Bill Robb wrote: [Everything I always wanted to know about APS processors, and more. Snipped....]
Hi Bill, Gee, I get the feeling that some of those APS customers really get in your shorts.... ;-) HAR!! Seriously, thanks very much for your detailed note. Kodak's decision (or whoever's, since APS format development was a joint industry venture, IIRC) to coat the light-sensitive layers and magnetic recording layers right on top of each other probably makes great sense from a manufacturability standpoint, but it sounds like a real nightmare from the point of view of the processing lab. Credit card readers in department stores get dirty just from the dirt and grease from people's wallets, hands, etc. I can't imagine smearing those magnetic read heads with used developer, bleach, fixer, etc., etc. Yuck!! You're right, of course, about the fact that it's really the responsibility of the customer to read the status indicator on the cartridge. I wasn't aware -- until list members pointed it out in their replies -- that these cartridges even had human-readable indicators. I agree that the customer really needs to take responsibility for identifying the status of his/her rolls. I'd guess that APS film is probably most likely to get dropped off at busy one-hour minilabs, and that even if the lab tech felt the need/desire to "babysit" the customer, the large volume of incoming and outgoing film at such a lab would increase the likelihood that an unexposed roll would be run through the machine, if the lab tech is the only one looking at this status indicator. Unfortunately, I suspect that there are a large number of APS users who aren't even aware that there's a status indicator on the cartridge. After all, what's the likelihood that any given P&S user will ever bother to read the manual? (For that matter, how many times have we seen replies on this list advising a high-end Pentax SLR user to "RTFM"?) Your comments got me thinking about something that I believe product designers generally call "human factors engineering". I remember a recent note to the list -- I think Bruce Dayton posted it -- regarding APS cameras and the demographic group to which they appeal. He stated that APS seems to be popular not with a young demographic (like you see in the Kodak commercials), but with a much older demographic. Perhaps older folks who don't have quite as much manual dexterity as they used to, or who don't have quite as sharp of eyesight for close-up, high-resolution inspection as they used to. Drop-in cartridge loading and automatic film threading would probably be regarded by someone in this demographic as a highly desirable feature. Allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment.... The question that comes to my mind, as a devil's advocate, is the following: Can we expect the average member of this demographic to have sufficiently good eyesight -- without putting on reading glasses or holding the roll close to a bright light source -- to distinguish the circle, half-circle, x-mark, or rectangle status indicator on the outside of the cartridge? OK, these aren't cryptic, but then they're not intuitive either. I'll freely admit that someone who shoots a couple rolls of APS film a month will probably be quite familiar with what they mean without the need to look at the written instructions, but what about the user who only goes to the mini-lab half a dozen times a year? If my assumptions about the demographics are correct (and maybe they're not), I'd guess that at least some of the typical APS users might have difficulty reading the printed instructions on the cartridge, and I wonder if they might even have difficulty recognizing -- without close inspection -- that there are even printed instructions there in the first place. How about print contrast? Kodak's black on yellow is probably quite readable, but what about Fuji's color scheme? Black on green, right?? Probably not quite as readable, I'd guess. Don't get me wrong -- I think Kodak/Fuji/et al. probably did a good job designing this status indicator and the printed instructions, given the size limitations of the cartridge. I just wonder if there's an opportunity here to improve the status indicator to make it more readable for older, weaker eyes? Also, is there a product advertising opportunity here to maybe better educate the customer on the special features engineered into the product? Well, enough rambling. Must dig out my Kodak photoguide and review the information on shooting fireworks and cityscapes at night. Cheers, Bill Peifer Rochester, NY - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
