maybe not the smartest camera to buy into, by utilitarian standards, but it's an amazing device.

Another big reason why I still shoot film is because of its archival characteristics. I miss Kodachrome, by the way.

Funny you should mention that. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled onto a box of old slides from the 1950s. The Kodachrome slides still looked good. The Ektachrome slides had almost all the color faded out, although I was able to bring them back to life somewhat by scanning and heavily correcting. (I've heard that later Ektachrome formulations reduced the fading problem a lot, though.) The Anscochrome (!) slides had lost color too, though not as badly, and gone brownish.

Although the Kodachrome slides hadn't faded, most of them were under-exposed. You really had to nail the exposure with that stuff. I never shot Kodachrome. If it came back today, I'm sure I'd try it, but realistically I'd probably end up returning to Ektar and Portra. Remember that song? "They give us those nice bright colors. They give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the world's a sunny day." The song was about Kodachrome, but that's more how I feel about Ektar.

With digital, any path toward archiving images becomes complicated. CDs and DVDs often don't last for more than a few years, so they're no good. The gold CDs and DVDs are much better, but man-o-man, are they spendy! Storing the images on hard drives is risky and it's just a matter of time before the drive fails, so hard drive storage is no more than a temporary solution.

I have my "digital shoebox", which is my Lightroom library, on my Mac Pro, and I have automatic Time Machine backup to an external hard drive. So the images are pretty safe from simple hardware failures, as long as I'm around to keep things up. Now if I did want somebody to find my photos, like that box of slides, 50 or 60 years from now, then I'd have to come up with something different!

The image file formats of today will probably have been long obscolesced in 25, 50, 100 years time.

It's hard to imagine JPEG being forgotten, short of civilization collapsing. The physical medium to store those files on is a much bigger concern.

[cooltouch]

Funny you should mention that. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled onto a box of old slides from the 1950s. The Kodachrome slides still looked good. The Ektachrome slides had almost all the color faded out, although I was able to bring them back to life somewhat by scanning and heavily correcting. (I've heard that later Ektachrome formulations reduced the fading problem a lot, though.)

Although the Kodachrome slides hadn't faded, most of them were under-exposed. You really had to nail the exposure with that stuff.

It's hard to imagine JPEG being forgotten, short of civilization collapsing. The physical medium to store those files on is a much bigger concern.

I have a collection of Kodachromes my dad shot when he was in Korea during the 1952-54 time period. All of them are still in great shape. However, some are severely underexposed. But with the right tools, severely underexposed slides can also be restored. Slides store information in the shadows. They cannot store info in the bright areas where burn-through has occurred. Below is an example of what I'm talking about. First, the slide as my dad shot it, followed by the restored slide. I duped the slide using my NEX 7 with a slide duplicating setup I've cobbled together. I used Photoshop's excellent raw file converter to bring out all that detail. It is an incredible tool.





I have a collection of Fujichrome 400 slides I took while on vacation in Japan in 1983. Even after 34 years, there is no sign of color shift or fade. I projected them only a couple of times, which probably helped them last. But still, they've remained remarkably stable. I think the Fuji CR-56 process might have had something to do with this. However, I also have a bunch of slides I've developed myself using kits. I have them dating back to 1985 and they show no evidence of color shift or fading.

A bug-eye Sprite race car at Willow Springs racetrack, 1985. Canon F-1, Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror, Fujichrome 100. Duped last year with NEX 7 and Nikkor 55/2.8 dupe rig.


As for .jpg's never being forgotten, well perhaps that they have become ubiquitous on the web might be their saving grace. I think back to popular image file formats from 25 years ago, and as I recall, most were all .bmp and .gif -- neither of which you see much anymore. True, they're still around, but they're slowly moving off into desuetude. So, all I'm saying is it's possible. Actually, I'd like to see greater acceptance of a lossless file format such as png. It isn't nearly as drive-hungry as tiff, yet retains its most important trait -- losslessness. Seems to me it would be a good format to accept as an archival standard. I don't like the idea of archiving jpgs because of their lossy quality.