http://www.adammillerrealtor.com/digital-cameras-panoramic-feature/
Was this the REAL reason for 35mm APS film’s introduction?
I remember back in the very early days of digital cameras they had a new whoop-de-do film format in 35mm called APS which could do panoramic shots and store picture data, index print and other features. Since film cameras were all but doomed anyway once digitals came out, was this just a last ditch effort by the film camera industry for sustained relevance and sales. From what I remember APS in practice wasn’t as awesome as it claimed to be and digital cameras never stopped improving and getting more affordable. It left me with a feeling that APS was just a gimmick to keep people in the film camp so to speak.
One of the challenges that the photographic industry has faced since it began was the issue of marketing – growth requires an increase in market size, but how do you increase the size of the market for something that is a technically fiddly as photography?
At the same time, there was the concern that the fraction of the population that could afford to own a camera was finite, so it was necessary to make the market elastic – find things that would force the market for cameras to grow in spite of the fact that the number of consumers who were interested in owning cameras was essentially finite. That meant that the industry needed to regularly introduce new models with new features that would induce those consumers to replace old cameras with new cameras.
Kodak was the first to address this challenge with their “you press the shutter, we do the rest” strategy. Basically, the consumer bought a camera that was preloaded with film. After exposing the film, the consumer took the camera to the dealer who would exchange it for a similar camera with fresh film. Kodak would then unload and process the film, while loading new film so that the camera could be exchanged with another consumer.
The major technical hurdle all along was the complexity of changing film, and the industry went through a string of designs that were targeted at making this something that Joe Sixpack could do – automatic loading 35mm P&S cameras, Instamatics, pocket Instamatics, Discs, and eventually APS all addressed this concern.
But by the time APS came along, there were so many solutions to automatic loading that another gambit was needed to make consumers want to purchase a new camera. Digital photography wasn’t economically feasible, but the idea of coding individual frames digitally could be accomplished easily and cheaply. The ability to switch formats was also an attractive feature (something that Hassleblad also incorporated in their X-Pan camera).
It could be argued that a motivation behind APS was to keep consumers addicted to film in the face of a coming change to digital. I’m not sure I agree with that – Kodak, Agfa, Polaroid and Ilford appear to actually have been caught be surprise by the rapid development of digital photography. And the early camera makers were companies like Sony, not Nikon and Canon. But that’s really irrelevant since many of the the ‘early adopters’ who make the switch to APS were also among the first to switch to digital when those cameras became available.
Those realities are even more obvious today as new digital cameras are introduced almost daily with ‘new’ features to appeal to consumers with disposable income.
Bottom line – the entire process is mainly intended to feed the desire of the industry to sell more cameras and involves artificially stimulating consumer “need” by offering features that are advertised as ‘better’ than the features of the models introduced last year.
GE A1050 Digital Camera
|
|
Epson C11C655001 Stylus Photo 1400 Large Format Photo Printer $261.88 Epson Stylus 1400 Inkjet Photo Printer C11C655001 749… |
|
|
Canon SX40 HS 12.1MP Digital Camera with 35x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-inch Vari-Angle Wide LCD. $378.99 Canon PowerShot SX40 HS 12.1 Megapixel Bridge Camera – Black 5251B001 31. What’s in the Box: PowerShot SX40 HS Body, Battery Pack NB-10L, Battery Charger CB-2LC, Lens Cap, Case for Hot Shoe Cap, Neck Strap NS-DC11, Interface Cable IFC-400PCU, Digital Camera Solution CD-ROM…. |
|
|
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V 16.2 MP Exmor R CMOS Digital Still Camera with 16x Optical Zoom G Lens, 3D Sweep Panorama and Full HD 1080/60p Video $328.00 Let yourself go and rejuvenate your passion for photography with the Cyber-shot® HX9V DSC-HX9V digital camera. Boasting innovative features like Full HD for crystal clear movies, Hi-speed Linear focus for dramatically clearer images and Backlight Correction to catch even the smallest details in high contrast shots, you’ll find yourself falling in love again. A 16x optical zoom Sonly G lens brings… |
|
|
Canon PowerShot ELPH 310 HS 12.1 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 8x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and Full 1080p HD Video (Silver) $199.00 Canon PowerShot 310 HS 12.1 Megapixel Compact Camera – Silver 5269b001 Digital Cameras… |