Wallace Koopmans Artlog

Having found a way of scanning my APS film that produced good quality images it only stands to reason that I would find a worse way to do it, after all it is APS film.  Okay this is easier to do its just that the results aren’t as good.  This is a cheap film scanner of the type you find in a business supply store or at a garage sale or laying on the side of the road.  This one has the ability to pull the film through it without cutting and that is the key to how this works.  Although the holder is designed for 35mm film the smaller APS film can be kept square against one edge.  Unfortunately it gives an image that looks like it was shot with a cheap 3 Megapixel camera.  On the positive side again the image is already converted from a negative and only requires cropping.  Ultimately despite the greater effort required I think I will revert to my macro lens flash system.

I shot these images with the impossibly small Canon Elph LT more from this camera here Canon Elph LT

I’m sorry Wallace I’m afraid I can’t do that.

That being scan APS film in its cartridge on a flatbed scanner.  So my solution take a picture it lasts longer.  Not everyone will have  encountered APS film so here is a little recap.  APS film is smaller than 35mm film and after developing and printing it is spooled back into its cartridge never to be seen again (That isn’t strictly true but when was the last time you took a roll of film in for re-prints).  Okay re-prints are where….. this could go on for a while so forget all that.  APS film in cartridge, needs scanning ect. ect.

The first thing that needs to be done is to get the film out of the cartridge.  Start by removing the label

Then crack the cartridge open  which will let you get at the little film nugget inside   The images on film look like this at this point.

Which may be cool and impress cell phone photographers but the orange mask necessary from optically printing the film makes everything look sickly not to mention the fact that the image is a negative.  The next thing is to take the pictures of the film, in my case I’m using a slide duplicator, a flash and the Pentax DA 35ltd macro lens all of which you should have laying around (or not).

This yields a digital image that needs to be cropped and adjusted  It will be a different process depending on what software you are using but it can be accomplished in Lightroom by going to the tone curve and dragging the two ends vertically to their opposite corners this has the effect of making the image a negative which it already is which makes it a positive which is good, simple right?  The next thing to do is then to drag the colour balance down to eliminate what is now a cyan cast.  After this its a basic matter of making adjustments to the image to make it look correct.  I should add though that after the manipulation of the tone curve all the levels adjustments are reversed so  things such as increasing exposure makes it darker, fun yes?  After all that you should end up with an image that looks like this which will probably make you want to pick up a digital camera unless you feel photography should be a difficult process in which case carry on.

The name ‘Efina T’ sort of sounds like infinity, an oxymoron because this camera uses APS film which rhymes with almost nothing which is also about how available it is.   My biggest lament amout the loss of APS film is losing the 16×9 aspect ratio which I like.  I’ve said it before about this camera and I will say it agian at a time when almost every other camera like this was made of plastic the Efina T was like a solid chunk of steel.

Previous post about this camera ‘Rhymes with Density’

This is such a tiny camera, it ‘s hard to convey just how small, thankfully I took a photograph.

That is of course a 35mm film canister which it does not use (It’s an APS camera).  The camera is so light and small it can easily be slipped into a coat pocket or an empty crevice in a camera bag.   Unfortunately this camera will very soon be a film orphan as the world-wide stocks of expired APS film dwindle but at least I gave it one good run before it goes into the cabinet of curios beside the Fuji Q1

A small fun colourful camera that shoots 16×9 pictures and verges on being miniature. That pretty much sums it up in one sentence.
The next sentence of course should be it uses APS film which hasn’t been produced for several years.

More about this camera Fuji Nexia Q1

I’ve had some pretty bad luck with out of date APS film much of it producing thin negatives that did not scan well, so this time I used the exposure compensation feature of the Minolta Vectis S1 to dial in +1.5 EV of exposure compensation. The film was Kodak Advantix 400 so with the compensation the camera would have selected exposures as if the film was about 140 ISO. I can’t say for sure how much of a difference this made because I didn’t take any shots without the compensation but I did get better results than I have been recently.

More Minolta Vectis S1 here Feb 2013, Nov 2011, Expanded Vision Through Narrower Thinking

I’m missing a major part of this camera which renders it a point and shoot in the strictest sence.  I can’t even over ride the flash.  originally this camera had a cover that also functioned as a controller that could be moved from the front of the camera to the rear or as a remote using IR.  It’s not a common camera, in fact mine is the only one I’ve ever seen,  so the prospect of finding one with the cover is low.  Once my limited supply of APS film is gone there may not be much reason to keep this otherwise interesting camera.

This is what APS film looks like if you were wondering, the scanner at the lab jammed and it had to be extricated.

Forged in the fires of Mordor this camera rules them all…oops apparently this isn’t that kind of elfin camera and its plastic would melt quicker than butter on a hobbits scone. What it is though is diminutive and equipped with a nice 26mm f2.8 prime lens. This hobbit sized APS camera is small enough that you can even forget it’s in a pocket. Like most cameras of its time control only goes as far as turning the flash off and I’ve discovered it doesn’t focus well when you put it up against a chain link fence ( there are two examples of that in the pictures they should be easy to spot). It’s almost hard to say if the lens is better than the zoom of the original Elph because APS film is just awful, it is the great equalizer. The specifications for the lens though are 32.5mm focal length equivalent in terms of 35mm film and 4 elements in 4 groups one of them an aspherical element so I’m going to say its better than the film would suggest.

Not to be confused with my new Pentax Q or the fictional character on Star Trek the next generation.  In the heyday of APS film (insert laugh track here) Fuji released this made in China camera with its 22mm lens that looks more glass bead like than lens like.  The striking thing about this camera is its non camera shape, it’s very round.  Surprisingly that is what is so appealing about it though, worn around your neck it hangs neatly like a giant medallion and nothing says you are a winner like a purple camera medallion.  It did come in other colours but those clearly were not for winners.

No controls no over-rides no problem, take pictures have fun.

Much like the Canon Elph the Pentax efina T is a tiny little metal wonder. The Pentax has slightly more zoom range but gives up some light gathering ability with a slower lens. The image quality through the lens is surprisingly good but of course in the end it is APS film and it is quite grainy.

A nice feature of this camera is the large mode dial around the shutter, rather than poking at tiny little rubber buttons you can know with certainty how the camera is set.