letter to the editor

I rarely buy "Amateur Photographer" and I rarely write letters to the press but today I did both. I was bored waiting on the railway station this morning so I purchased aforementioned magazine. In the letters section someone had written in claiming that full frame as a format would survive because...

"nobody makes lenses with APS-C markings; all are still made with full-frame indications of focal length... leaving the perplexed [APS-C] photographer to work out what focal length he or she is actually using!"

Arggghhh...

K.

Yes Kris this has always bugged me.

I noticed that too and was astonished they printed it he also claimed that manufacturers made them at the "diktat" of picture libraries.

AP goes through peaks and troughs, in the 1970s it might have stood for Amateur Pornographer. I think its OK at the moment but if you look through the letters page from any edition from the last 125 years you might be forgiven for thinking they were all written by the same person.

Surely the letter was allowed in for comedy purposes

Erm...what is APS-C?

APS-C is the size sensor we have in the K10/20/7.

As in, the Sensors are the same size as the ill fated Kodak APS Film.

Launched as the next best thing to sliced bread, the Advanced Photo System featured a cartridge that would be able to wind itself in, then advance back to the right place if removed from the camera.

The APS film supported three different aspect ratios
APS-H 'Hi-Def; at 16:9
APS-C 'Classic' at 3:2
APS-P 'Panoramic' at 3:1

APS-C is approx 25.1mm × 16.7mm, and (possibly due to an abortive attempt by Nikon, Canon etc to create APS format film SLRs, and therefore had lenses and research already invested in the form factor) happens to be about the same size as the majority of Digital SLR sensors.

The APS format itself died a death in 2004, due to the lack of Pro take up (smaller film stock then 35mm), expense of early camera's compared to 110's, and P&S 35mm's, and generally, coming a bit too late to be worth it.

More info can be gleaned here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Photo_System

Hey, it's on wikipedia, it must be true, right?

I learn something everyday. Thanks Road Dancer.

K.

De nada, sometimes I can contribute something to the community... Not often, but sometimes

I blame almost, but not quite, buying an APS camera, being seduced by the 'cool' of it. The fact that the higher end cameras could encode magnetic information onto the film, and the fact that processed films came with a contact sheet and small copies of the pictures as standard.

Then I looked at the Zenith I had and figured I'd stick with 35mm *laughs*