Minolta and APS.
In 1996 the Advanced Photo System (APS), or Amateur Photo System as Ken Rockwell describes, was introduced. APS was a new fimformat about 56% of normal 135 film. Though heavily pushed by the industry and photographic magazines it never became really succesful. In the 'point-and-shoot' league, normal 135 filmcameras where hardly bigger, mostly cheaper and quite easy to handle too. So where was the advantage of APS?
In the advanced amateur market, Nikon, Canon and Minolta all introduced two APS SLR's. Minolta introduced the S-1 and the simpler S-100. They could never really compete with their 'fullframe' siblings, because imagequality was not good enough. In spite of several photographic magazines which earnestly wrote there was no visible difference. Nonsense! APS can't match with 135 film. Especially if one chooses the P(panorama) size, the shortcomings of APS are clearly visible. The tiny negative is stretched to its limits.
But if you limit the size of your pictures, the Minolta APS SLR's described here are decent little performers. Practical use is none to zero, because APS fim is very hard to get.
By 2004 APS was all over. Digital cameras became better and better and blew away APS.
One thing you should now about APS film is that 3 formats could be chosen. Influencing the cropfactor:
In the advanced amateur market, Nikon, Canon and Minolta all introduced two APS SLR's. Minolta introduced the S-1 and the simpler S-100. They could never really compete with their 'fullframe' siblings, because imagequality was not good enough. In spite of several photographic magazines which earnestly wrote there was no visible difference. Nonsense! APS can't match with 135 film. Especially if one chooses the P(panorama) size, the shortcomings of APS are clearly visible. The tiny negative is stretched to its limits.
But if you limit the size of your pictures, the Minolta APS SLR's described here are decent little performers. Practical use is none to zero, because APS fim is very hard to get.
By 2004 APS was all over. Digital cameras became better and better and blew away APS.
One thing you should now about APS film is that 3 formats could be chosen. Influencing the cropfactor:
- H for "High Definition" (30.2 × 16.7 mm; aspect ratio 16:9; crop 1.25)
- C for "Classic" (25.1 × 16.7 mm; aspect ratio 3:2; crop 1.44)
- P for "Panoramic" (30.2 × 9.5 mm; aspect ratio 3:1; crop 1.37)
