Is 110 film being phased out?

I'm surprised that you still process 110. The minilab I used to work at stopped processing it in the spring of '99 (this also happends to be when we started processing APS film). I can process 110 where I'm at now, though I discourage it, as it is very precariously clipped to a 120 rack.

They've been phasing out 110 for a decade now, yet people still buy the danged cameras. Don't they know they are better off with even a 1MP digital camera?

Mike ( Lab Monkey) stated, "Don't they know they are better off with even a 1MP digital camera?"
Funny, using my Coolscan 5000, I have scanned hundreds of frames of this film that I had taken with my cheap Kodak Instamatic from two decades ago and they put to shame the latest crop of digiscams from this past Christmas. Sony, Oly, Nikon - all had a minimum of 4MP, I think one was a 7MP.

FWIW, 110 film isn't 110 millimeters wide!

Still, if you had one of those Pentax 110 SLR systems, I can imagine being pretty disappointed. I don't have one, but I've seen them in display cabinets, and the thought of having such a kit, complete with an array of interchangeable lenses in such a microscopic form factor sure has its appeal, despite the lousy film format.

You can still get it at 7dayshop.com. They introduced it in 2001 and still have plenty of stock.

We still are capable of developing it in our lab, but we tell them to send it out for better results now. On our machine it prints them manually- no corrections- so it looks even worse then normal.

Les, I more or less agree with you, except that some my old Kodacolor negatives are horribly grainy. Many are OK, though and making an accepatble A4 print isn't too difficult. I used a Minolta camera with what seems to have been pretty good optics. I recently gave it away as I had not been using it since I bought an Olympus XA, which uses 35mm film and actually is smaller. 110 film and development is next to impossible to find here anyway. But I still have a ton of 110 negatives waiting to go through the scanner. I use an Epson 4990 for most of the scans, then the most intersting go on the Scanmate 5000.

110 ceased to have any purpose nearly 20 years ago when the compact 35mm autofocus point-and-shoot cameras hit the market. Those cameras weren't much larger than 110 cameras, but provided much more versatility and significantly better image quality.

Remember that 110 was a very successful format, with millions of cameras sold during the 1970s and 1980s. Many of those cameras still work and produce adequate snapshot memories, so their owners feel no incentive (or don't know any better) to go out and buy a 35mm or digital point-and-shoot. So there's still a small market for film and processing that will probably persist for a while before shrinking to uneconomical impracticality. There are also hundreds of millions of 110 negatives squirreled away in shoeboxes and drawers, some of which are precious memories that will remain worthy of reprinting for quite a while.

The real limitation of the 110 format was (and is) grainy color negative film. The original Kodacolor II wasn't good for enlargement beyond 5x7, and even the standard 3.5x5 prints too often showed visible grain. Newer films have much better image quality, but the most of the cameras still in use are the cheap meterless fixed-focus variety that produce the "blurry, out of focus, or washed out" negatives you noted. The only widely-available film is Kodak Gold 400, which is probably grainier than such a small format really needs.

There were some rather good 110 cameras in the 1970s when Kodak executives still had enough vision to promote the format as a serious "system." I took thousands of Kodachrome slides with a Pocket Instamatic 60, a rangefinder camera with a fine lens at the top of Kodak's 1972 line of 110 cameras. The quality was good enough to project on a 50x50-inch matte screen, and I have some 8x10 enlargements on my wall that I would defy anyone to tell that they came from 110 slides (the only reason I can't make bigger enlargements is the limited number of pixels my 4000dpi scanner can get from a 13x17mm frame). Since so few 110 users shot slides, the 110 format ended up permanently condemned to grainy shapshots. I retired my Pocket Instamatic 60 in 1982, when Kodak discontinued Kodachrome in 110.

Scanning 110 film is a challenge. Slides are easy enough if you can find an adapter to fit the unique 30x30mm mounts into a standard 50x50mm holder (they're still made, believe it or not). But negatives are a big problem since only the very expensive Nikon Coolscan 9000 even has a 16mm film holder available. Given the large number of 110 negatives, the demand for 16mm film holders would seem much greater than scanner manufacturers realize. An article on my Web site about scanning 110 film is probably the most frequently-accessed page on my site. I also have a collection of pictures I took in Europe with my Pocket Instamatic 60 on Kodachrome-X and Kodachrome 64.

Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen, I haven't shot any 110 for a long time, but from the resultsI am getting, a little grain is a lot better then the mottled noise on, incorrect color, bad focus even with "Holographic focusing" anyday. ;-)
Ted Marcus, I don't think you need to resort to Kodachrome to match the latest crop of digiscams. Heck, Kodak Max Versatility is probably good enough. ;-) I've been using my CS5K to scan my strips of 110 film by using the film holder. It's very clumsy but gets the job done and scanning those tiny frames, with ICE, only takes a few seconds each. Fumbling the film in the holder takes longer.
BTW, took a look at your site, very cool. Do you have any full res samples in there?

Les, feel free to post your 110 scans. I can post 4 MP digicam images all day long that will bury them and probably some of your 35mm scans to. It's absurd to suggest that 110 film is anything close to equivalent to current digicams.

I had a Pentax 110 SLR once because I thought it was cool. Unfortunately the coolness wore off when I realized with currently available 110 films it wasn't capable of producing a usable 3x5, much less an 8x10. (And if any 110 camera had a shot at producing decent images, it would be the Pentax SLR.) Even a "toy" 1 MP digicam can produce a better 3x5, and my (now old) S410 can produce excellent 8x10's all day long.

If anyone made Kodachrome or Velvia in 110 format I imagine you could at least get decent 4x6's. You still wouldn't make it all the way to 8x10, and the combination would still be buried by any modern digicam, 3 MP or over.

110 was popular for a couple years in the 70's, then the novelty wore off and people threw them away due to image quality. The only reason 110 is still around in any capacity is because of the number of cheap, free, and toy 110 cameras dumped on the market.

Les, I've tried scanning 110 negatives by precariously inserting them in my Canon FS4000's negative holder. The little plastic strips that normally go between 35mm frames will hold the negatives, but it's very hard to keep the film straight and flat. The negatives I've scanned are on original Kodacolor II and extremely grainy. It probably doesn't help that the negatives are 30 years old, but I don't think aging and dye fade contributes to grain. The image quality isn't anywhere near that of some pictures I took five years ago with a borrowed 3-megapixel Nikon digicam. But the image quality of Kodachrome slides made with the same camera is much better.

Daniel Taylor states, "Les, feel free to post your 110 scans. I can post 4 MP digicam images all day long that will bury them and probably some of your 35mm scans to. It's absurd to suggest that 110 film is anything close to equivalent to current digicams."
Let's see them since it doesn't seem you have a link to your images in your profile. BTW, are we talking reworked or straight up?

"Let's see them since it doesn't seem you have a link to your images in your profile. BTW, are we talking reworked or straight up?"

Below is a crop from a hand held flower shot. The full image at this magnification would be equivalent to a 35" print. Feel free to show me a section from a 35" print of 110 film.

Below is another S410 crop from a hand held shot, again full image at this magnification would be a roughly 35" print.

Well, I never thought I'd see a "Digital vs. 110 film cartridge" thread!

One more hand held flower shot, same magnification.

Now to be clear, I'm not advocating that people use a Canon S410 for shots that will be enlarged to 35-40". At this magnification the shots clearly show some artifacts, noise, and softness. But try putting an equivalent magnification 110 crop up. It will be globs of grain.

At 8x10 the S410 artifacts and noise will be just below perception, and the image will appear nice and sharp. 110 doesn't produce a decent 3x5 with currently available film.

And just so we can see what a top end Canon digicam can do...here's a pixel view crop from a Canon SD500. Better than the majority of 35mm film scans I've seen.

110 is useful for what it is and does, and can yield good results in the right hands within its understood limitations. (Remember, Daido Moriyama shot (and printed expertly) some excellent images with an Olympus W Pen half-frame camera.)

That said, unless you're looking for a specific look you believe you could only have gotten with 110, there are many existing alternatives.

Daniel, I'm glad you like the SD500 ($499) considering the numerous faults outlined on DPReviews concise review of it. I guess that's why you can only post partial crops as there is no telling what the rest of the image may look like - badly (over or under as well as easily blown highlights) exposed, purple fringing, OOF, soft or bad flash results. Based on the "target market" these are acceptable enough.
BTW, if you didn't notice, I do have full res unretouched pics in my album links in my profile. Highly compressed but representative of the results. I haven't posted any of my 110 as they have all been family snapshots so I will have to scour through my shoebox of two decade old film to see if I can find something appropriate.
Did you say these posts of yours are unretouched? How do you like the skin tone from this camera with and without flash? Got any of those, maybe even a forehead or back of the hand shot? How about crayola shots? TIA.

"Daniel, I'm glad you like the SD500 ($499) considering the numerous faults outlined on DPReviews concise review of it. I guess that's why you can only post partial crops as there is no telling what the rest of the image may look like - badly (over or under as well as easily blown highlights) exposed, purple fringing, OOF, soft or bad flash results."

(sigh)...I consider this a cop out on your part. You can't post equivalent magnification 110 crops that will hold a candle to the above, so you try building a strawman out of another site's review?

I encourage anyone considering the SD500 to actually read DPReview's *very favorable* review of the camera, which concluded with a "Recommended" rating: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canonsd500/

The rest of the images from which my crops were taken are exposed correctly with no purple fringing of any kind, correct focus (within the DOF of course), and the flash was not used. I have noticed with my S410 that the corners can be soft WA which is to be expected of any compact zoom. But neither this, nor the other red herring model-specific issues you are trying to interject, have anything to do with sensor vs. film performance at the 110 size. These crops were intended to remove any doubt about 110 film matching or beating "current" digicams. I'm still waiting to see what 110 looks like printed to 35".

"I will have to scour through my shoebox of two decade old film to see if I can find something appropriate."

I thought you already had 110 scans, and that they showed how 110 film can beat current digicams? Throw them up, but make sure they're equivalent magnification.

"Did you say these posts of yours are unretouched?"

For any image I print, digital or film, I adjust levels, color balance (when necessary), and generally apply a light USM.

The SD500 sample crop is from Canon, not sure what they did to it. But it is a gorgeous sample full size and printed, arguably better (technically) than what can be achieved with all but the very best 35mm workflows. Go to Canon's site for the full image.

"How do you like the skin tone from this camera with and without flash?"

I would like it better than ANY skin shot on 110. Tonality completely breaks down in the 110 format because of the size. There just aren't enough grains to represent subtle tones and transitions. Heck, tonality can be a problem with 35mm, and is often a stronger argument for going MF than mere resolution.

I don't know why some people have to post such extravegant claims regarding film's performance...I mean come on, 110 film? The original poster got it right when he wondered if 110 shooters realized they could get better images from a 1 MP camera.

"I have scanned hundreds of frames of this film that I had taken with my cheap Kodak Instamatic from two decades ago and they put to shame the latest crop of digiscams from this past Christmas."

For the record, the (hyperbole) statement above is why I responded. And this is what I'm looking for: I want to see a crop from what would be the equivalent of a 35" 110 print so I can judge whether or not 110 film puts to shame the "digiscams" from last Christmas.

I won't hold you to the Instamatic or two decade old film, though I should. No, if you like, feel free to use a better 110 camera like the Pentax or Minolta SLR's, and a current film.

Let's see how the crops compare. I'll by happy to post full size/resolution images somewhere so interested readers can print 8x10's to. Although anyone can already do that by going to Canon's site and downloading their "digiscam" samples.

Crop from Kodacolor II, ca. 1975. Minolta 110 pocket camera. The original is 3274x2472 pixels, and would be 45x34 inches at 72dpi. As I said earlier, grainy, but I would think acceptable for an A4 print.

Daniel Taylor stated the following:
"Even a "toy" 1 MP digicam can produce a better 3x5, and my (now old) S410 can produce excellent 8x10's all day long."
"If anyone made Kodachrome or Velvia in 110 format I imagine you could at least get decent 4x6's. You still wouldn't make it all the way to 8x10, and the combination would still be buried by any modern digicam, 3 MP or over."
"The original poster got it right when he wondered if 110 shooters realized they could get better images from a 1 MP camera."
"I won't hold you to the Instamatic or two decade old film, though I should."

What I did is crop a 100% section out of each 4000dpi scans from current 35mm film as a reference of pixel quality. Then I resize /crop the rest of the image down to what I get from my scans of 110 film - 2614 X 2004, highly cropped btw. This happens to be comparable to your S410 in pixel resolution but that's where it ends because these are unretouched (except for copyright), no levels, no USM scans with ICE on.
How about Agfa Ultra 100 . . .

Click here for full res version of Agfa Ultra 100-038 >1.3Meg


Click here for full res version of Fuji 100-013 >2.4Meg


Click here for full res version of Fuji Reala-002 >1.5Meg


Click here for full res version of Fuji RDPIII-01_23 >1.2Meg


Click here for full res version of Fuji RVP100F-009 >1.4Meg

I read a lot of "old" information being posted by former film users that have obviously not used newer film as we well as newer scanners. Have you even seen Fuji NPZ800, Kodak Portra 800 or even the newer Fuji Natura 1600? As far as I know, only my Canon 20D and above compare in these high ISOs.
If they did make these film in 110, it would not be close for any digiscam . . . ;-)

Daniel,
You let me off the hook easy because you may still have some film sentiments left, apparently deeply buried ;-)
Judging from your comments here and I looked at a few of your other posts, it is quite evident that your firsthand knowledge of newer films and scanners are out of date. I know what a feeling that is to think that you got a camera that was touted as getting results "better" then film as I also own (still have them) a Sony Mavica FD-91, Toshiba PDR-M4, Oly E-10, Oly C-4040 and 20D and remember everyone saying that each of these were better then film! As you can see, I in fact do know what 1MP (all the way up to 8MP) can deliver. I lost my Kodak Instamatic but still have my 35mm Pentax P&S, Rebel 2000 and EOS3.

The weak link in 110 film use has always been processing. I am disappointed by any of the labs I have used recently for 110 processing. The 126 format is even more difficult. When I was in college in the 1970s I worked part-time at a camera store in Boston. I went with the owner of the store to a dinner given by Pentax to show off the 110 SLR camera. On display were 11X14 prints made on Kodachrome and custom printed on a Type R kind of paper. The results were excellent. I would have to guess that they were also rarely duplicated. My 110 collection includes a Kodak Trimlite 48 with an excellent 26mm f/2.7 Ektar lens, a Minolta 110 Zoom SLR, A Pentax A110 SLR with 4 lenses and a slew of bar shaped Minolta cameras. I would like to add a Minolta Mark II to my collection but if I can't get better processing I won't bother. The Pentax camera is very neat but I have had the best results from the Trimlite 48.

I agree that small point and shoot 35mm cameras provide better quality but I still think 110 is capable of very nice results if the processing is up to the job. The compact 35mm AF point and shoots went on to kill off the disc format and nearly killed off 35mm SLR sales before AF SLR models revived that market. Is 110 film being phased out? You bet it is.

I love this thread, where it went, not where it started!!! Lets compare the Brownie against the D1 next.

"What I did is crop a 100% section out of each 4000dpi scans from current 35mm film as a reference of pixel quality. Then I resize /crop the rest of the image down to what I get from my scans of 110 film - 2614 X 2004, highly cropped btw. This happens to be comparable to your S410 in pixel resolution but that's where it ends because these are unretouched (except for copyright), no levels, no USM scans with ICE on."

This is where it ends because your comparison is invalid.

Resizing a 35mm scan in Photoshop down to '110 scan pixel dimensions' is NOT the same, by any stretch of the imagination, as scanning a frame of 110 film. By resizing 35mm down, you are compressing grain and other artifacts while retaining much of the detail structure of the original scan. You are also losing virtually none of the tonality from the original scan.

In short, you are bypassing the major weaknesses of the 110 format (grain, lack of sharp details, tonality). Resampling a higher resolution information source down to a lower rate always produces a superior result to sampling at the lower rate to begin with. This is true across photography, audio, and video.

Did you really believe this was a valid comparison? Be a man Les, throw up a REAL 110 film scan, and let it stand/fall where it may.

BTW, even though your comparison yields far higher quality 2614 X 2004 images than a direct 110 film scan would yield, you still lost the contest. There's no question which crops are better, especially with the SD500.

What a cop out on your part...what a silly cop out....

"You let me off the hook easy because you may still have some film sentiments left, apparently deeply buried ;-)"

You resorted to resizing 35mm scans because you couldn't find a 110 film scan in your collection that could hold a candle to the crops I posted. And yet you still lost.

But what should I expect? You blame grain on JPEG and continue to post a flower test as proof of Velvia's superiority even though everyone who has seen it has commented on how the 20D image is better. Sigh....

James C. Turner said
I love this thread, where it went, not where it started!!! Lets compare the Brownie against the D1 next.

I agree. Maybe how digital beats the pants off of the wet plate process. Matthew Brady was such a hack as he didn't have a Canon DSLR.

In all seriousness, and back on topic, the 110 format is unique and I see no reason why not to play with it. Unless of course one feels that using a 110 camera will threaten their manliness or they'll be less of a photographer.

Personally I've had the urge to pick up a 110 SLR just for kicks. The format is generally cheap to play with since film can be had for $1.59 a cartridge at JandCphoto.com and you can spool you own. Of course it is work but if you want to do it, it can make for a neat side part of the hobby.

Wow ... I've enjoyed reading this topic. I just recently scanned my 1979 bicycle cross country travel photo log taken with my Minolta 110 SLR Zoom. No negatives, but I had the 3.5" x 5" prints. I'm fairly pleased ... it was the right camera / format for the time / adventure. Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/goodharbor/sets/1245119/

French Quarter New Orleans Artist

by Philip Huntoon
23mm F2.8 Zeiss Tessar; first generation of Kodak Kodacolor 400; a grainy film!
late 1970's shot
this old 110 negative was scanned with a canon 2710 35mm film scanner.

To Mr. Taylor, your 35mm Velvia vs. 20D comparison might need to be redone....the pistol (?) is out of focus and the leaf behind is in focus on the Velvia sample, where the pistol is in and the leaf is out of in focus on the 20D sample. What are we comparing here? If based on the leaf, velvia wins, if based on the pistol, 20D wins. Other than that, I will not argue the superiority of 110 to anything, other than maybe Kodak's Disc film.