This stuff is so forgotten even the
hipsters don't know about it. APS film
we're looking at it today.
Welcome back DPReviewTV viewers, Chris
Nichols here from DPReview pardon the
noise you can probably see the giant
machinery diggin up there in the
background but today we have a very
interesting history lesson for you
because we're looking at APS film.
Now what the hell is APS? Well it's the
Advanced Photo System and you'd be
forgiven for not knowing what it is
because it honestly came and went so
quickly. It's got an interesting history
and I want you to join me today as we go
through it. I swore I would never do
unboxing videos and here I am about to unbox
these cameras but I think it makes sense
for the context of this video. These are
our weapons of choice today now first
off in this lovely oak humidor I've got
a Canon ELPH limited edition gold-plated
little IXUS camera here. Check that out
We were thinking like okay a point shoots
great but I really want something more
capability an SLR so we went out and we
actually bought this Nikon Pronea 600i
and I've got a triple pack of Fuji
Advanced two hundred film here APS
expired two thousand four, Free Big Mac I
am definitely cashing that in. So let's
unbox this camera and get out here and
shoot worth the price of admission right
there look at that sexy blue strap so
these batteries expired
nine years ago here's hoping let's see
what we get. Look at this: dual dials quite
nice and what's under this tiny plastic
easily lost thing? [BEEP] Threaded cable release!
[Jordan] How's the focus there, Chris?
Actually pretty damned quick. Now not that 35 millimeter film
was hard to load but this whole APS
format was really you know marketed as a
foolproof way of loading, everything
automatic, no way to screw it up does
that look cool or what Jordan? [Jordan] Or what!
All right so this is the situation today
I'm hitting with my Pronea 600i that's
my 'professional' option I've got my Canon
IXUS pocket camera here as well and I
think I can handle any situation as long
as I don't need telephoto, ultra wide
fast apertures or anything over ISO 200
so yeah really gonna be quite limited
today but it should be fun. You know it's
interesting I mean if you think about it
how many of you have heard about the
Nikon Pronea SLR system or the Minolta
Vectis or the Canon IX but I bet a
lot of you out there are familiar with
this shape and this name the Canon ELPH
or in Europe the Canon IXUS I mean these
were super popular and even after film
disappeared Canon continued to use this
name and shape and design of camera in
their digital formats
you know the compact manufacturers are
really the ones responsible for keeping
APS alive as long as they did and Canon
was by far the biggest player in that,
and you can see that heritage
transferring over into the digital world
Hey everyone it's Jordan jumping in here
quickly to let you know we're about to
start looking at some images here and I
got to tell you we got back the images
from the ELPH expired in 2004 turned out
pretty nice little low contrast on it
but not bad at all however all the stuff
Chris shot on the Pronea as you can see
here it says "Too expired, color went off"
and that is certainly the case. [Chris] Okay so
this photo I'm gonna call 'a study of
greens'. [Jordan] we debated converting these to
black and white but you know what we're
just going to show you the yellow and
magenta versions of them just so you
know what's about to happen
enjoy.
[Music]
We had a loyal fan who... you know they
weren't going to use it, they're like: 'Hey why
don't you guys have fun with this?" so we
really appreciate that. But this camera,
well, we went out and we paid our hard-earned
money on this. We went to a local camera
store which is renowned for having a lot
of brand new gear still sitting in boxes
and lo and behold they have this is one
of five Pronea six hundreds they have so
if you want to get your own we can tell
you where to go buy one. And the sticker
on the box is $599 for the kit but you
know we got it for a tenth of that price.
I think because you know by this point
what are you gonna do with these things
Hey so I just took a shot of these signs
knocked over and it really it's
interesting shooting now in this HD
format a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and that's
actually the native format for APS film
but one of the unique features was that
you could set three different ratios you
could do APS-H which is your high def
16 by 9 ratio you could do APS-C which
is a classic 2:3 ratio and you could
also do APS-P which was a panorama now
the C and P modes do crop the sides or
top and bottom now one thing I'm also
noticing on this SLR what it basically
gives you is just grid lines with red
arrows to try to remind you 'hey stay
within these grids' but it's easy to
forget that now in the Canon IXUS when I
change the format it actually crops the
viewfinder and that keeps you from
messing up a lot of shots now here's
something that you might kind of think
about ok APS that stands for Advanced
Photo System is the film we're talking
about but don't they also use that in
sensors I mean APS-C sensors for example
APS-H sensors for example, and they
absolutely do and in fact they pretty
much just borrowed the name they kept
the Advanced Photo System moniker APS
film's classic format is about
twenty five and a half by sixteen point seven
now you go to somebody like Nikon or
Sony their sensors are 24 millimeters by
16 millimeters then you go to can and
then it's like 22 and a half by 15
millimeters I mean they're just all over
the place. Whoo! But does it end there?
not remotely because then you've got
companies like Canon and making their APS-H
sensor that they stuck in their Canon
1D
cameras well that had a 1.3 crop factor
way bigger than any of the film stuff
we're talking about here
it gets so confusing so let's just do it
this way: after APS film died the
manufacturers did whatever the hell they
wanted using the aps name so APS is
basically maybe I don't know anything
smaller than full-frame but bigger than
Micro Four Thirds now let's go with that
we'll keep shooting. Now it's funny but
Jordan and I both worked in photo
developing labs but I was based in
London the UK in Europe and Jordan was
based here in Canada and North America
and it's funny because APS as a system
actually kind of took off in Europe it
was well-received known in London, it was
interesting because I would say we got
about 50 percent 35 mil and 15 percent
APS it was really quite popular, I think
because the cameras could be so compact
and small but he also represented some
convenience for the customer they could
actually stop on a lot of cameras mid-roll
and then resume at the right frame
when they wanted to keep shooting and
after you got the film developed it
would just come out of the cartridge go
through the machines it would actually
go back into the APS cartridge after
that, so you had something to keep your
negatives nice and safe, overall it was a
very interesting development it just
never took off, especially in North
America. When I look at the back of
camera like I expect to see something
there you know it's funny I'm actually
really enjoying shooting this sixteen by
nine format for photography it's
refreshing actually
and it's almost in a way kind of regretable
that 16 by 9 never really took off as a
picture format I think it was a
conspiracy from all the frame makers who
are saying "yeah TVs are going 16:9 but
we've got all these 4x6 frames in the
warehouse what are we gonna do about
those?" Conspiracy! No Digital rotating
screen makes old men grumpy now. Ouch! I'm
doing a puddle photo because people are
complaining about Chris's lack of puddle
photos I don't like this photo
Let's finish the roll. So I've just finished my
first roll here and it's got this handy
little numbering system I want to tell
you about so number one indicator means
it's a brand new roll film number two
means it's partially exposed and you can
resume later number three, the little X shows
that it's fully exposed but not
processed yet and then number four will
actually show when the film's totally
processed and now you've got developed
negatives inside oh and see this little
tab here you could poke this in so that
your camera doesn't accidentally try to
shoot an already processed roll of film
very much like a VHS tape. Do I have to
explain VHS tapes now to everybody or...
we're good? So as you can see the rains
really starting to come down now but I
do have a couple rolls ready to go so
we're gonna head into our local place
here downtown
luckily the lab manager remembers APS
film so you know how to develop it but
even he commented that some of his staff
have no idea what's going on I've never
seen it before let's get in there.
[Music]
APS was designed to be a very modern
system and a system that all the
manufactures got behind to build what
happened to why did it decline so
quickly well really the answer is
digital. Canon's EOS D30 came out
relatively shortly after that sort of
the first mainstream widely used APS-C
sensor digital SLR ever and you know
cameras like that and the subsequent
compact digital that came out really
just destroy APS but I hope what you got
from this whole thing today was that APS
never really went away and we got to
think about a lot of the innovations
that were developed for this system that
that carried on to make digital possible
we've already talked about how these
small compact cameras paved the way for
the new digital compacts that we enjoyed
and you know it wasn't just about design
and naming it wasn't just about putting
a tiny digital sensor into these cameras
it was also the fact that most compact
cameras up to this point were made for
35 millimeter film and when this format
came out the manufacturers got a lot of
practice in developing smaller high
quality lens assemblies that would then
lend themselves very nicely to smaller
digital sensors and even the APS SLR is
which were so unsuccessful and for that
very reason this might even be the first
time you've ever seen or heard of one in
our video they still had their place
because it's all that research and
development that went into it and we
consider things like the Canon IX SLR
the Nikon Pronea SLR they both use
Canon and Nikon full-frame SLR lineup
both manufacturers even started making
lenses specifically for the smaller APS
format which would then be morph into
our current DX and EF-S lenses all of
that research and development is what we
take for granted now in our digital SLRs
today and so maybe after this you know a
little history lesson you've gotten to
see that APS, as forgotten a film
format as it was, really was instrumental
in opening up our markets to the digital
photography era and so hopefully enjoyed
this let us know in the comments below
let us know if you ever had one of these
yourself maybe rocked one of these in
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I'll see ya.
[Music]