'Photo system' comes close to perfect pics.

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 22, 1996 | by Jeffrey R. Sipe

As video cameras become smaller, more versatile and easier to use, consumers increasingly have turned away from traditional photography. Innovations have failed to spark the market. Anyone remember Eastman Kodak's disk camera? How about Japan's stillborn video-still camera?

Now comes a new technology that developers are convinced will forever change the industry. The advanced-photography system, or APS, is not just an innovation, say its advocates, it's a "revolution" that will make 35mm photography obsolete by the turn of the century.

The brainchild of Kodak and the fruit of a joint research-and-development effort involving its fierce competitor Fuji Photo Film and camera manufacturers Minolta, Canon and Nikon, APS is designed to ensure optimum images regardless of common mistakes and miscalculations by amateur photographers.

The system's biggest selling point may be its compactness. The equipment is smaller and lighter. APS cameras generally are 5 to 25 percent smaller than existing versions; some disposable models run about the size of a credit card. A Fuji spokeswoman tells Insight that "dragging a bulky camera around" is one of the main reasons generation Xers aren't snapping pictures.

Likewise, APS film (called "Smart Film" by Fuji and "Advantix" by Kodak) measures 24mm and contains a magnetic strip that records data about lighting, f-stop setting, shutter speed and so on. New photofinishing equipment reads this information and corrects for over-and underexposures within certain ranges as it makes prints. Users also have the option of making three different sizes of pictures on the same roll of film: classic (4-by-6 inches), group (4-by-7) and panoramic (4-by-10).

If a photographer wants to change film in the middle of a roll -- say, switching from a standard ASA 200 to a low-light ASA 400 -- the camera automatically will rewind the film and, when it is reinserted, advance it to its previous position, eliminating waste and the danger of double exposure.

But APS's most significant innovation may be its storage and filing capabilities. Rather than receiving strips of negatives along with processed photographs, photographers receive an index print, much like a contact sheet only smaller, and the original canister of film into which the negatives have been rewound. When ordering reprints or enlargements, customers simply indicate which pictures they want reprinted or enlarged and the photofinishing equipment will do the rest.

APS does have drawbacks. The system is incompatible with conventional 35mm photography, forcing a wholesale changeover in equipment. By late April, when the film and cameras become available to consumers, "tens of thousands of labs will be offering the new process," according to Kodak's Charlie Smith. "Even if a retail outlet does not yet have the process, there will be somewhere nearby to send the film."

With five heavy hitters of the industry uniting to introduce a technology aimed at superseding current standards, the appearance of a monopoly-minded cabal will be unavoidable. To counter this impression and avoid the disastrous fate of the disk camera, Kodak and its fellow consortium members already have licensed APS technology to some 40 companies across the spectrum of the photography industry. Papers have been filed with U.S., Japanese and European authorities to avoid any appearance of monopolistic maneuvering.

For all the cooperation, however, Smith points out that the spirit does not extend to the marketplace. "As soon as it's on the market" he says, "we'll be competing just as fiercely as ever." Nevertheless, he adds, consortium members "will continue to work together for future standards."

The public can expect to be inundated with sales pitches in coming months, culminating with a major push timed to coincide with the Atlanta Olympics this summer. But photographers invested in 35mm equipment need not fret just yet. Manufacturers don't predict the demise of the 35mm camera in the near future and some even doubt that APS will be the agent of death for conventional photography as we now know it.

"I don't think APS will be the force that the big guys are saying," says Cindy Lawrence of Goldline USA, a camera maker which also is an APS licensee. "In my opinion, it's just a transition technology on the way to digital."