[HN Gopher] The Kodak Disc Camera
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The Kodak Disc Camera
Author : nickt
Score : 29 points
Date : 2022-09-04 14:01 UTC (8 hours ago)
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| js2 wrote:
| > The Kodak Disc camera was introduced with great fanfare in
| 1982. The new cameras were lightweight, foolproof (with auto-
| exposure and built-in flash), affordable, and used a brand new
| kind of film cartridge.
|
| My dad owned a darkroom/photoshop/one-hour lab for about 30 years
| starting in the 70s. I worked for him for about 5 of those years
| centered around highschool.
|
| There is absolutely no such thing as a foolproof camera. You
| would not believe all the ways people can screw up even the most
| "foolproof" of designs.
|
| As just one example: with a traditional 35 mm camera, the film
| unspools from its lightproof cartridge onto a take-up spool in
| the camera. When you reach the end of of the roll, you press a
| button on the camera to release a clutch, then you turn a knob to
| rewind the film back into its cartridge before opening the camera
| back and removing the film.
|
| https://filtergrade.com/load-film-35mm-camera/
|
| One obvious and easy to make error is accidentally opening the
| camera back before rewinding the film, usually ruining
| ("fogging") all the pictures you shot. :-(
|
| But what you wouldn't guess someone would be able to do is to
| rewind the film without releasing the clutch. Doing so requires a
| large amount of force because you're tearing the sprockets off
| the side of the film where it travels over the gear that's
| normally used to advance the film.
|
| Any yet, this is something I saw more than one time. Customers
| would never admit to doing this, but I mean, come on, we'd open
| the cartridge to remove the film for development and the sides
| would have been torn off and there's only one way this happens.
|
| Then there's the questions... no, dropping the exposed film did
| not blur the images.
| dannyw wrote:
| Tangential Ask HN: For someone looking to get into film
| photography for the first time, what camera would you recommend?
| I prefer something as mechanical as possible (less electronics
| the better!), but a working light meter might be helpful.
| ruined wrote:
| holga or diana. it's a plastic box with a shutter. you will be
| forced to learn and get creative.
| frostburg wrote:
| Those are bad in general and also specifically bad for
| learning since the results aren't repeatable.
| cpsns wrote:
| Literally almost any working camera will be fine, just pick one
| you like and have at it. As a beginner your photos aren't going
| to be amazing, so you won't gain much from some crazy
| expensive/fancy camera, nor do you even know if you'll like
| working with film.
|
| You don't even need a light meter really (though they are very
| helpful), basic rules like sunny-16 will go along way and will
| help teach you how to judge exposure.
|
| 1950-60s rangefinders can be a fun place to start. They've got
| everything you need, nothing you don't, are full mechanical,
| and often very cheap.
|
| The most important thing is to get out, learn how film behaves
| and to learn how to take good photos. Don't get caught in the
| trap a lot of beginners do worrying about gear to the point
| they focus on that more than actually using it.
| xdennis wrote:
| If you just want to try, get a good Zeiss Ikon Contina. It's
| the cheapest camera (20-30 dollars for a good model) of a great
| quality that I have. Fully mechanic, no battery.
| greggeter wrote:
| Any Nikon from the 90s with a focus drive motor. Put it in
| manual and have a ball.
| https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/n55.htm
| 12xo wrote:
| Nikon FM2. The best beginner SLR ever made. Add a 85mm 1.4 or a
| 110mm and a 35mm 1.4 lens and you're on your way.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I don't really follow the used market that much, but I'm
| thinking the is the best answer if you've got a good budget
| to work with and the other post saying the Pentax K1000 is
| better if you don't.
|
| One potential advantage is the ability to use old Nikon
| lenses on newer digital cameras, but that's of limited
| utility when trying to use old manual focus lenses on modern
| bodies that aren't really designed for them.
| frostburg wrote:
| The manual lenses are actually better on modern mirrorless
| cameras than on older dslr ones, because those had
| viewfinders that made focusing manually rather hard, while
| the mirrorless bodies have good focus aids.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think the EOS Rebels. Of course you could go back to all
| mechanical; but this is a decent compromise.
| frostburg wrote:
| No EOS camera is mechanical because they all use EF lenses
| with electronic aperture control, I don't think that's what
| the parent post asks for.
| mc32 wrote:
| I interpreted it as film. For mechanical the old Pentax
| K-1000 is a nice entry option.
| joblessjunkie wrote:
| There are many correct answers here, but I recommend the Pentax
| K1000. It is possibly the world's #1 most-manufactured camera,
| and was the standard camera for beginner photography classes
| throughout the 80s and 90s.
|
| There are vendors on eBay that specialize in this camera and
| have literally 100s of cameras in stock.
|
| Early models are all-metal, while later ones incorporate some
| plastic, but are consequently lighter. At this age, I wouldn't
| worry about the reliability difference of the two, and simply
| plan to replace the body if it fails.
|
| The Pentax K-mount has a lot of cheap, good glass. The 50/1.8
| is standard and fabulous, the 28/2.8 and 135/4 are also amazing
| and can be had for under $50.
|
| The camera is entirely manual, with no autofocus or
| autoexposure available. Optionally, you can put a button cell
| battery in it to power a simple exposure meter, visible as a
| needle indicator in the viewfinder.
|
| I've been shooting these for 40 years, so I'm a bit biased, but
| I do recommend them just for their ubiquity and cheap
| replaceability.
| musictubes wrote:
| The K1000 and the Canon AE-1 are some of the only model names
| that people still recognize. They were both basic cameras
| when new. Ironically, they are now frequently more expensive
| than better cameras from the same makers. The name
| recognition has driven search.
|
| I now recommend a Pentax MX, the same operation of a K1000
| but better in every way. It was a more upscale all mechanical
| camera from Pentax. If you want a Canon, go for an Fb to Ftb
| for mechanical cameras or an A1 if you want more automated
| exposure options.
|
| The best deals are probably the autofocus cameras from the
| 90s. With a little looking around you can probably find a
| Minolta XtSI with a 50mm lens for $50 or less. It is small
| and the lens, like all 50mm, is great. It also has a built in
| flash and a variety of of auto modes to simplify picture
| taking. Yes, they are cheap, plastic cameras that will not
| last a very long time. But you can get then for so cheap it
| doesn't really matter. The lenses tend to last longer. You
| can get similar deals on other brands too. Pentax autofocus
| cameras are super cheap but you can find Canon Rebels by the
| truckload as well as many Nikon (the N/F80 is my favorite
| plastic fantastic from them).
| hef19898 wrote:
| I would recommend two cameras, both Nikon since I'm a Nikon guy
| since my dad handed me his F4 when I was 12 or so.
|
| First is a FA, fully mechanical and a nice camera. Not sure
| about availability so.
|
| The second, and already sporting stuff you also find on modern
| DSLRs, is a Nikon F4. At least over here more or less
| available, industructible (even half submerged in rain water
| pictures are great and the camera did not suffer).
|
| Benefit of both is that they work with every F-mount lense
| Nikon ever made. Not sure about the latest G series without
| aperture rings, could be the F4 accepts those. And those
| lenses, if you get the good ones, all work great on Nikon's
| DSLRs up to the recent D780 and D850. And those lenses are
| available cheap used since everybody goes mirrorless. With a F4
| and a decent set of lenses it is easy to go didgital on a
| budget, e.g. with a used good condition D700. Full format,
| feels a lot like a F4, both are professional bodies, and not
| too expensive.
|
| Invest the difference to mirrorless into travelling to nice
| places where you can take nice pictures.
|
| Oh, and using film helps improve your photography, if a picture
| takes time and money to develop you are much more concious
| about what you shoot.
|
| Damn, now I'm motivated to break out the afore mentioned F4
| again and some B+W film...
|
| Edit: If you can get your hands on a Canon EOS1 your good too.
| It's Canon's F4 equivalant and Canon lenses are great. Canon
| does have less lens downward conpatability so. Nikon cameras
| are hefty, you feel what you handle, Canons are lighter and
| feel, well, not flimsy in comparison but you get the drift. I
| like hefty, solid cameras, others don't, so ouck your poison.
| frostburg wrote:
| Olympus OM-1 (or OM-1n) if you can stand using silver oxide
| batteries for the light meter. There are many other great fully
| mechanical options but they can be somewhat expensive or have
| issues with finding lenses. The OM-2n is also great but the
| shutter requires a working battery and it's actually a very
| complex camera internally (it does real-time aperture priority
| metering by measuring the light reflected by the film surface
| while the shutter is open, if you want it to).
|
| A Nikkormat FT3 or Nikon FM would also be good choices, but I
| like the compactness of the Olympus.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, watch out for battery requirements. Canon A-1, AE-1,
| F-1 are also reasonable choices. (Basically any FD lens
| system camera.) The trick is probably finding something that
| is in decent shape but not "collectible" shape. Looking
| through KEH's catalog is probably a good start.
| frostburg wrote:
| The issue there is that the once very affordable FD lenses
| are now popular among filmmakers for rehousing, which makes
| them a lot less affordable. Pre-AI Nikon is cheaper.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| > Pre-AI Nikon is cheaper
|
| No it's not! Pre-Ai Nikon lenses are also made out of
| toxic metal that will break modern cameras!
| frostburg wrote:
| No, they'll break modern cameras due to their shape, but
| that's why I mentioned the FT3 and FM.
| Lio wrote:
| I had one of these as a kid. I think it was the basic 3100 with
| the gold front.
|
| From memory the major problem for me was not the picture quality
| or an lack of features on the camera. It was the cost of film,
| developing and that it only had a few exposures per disk.
|
| It was just too expensive to run compared to a 35mm camera. A few
| years later the disposable 35mm cameras came out and that just
| killed it completely.
| jandrese wrote:
| Company attempts to transition customers to a proprietary product
| but fails.
|
| There is a lot of upside for Kodak with this product, but not so
| much for the consumer, especially at the price point for the
| camera. Instamatic already existed and covered the same use
| cases. The only "problem" is that Instamatic was going off patent
| so anybody would be able to make the film.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure what the sales numbers were for the 110 film
| Instamatics but it was also the case that anything that used
| film that was much less than a 35mm frame in area was fairly
| compromised in terms of quality--especially when combined with
| other camera components that were low cost.
| acomjean wrote:
| After they discontinued it, Kodak tried another small film
| format (aps). More traditional cartridge style and let you
| shoot different aspect ratios.
|
| But smaller file meant worse quality than 35mm.
|
| The name "APS" lived on when camera manufacturers used smaller
| sensors on cameras designed for full frame lenses.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Photo_System
| Theodores wrote:
| The problem in the UK was what I call 'bang per buck'. Most
| magazines had envelopes fall out of them for mail order photo
| processing. This market was a race to the bottom, with the
| service becoming a commodity. To keep you coming back there
| would be a 'free' unexposed reel of film for every reel you
| sent in.
|
| When the new disc films came along there were no upsides in
| area of film exposed, there was no upgrade path (you could not
| use the same film in an SLR as a point and shoot fixed focus)
| and only photographers that worked commercially were in the
| market for buying film. Most people went for the mail order
| option or Boots The Chemist, found on every High Street and
| able to do a quick turnaround at a fair price.
|
| The 1980's were also quite expensive when it came to consumer
| items. We no longer buy cameras 'made in America' and the
| thought of it is quite unimaginable today, you know straight
| off the bat that you are not going to be able to afford it.
| Furthermore, nothing in store was on a 'point of sale' system
| with retailers knowing exactly how much stock they have. There
| have been vast efficiency changes over the last forty years.
| All of this factors into price.
|
| On the flip side, the boomers were relatively rich and the
| difference between rich and poor was not what it is today,
| hence there was a large customer base in the middle class that
| could afford these things.
| plg wrote:
| We had one of these when I was a kid... took it on holiday to
| Maui one winter. Super fun and easy to carry around everywhere.
| Only problem was, photos were absolutely terrible. Grain was
| incredibly large, no detail. I guess because the actual negative
| was so small. Never used it again.
| quercusa wrote:
| But, but: _" HR film can be over or underexposed several stops
| and still produce acceptable prints."_
|
| I worked in a one-hour photo lab. Disc photos always looked
| like crap. If you couldn't get a decent photo with the light in
| Maui, there was no hope.
| intrasight wrote:
| Story I've shared on HN in the past. In the summer of '83, I did
| an internship at Kodak. I worked at the Elmgrove facility where
| the disc cameras were made. Early in my stint, I got a plant tour
| of the building where those cameras were made. The factory was
| going full bore to keep up with demand. I was in awe of the
| factory and the level of automation and the sheer size of the
| machines!
|
| There were 18,000 people at that one Kodak facility. Start and
| end time were staggered in five minute increments to manage car
| flow. To think at the time that just five years later it would
| all come to a rather quick end was unthinkable.
| intrasight wrote:
| And to add: I've often contemplated an alternative history
| where Kodak had the foresight to invest those hundreds of
| millions into digital photograph.
| GeneT45 wrote:
| My first digital camera was a Kodak. Purchased around '97(?)
| for the princely sum of $1000. It was 1.1Mp IIRC and took
| excellent photos for the time. It also consumed AA batteries
| with the same alacrity that its ancestors consumed film.
| chiph wrote:
| I had a Kodak DC260 - not quite 2 megapixels resolution, but
| had optical zoom with autofocus, used a compact flash card
| for storage, and ate AA batteries like they were candy.
| Connectivity was USB, IrDA (infrared), and analog video
| (NTSC/PAL).
|
| What many people didn't know is that it came with several
| SDKs. 1) It had a scripting language that ran on the camera,
| 2) Visual Basic 4 or 5, and 3) VBA for Office applications,
| so you could do something like automate employee ID badge
| creation.
|
| Honestly, I don't know what they could have done to make up
| the loss of recurring consumable revenue in the digital world
| beyond what they already did with Kodak branded photo paper,
| Kodak branded memory cards, and Kodak branded accessories
| like lanyards and bags.
| ghaff wrote:
| Certainly there was resistance to digital photography within
| Kodak. But they did some work with digital very early on and
| PhotoCD was another effort to get into the transition from
| film to digital. In any case, the early 80s was way too early
| for consumer digital photography to be practical.
|
| But what would Kodak really have brought to digital--
| especially at the scale to replace their consumables
| business? After all, Kodak once owned a full chemical company
| (that they spun off at some point) to provide them with their
| chemical needs. They didn't have much in the way of
| semiconductor expertise. Their network of dealers could have
| (and actually did) provide some ability for consumers to
| print digital photos early on. It's not like Kodak was making
| anything other than cameras like this when digital came in.
|
| Fujifilm did better with the transition to digital by
| leveraging their emulsion and chemical expertise. But they
| still had a rough time of it and were a much smaller company.
| shuntress wrote:
| The point is that Kodak was so huge and had such a big head
| start it didn't matter that they had no _direct_ experience
| with semiconductors.
|
| Decision makers at kodak should have been able to leverage
| their considerable resources to gain market share with the
| new technology that would eventually replace their main
| product.
|
| All things considered, they did a pretty good job of
| scaling down and staying alive. But it's a classic example
| of _" My salary depends on not understanding it"_
| ghaff wrote:
| Kodak could have gone into any arbitrary new
| manufacturing business. Heck, they could have invented
| the smartphone. But besides smartphones, digital
| photography is not a particularly good business to be in.
| riffic wrote:
| wasn't there a recent initiative to pivot into
| pharmaceutical research or chemicals or something?
| ghaff wrote:
| They do (and always have done) a lot with chemicals and
| emulsions only some of which is imaging-related. They
| also did copiers for a time--which I believe they got out
| of although they do still have a commercial printing
| business. I think they also had a healthcare initiative
| of some sort at one point but they seem to be out of that
| as well.
| shuntress wrote:
| True this is essentially just saying "they could have
| diversified" but my main point is that they should have
| diversified into the up-and-coming field where they could
| claim some expertise.
|
| _Someone_ uses precise complicated chemical
| manufacturing processes that require a deep understanding
| of color science to produce the millions of sensors in
| phones, cars, cameras, doorbells, etc. And it 's _not_
| Kodak.
| cProdigy wrote:
| great
| js2 wrote:
| PhotoCD seemed like a pretty half-assed effort and there
| wasn't really a market for it. There were PhotoCD players
| but no one really wanted to view their images on a TV. So
| great, you've digitized your photo, now what? People just
| weren't sharing their images digitally yet. But anyway, my
| dad tried to sell them in his shop, and I transferred 100
| of my favorite images at the time to PhotoCD in 1993.
| Here's a few:
|
| https://i.ibb.co/bPPgvBN/Photo-37-of-100.jpg
|
| https://i.ibb.co/G5r08cY/Photo-50-of-100.jpg
|
| https://i.ibb.co/X2nPJgT/Photo-74-of-100.jpg
|
| https://i.ibb.co/n1pTKC8/Photo-92-of-100.jpg
|
| Probably shot on Kodak Gold 100 color negative with a Nikon
| FE2. Gosh I suddenly miss the smell of film.
| ghaff wrote:
| I got a few PhotoCDs made when I first got a CD drive for
| my computer. PhotoCDs probably came from a place where
| the TV was a central fixture in many households and it
| probably seemed like a logical extension to how many
| people would have slideshows of their holiday slides. I
| think there was a certain baked-in assumption by Kodak
| and others that the digitization of photography would
| still look a lot like how photographs were taken and
| shared in the film world.
| js2 wrote:
| > How many people would have slideshows of their holiday
| slides.
|
| I have suffered through more than my fair share of those.
|
| > I think there was a certain baked-in assumption by
| Kodak and others that the digitization of photography
| would still look a lot like how photographs were taken
| and shared in the film world.
|
| I don't have any hard numbers, but at my dad's shop we
| probably sold and developed 95%+ negatives vs slides. We
| did so little E6 (much less Kodachrome) that we didn't
| even bother with it in-house. Most photos were shot on
| negative and shared as prints, not shot on slide and
| shared as slide shows. So if PhotoCD was supposed to take
| the place of a slide projector, it was already a losing
| proposition.
|
| To this day, I have my favorite digital photos printed,
| as do my family members. There's something more intimate
| about passing around a photo album than sitting in front
| of a display.
|
| I think PhotoCD was one of those things that was too
| early since there wasn't demand for sharing digitally
| yet, and then too late once digital cameras came out and
| made digitizing film unnecessary.
| ghaff wrote:
| Slides were definitely for more serious photographers
| many of whom mail ordered film and sent it off to Kodak
| or someone else for processing--though I'm sure it was
| still a distinct minority of film sold. One of my rituals
| when taking a vacation where I'd be doing a lot of
| photography was to place an order with B&H (via phone)
| for 20 or however many rolls of Ektachrome and
| Kodachrome.
|
| I actually wrote an article for CNET when Kodachrome
| processing was eventually shut down.
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/countdown-to-
| kodachr...
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I was under the impression that Kodak more or less invented
| the digital camera and then sat on it. Digital cameras never
| offered the kind of recurring revenue of film, paper, and
| chemistry and really only had about a decade as a consumer
| product before phones replaced them as far as I can tell.
| It's hard to imagine Kodak ever really making it through
| that.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. Imagine Kodak came out with a good mass market
| digital camera as soon as it was feasible to do so--so
| sometime in the late 90s. There's no particular reason they
| could have accelerated the development compared to all the
| other companies designing digital cameras. And as you say,
| it was only about 10 years until the smartphone came out.
| Beating Nikon and Canon at their own came would have been a
| big change in strategy and they've been shrinking in any
| case.
| shuntress wrote:
| It's certainly easy to say what they could or should have
| done with hindsight. But I think most people would agree
| that Kodak was in a strong position entering the digital
| revolution. Instead of ending up with a piece of the pie
| they are left basically just producing a niche luxury
| product and licensing out their brand name for white-
| labeled garbage.
| yuppiepuppie wrote:
| Holy cow! That article was unreadable on mobile with all the ads.
| intrasight wrote:
| I read HN comments before reading articles. So I got an extra
| good laugh when I read that article!
| riffic wrote:
| use "reader" mode if it exists in your mobile browser.
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