5 frames from an obsolete camera, the Olympus i-10

A log time ago in a far off century, 1996 to be precise, a collective consortium got together led by Kodak, Canon, Minolta, and Nikon to launch a new film format, this format became known as APS (Advanced Photo system).

Their idea was to make picture taking a much easier process, using self loading cartridges, offering three different film ratios, of 3.2, 16.9 and a P or a panoramic ratio. At the time it seemed a good idea for people wanting a start in film photography, where the process gave the photographer, a simple small and pocket able camera, and several different models soon became available. Unfortunately, very much like the 110 format, it had a very short life, and was discontinued in 2011.

In the image below one can see the size in comparison to my Nikon F3 ,and the APS film in comparison to a standard 35mm cassette.

Anyway, back to the future now, and to a trip to Oswestry, where I often visit. The discovery of a small camera shop called Abbey photographic attracted me to go inside. Gareth who runs the shop has a large collection of second hand classic cameras of his own and also buys and sells film cameras too. He also often has outdated film, and was kind enough at no charge, to deposit me with a roll of Fuji APS film. it was then I remembered back home in my film camera collection, I had an APS camera, one Olympus i-10.

The i-10 has a fixed focus lens of 24mm, composed of three elements in three groups, and an electronic shutter ranging from 1/50 of a second to 1/200, and also dates the film too. Back home I loaded the camera and took it out for a walk to see what it was capable of.

Once the film was finished I dropped it off to Max Speilman, for develop only and a CD, which I normally do with colour film. Then it goes gets viewed and adjusted in my ancient Windows 7 laptop using Photoshop 6, suprisingly it didn’t need a lot doing to it, just a slight adjustment on the curves.

The images were a lot better than I expected, but did I like it and would I use again? Small and very pocketable, with an extremely small viewing window, I use glasses all the time, so I think not.

I still have another APS roll still to use, but it can go back on the shelf again with the camera. I have much better cameras and projects in the pipeline, but for a couple of quid from a charity shop, I can’t really complain.

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