Advanced Photo System (APS) - any users out there?

I know that we are in the grip of the digital camera revolution, however I have been having some great times using the APS (film) format.

I own the Canon IX SLR, Contax TIX compact and Pentax Efina. All give good results.

I am a fan of the format, but it would be good to know that there are other users out there enjoying it too.

Anyone using APS?

Ian, UK

hey what ever works for you...

just about stopped using film camera's all but completely. digital has taken over.

my experiences with APS several years back was not very positive. mostly due to pricing being 2x more expensive than regular 35mm.

picture quality was marginal compared to 35mm results I was getting.

I still think film has a place....

APS enables graet panoramic photos that work really well for beach or landscape work. The choice of three formats is cool as each subject requires different framing, and being able to do that 'in camera' is very satifying.

Concerning lack of quality, I have heard that alot - it seems that some APS cameras were not all that great, however the results from my Canon or Contax have been as good as - or even a little better than 35mm due to the thinner negative material base and special coatings used on APS film.

My local photofinisher is always saying to me to 'go digital' but the results from digital cameras (below $200) I have seen have always been badly blurred and soft around the edges.

Shame really, as they are conveneint.

Ian

Haven't seen many APS camera models made in a while but the film is still avaliable. Then again, most consumers are using digital cameras now. Even I haven't shot anything on film for a year.

I've personally used a disposable APS camera; think of the normal disposable camera but with APS film and a adjustible normal and widescreen view on it. It worked great for takeing pictures of the Rose Parade where you want to get the whole float in one shot. I still have the negatives in a box with other picture somewhere.

I used to run a 1 Hour Photo Lab which processed 35mm and APS. They are both made out of the same type of negative material, or at least take the same developing process (C41).

The negative in APS is always the same size no matter what mode you set it to (C,H,P). It has magnetic information on the film strip which tells the machine what size you had taken the picture in. And since the negative is always the same size you could go back and get reprints of any size from it (C,H,P).

The reason a 4x6 APS looks less in quality than a 35mm negative is due to the size of the negatives. The APS negative is so much smaller than a 35mm negative, not holding the same amount of information. I hope that makes sense at least. Put them side by side and you can see the difference.

I used APS once, and Im not really a big fan.
A customer came in yesterday hoping to purchase some APS film.. but our store got rid of it.
Oh well
tom

It does seem that APS is not too popular any more then...

I was on the telephone to Fuji just yesterday and in Japan it is very popular still I was told. They have 100 speed 'Fine Grain' APS that is supposed to be superb, but sadly in the UK I can only find 200 speed Fuji and Kodak.

The person I spoke to was also disappointed that APS was not selling too well as Fuji had put in alot of research on the special emulsions.

The film base is thinner than 35mm and also has 'anti curl' technology to keep the film flat after extended storage in the canister. This thinner base is also supposed to aid sharpness.

Hope it does not die out altogether.

Ian, UK

I don't know how it is in the rest of the world, but here in the US I haven't seen APS cameras for sale for a while, and the film has less space in store displays. I recall reading in a magazine some time ago that Kodak was thinking about getting out of the APS business. The whole APS thing always struck me as a last attempt to make film cameras attractive to users who weren't interested in the process. Sort of like 110 in the '70s.

I remember when the APS cameras came out, the IXUS cameras were extremely popular. I was a UN-soldier in South Lebanon at the time, and the APS cameras were always sold out at the PX and the local photoshop. I bought an ordinary IXUS first, then changed to the IXUS L1 because it took better pictures. Gave the original IXUS to my father.
I also had a Nikon F90X SLR, but it was to heavy to lug around so I needed a small pocketable camera for my EDC. I still got the L1, but haven't used it in a while, and sold my SLR because I didn't use it.

I miss the old times a bit, used to develop my own pictures.

I have a ixus II, it used to be my edc point and shoot camera, but has been replaced by a small digital. For the better pics I still rely on my trusty old 35mm SLRs, Minolta Dynax 5 (got this one as a present ) and my Fujica ST-801 fully manual, strong enough to drive nails into the wall... but anyway...

the only thing that I REALLY liked about APS, was that it made compact cameras compact before APS the only really compact cameras were the 110 type things, which often lacked in features and some way too expensive cameras like the Minox GT stuff...
APS image quality has always been poor, especially on the normal and panorama settings, as they only used less of the negative....

110 and Minox frames were much smaller than APS so the quality wasn't very good. That didn't stop Pentax and Minolta from making 110 SLRs.

In addition to a couple digicams and some old cameras in my collection, I have various 35mm Olympus point 'n' shoots (some of those are tiny!), a few Minolta Maxxums (Dynax outside of US), and a Polaroid or two.