arhphotographic

Advanced Photo System was a film format that never really interested me when it was introduced back in the 1990’s. This may in part have been due to the family responsibilities I had at the time, but mostly because I was convinced that it wasn’t really any better than 35mm. In some respects it reflects my current feelings about ‘mirrorless’ cameras. It would seem I wasn’t alone, as the format came and very quickly went.

As APS film is no longer produced, unlike 35mm, it truly is a dying format. With the ‘clock’ ticking it was time for me to give APS a try.

I won an auction for a batch of point and shoot cameras which included a couple of rolls of Kodak APS film. The boxed films of 400 ISO have the expiry date 2008. One of the films was part exposed in one of the cameras. Going with the dates on the boxed films, I decided to follow the general principle of increasing exposure by one stop for every ten years. Thus I wanted to rate the film at around 100 ISO.

However, I was not going to be able to do that with the ‘point and shoot’ cameras as I couldn’t set the film speed manually. The only other camera I did have was a Nikon Pronea S. Like the compacts it too only allowed for DX coded film but it did have an exposure compensation function that would allow me to overexpose the film by two stops. 🙂 So I promptly went and finished off the half exposed roll of film.

APS film measures 24mm across, so the first problem to solve was how to get it on a developing reel which had no provision for that format. Some have cut up film reel to accommodate for the film but this is a one way street with no recourse back. Another possible solution was to use some 35mm film and attach the APS to it, piggy backing it onto the reel. This would have meant pitting the surface of the 35mm film so that the APS film didn’t stick to it and thus allow the developing chemicals access to the film surface. While this appealed, doing it all in the film changing bag did not.

Then, a much simpler solution arrived in the form of a forgotten spare tank and film reel.

The strong spring mechanism of the reel allowed me to get the 24mm needed to load the film without chopping bits off.

To remove the film from its container requires a little “slight’ of hand with screwdriver and hex tool. Inserting the screwdriver into the hole and twisting opens the film chamber. Then with the hex tool in position in the central spindle the film can be reeled out or at least that was the theory. 😉

It did actually work really well and the film was extracted from its container and wound onto the reel and placed into the developing tank within 10 mins. What was I worried about???

Then it was a simple matter of developing with my usual chemicals. Tetanal Developer for 8 mins at 30℃; Blix for 6 mins; Wash for 6 mins and then finally Stabiliser for 1 min.

Et Voila.

The film is thinner than regular 35mm and when cut up for scanning was really curly. To combat this I had to place a piece of glass on top of the negatives. This did cause some colour halo’s but these were removed in a little post processing.

There is a very definite purple hue to the images, no doubt to film degradation, age and how it was stored.

The above is an image that was not taken by me but by the previous owner of the camera.

Overall I’m really pleased to have explored this film format and look forward to trying out the other films I have. I will also be trying out the Nikon Pronea S as well with some ‘twists’.