110 Film

Tamar Photography

Tamar Photography

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Hi, is their anyone left that still sell and develop 110 film ? I was on holiday in Minehead this year and I picked up a Pentax Auto 110 with 24mm f1.8 lens (for a fiver) thinking their must be film out there somewhere, no luck tho. I was hoping someone here might know if its possible to get this dinky camera out and about and developed.

Thanks
 
CornishConnect said:
Hi, is their anyone left that still sell and develop 110 film ? I was on holiday in Minehead this year and I picked up a Pentax Auto 110 with 24mm f1.8 lens (for a fiver) thinking their must be film out there somewhere, no luck tho. I was hoping someone here might know if its possible to get this dinky camera out and about and developed.

Thanks
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@Asha is that your one?
 
Asha said:
I think Mr Bump is wondering if you picked up your Pentax 110 from me.......No Paul, I still have mine :)
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Not unless you own that wonderful little antique shop in Minehead, I so adore this little camera.
 
The Auto 110 is a wonderful camera. It has a staggeringly large and bright viewfinder - all of Pentax's best design and engineering went into that tiny little camera, and it shows.

The Orca 110 isn't too bad, and it scans reasonably well. I haven't tried the colour negative 110 film yet.
 
freecom2 said:
The Auto 110 is a wonderful camera. It has a staggeringly large and bright viewfinder - all of Pentax's best design and engineering went into that tiny little camera, and it shows.

The Orca 110 isn't too bad, and it scans reasonably well. I haven't tried the colour negative 110 film yet.
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So is at home developing an option for these cameras then ?
 
CornishConnect said:
So is at home developing an option for these cameras then ?
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With difficulty, yes. I managed to get my hands on a 110 developing spool (it's essentially a much thinner version of a normal developing spool). They were quite difficult to get hold of, although that situation may have changed since I tried - Orca 110 had only just been released at the time, so before that all 110 film developing was basically commercial (and using very out of date film).

They are fun little shooters, but the all automatic nature of the cameras, the expense of the film and difficulty/expense of processing the film mean it's only for occasional use really. A shame, considering how well designed they are, and how you can actually get quite good shots out of them.
 
Be aware that 110 negatives have a 4:3 aspect ratio and if you want prints many places only offer 6"x4" prints (3:2 ratio) so you will lose some of the top and bottom of the negative.

The easiest solution is to ask for 5"x4" prints, which match the negative ratio much closer. I don't know how many places will do this, but Fuji Digital ("Photo Hippo" as they're now called) have always printed my negs on 5"x4" prints when I've requested it in the order notes.

You can find their 110 processing at http://www.photofilmprocessing.co.uk/110FilmProcessing.html and I've always found them to do an excellent job, plus they are quite fast in their service. I use an Auto 110 as well and like @freecom2 says they really are works of engineering - just the combined shutter/iris is a unique and ingenious method of reducing the lens size as then they didn't require a built in iris for controlling aperture.
 
Quite a few places do 5*7, which is another compromise (eg DSCL does these quite cheaply). I guess a lot of folk are familiar with printing from shots with the 4*3 ratio because of the Micro Four Thirds cameras, but perhaps the issue here is the loss of quality with less usable negative area?
 
CornishConnect said:
So is at home developing an option for these cameras then ?
Click to expand...
freecom2 said:
With difficulty, yes. I managed to get my hands on a 110 developing spool (it's essentially a much thinner version of a normal developing spool). They were quite difficult to get hold of, although that situation may have changed since I tried - Orca 110 had only just been released at the time, so before that all 110 film developing was basically commercial (and using very out of date film).

They are fun little shooters, but the all automatic nature of the cameras, the expense of the film and difficulty/expense of processing the film mean it's only for occasional use really. A shame, considering how well designed they are, and how you can actually get quite good shots out of them.
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I cut down the centre section of à standard Patterson spiral then glued it together with araldite so the two flanges will hold 16 mm film between them. Means you lose the ballbearing film grabbing device but the 110 film can simply be slid onto the spiral and developed like any 35mm film in à Patterson tank.
 
ChrisR said:
Quite a few places do 5*7, which is another compromise (eg DSCL does these quite cheaply). I guess a lot of folk are familiar with printing from shots with the 4*3 ratio because of the Micro Four Thirds cameras, but perhaps the issue here is the loss of quality with less usable negative area?
Click to expand...

I was referring to places which offer prints with developing (I'm old fashioned with negative film in that I like to flick through the actual prints after developing) rather than getting them done afterwards from the scans. 5"x4" was the standard size print for 110 when it was commonly used.

110 film does have a of an undeserved reputation for poor quality in my opinion. With modern emulsions the results are usually very good, and a lot probably forget that 110 was deliberately designed for the mass consumer, it was never intended to be used to produce massive prints or be the most high quality; the poor quality snapshot cameras that 110 was near universally used with probably didn't help either. I've been slowly working my way through some frozen (from new!) Fuji Superia 200 in 110 for the past few years, and when I finally get around to actually getting them developed (the exposed ones are safely frozen at the moment) I'll post some results.

I did previously use some out dated 110 which I don't think had been stored very well as one cartridge had a near uncorrectable subtle magenta cast, whilst the other was relatively O.K (but I had stupidly filed down the speed indicator tab on the cartridge to indicate high speed film [ISO 320 on the Auto 110] which of course underexposed it and made the grain very pronounced, but they were still O.K - it is somewhat annoying that only ISO 200 110 film is around now as the 110 cartridge only allows an indication of low [about ISO 100 depending on the camera] or high speed [320/400] to the camera, which is set by the presence/absence of the tab, so you end up over/under exposing by about one stop).
 
s162216 said:
Be aware that 110 negatives have a 4:3 aspect ratio and if you want prints many places only offer 6"x4" prints (3:2 ratio) so you will lose some of the top and bottom of the negative.

The easiest solution is to ask for 5"x4" prints, which match the negative ratio much closer. I don't know how many places will do this, but Fuji Digital ("Photo Hippo" as they're now called) have always printed my negs on 5"x4" prints when I've requested it in the order notes.

You can find their 110 processing at http://www.photofilmprocessing.co.uk/110FilmProcessing.html and I've always found them to do an excellent job, plus they are quite fast in their service. I use an Auto 110 as well and like @freecom2 says they really are works of engineering - just the combined shutter/iris is a unique and ingenious method of reducing the lens size as then they didn't require a built in iris for controlling aperture.
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Thanks for this I inherited a Agfamatic 2000 the weekend after we found it while clearing out my great uncles garage and it has a film in so I would like to get it developed and see whats on there I guess its been in hte garage a few years. I also inhertied a Ricoh FF9-S which has now film but needs a battery. Whiule neither camera is worth anything I don't mind they will be kept along with my 2 Nikon SLR's and my Nikon D750.
 
I have a couple of 16mm developing reels from eBay. Work great. The film is actually easy to load. I enlarge/print mine. The ORCA is not bad film. I think it's Lucky or something like that. Do some experimenting. I use a Minolta 110 zoom.
 
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