ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010022
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ROCHESTER, N.Y.
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE CREATORS of the Advanced Photo System hope the new line of products will help make it easier to take good pictures and rekindle interest in photography.
Ever miss the perfect snapshot because you decided not to drag your camera along? Or wonder which shoe box those dusty negatives of your Grand Canyon vacation might be buried in?
Ever load the film incorrectly? Ruin a few exposures by opening the back of the camera?
Help for clumsy, impatient and disorganized amateur photographers is less than three months away and is coming from the world's biggest camera and film makers.
Kodak, Fuji, Minolta, Nikon and Canon are unveiling today a new line of cameras, film and photofinishing services designed to make it easier to take good pictures - and take better care of them.
The creators of the Advanced Photo System, which will be rolled out April 22, hope the new products can rekindle interest in consumer photography, a business whose growth has leveled off since the late 1980s.
Herbert Keppler, publishing director for American Photo and Popular Photography magazines, said that while serious amateurs are likely to stick with 35mm models, the new system one day could dominate the point-and-shoot market, the biggest chunk of America's $12 billion amateur photography business.
Keppler said the cameras will range in price from about $50 to $500 or more, making them about 15 percent more expensive than comparable models. But they also are up to 30 percent smaller and 40 percent lighter.
``When you get portability and pocketability, you find that people take cameras to more places, are camera-ready when there's a picture and therefore use more film, which is obviously good for us,'' said William Janawitz, general manager of Kodak's Advanced Photo System business.
The five collaborators - three Japanese camera makers and archrivals Fuji Photo Film Co. of Tokyo and Rochester-based Eastman Kodak Co. - have licensed out the industry-standard technology to more than 30 photography companies, notably Japan's Konica, and Agfa, a division of Germany's Bayer AG.
Some professional photographers already use completely electronic cameras that record images without film. The Advanced Photo System instead applies digital technology to film.
The film, about two-thirds the size of 35mm but equal in picture quality, has a magnetic coating that captures data about lighting and exposure for each frame, enabling new photofinishing equipment to correct the photographer's errors automatically.
The drop-in film cartridge, which the user will not have to thread, can be replaced midroll on some models. And even on very basic models, a flip of a switch will adjust the image size so that negatives from the same roll can be printed in different widths - 4-by-6, 4-by-7 or 4-by-101/2 inches.
Several companies also will market scanners that can transfer pictures into computers for editing, use in documents or transmission on the Internet.
Negatives are returned from the photo lab in the original canister, along with an index sheet showing miniversions of the pictures. Boxes, much like plastic racks for videocassettes or CDs, will be sold to store the canisters in.
The system is aimed at making it easy for people to order reprints and enlargements. Each cartridge has a code number, and each photograph can have the time, date or words like ``Christmas'' printed on the back.
``They are totally new products, but they're also totally forward-looking, aiming toward the upcoming digital market,'' said Bill Lewis of the Photo Marketing Association, a trade association based in Jackson, Mich.
``It could very well be something very innovative and successful. I can't see it being a flash in the pan because these people have put so much money into it already.''
Kodak is spending about $300 million on manufacturing alone and untold millions on research and marketing.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. The Minolta Vectis S1 is part of the Advanced Photoby CNBSystem, which will be rolled out April 22. color.