This is a pretty specific question. I have a Pentax Auto 110 film camera. I love the little sucker. It is the smallest SLR ever commercially viable. 110 film is hard to come by these days. There the trouble begins. The camera is made to automatically control the exposure depending on the film you are using, either ISO 400 or ISO 100. A ridge on the film cartridge tells the camera what type of film is loaded. The problem is the only film available now is ISO 200. There must be a chip that tells the camera how to handle exposure time according to film type. I want to change that to say ISO 200. I work at a college, and have convinced an electronics instructor to look into it. He said it is probably hard coded, but can be identified. I badgered one of our programmers into looking at any code the electronics guy can get, and rewrite it for ISO 200. The electronics guy can then burn the new code to a chip and put it in the camera. The one thing the electronics guy, the programmer guy , and I all have in common is we have no idea what we are doing. It dawned on me to search the net, a bazillion hits but no real info on the first thousand or so, So the question is this, has anyone tried to do this before? I got no desire to reinvent the wheel. If you know anyone who has tried, please give me a link, if you know anyone who has pulled it off, give me a place to send my money.
I doubt you’ll be able to change the electronics. Here’s a page with some more detail. As an alternative, they recommend removing the ridge where appropriate. Wouldn’t it be easier to just adjust the exposure if you know the camera is going to overexpose?
I’m wondering whether the ISO 200 cartridge defaults to 100 or 400 in camera? It’s been far too long since I’ve seen a 110 cartridge to recall if the 200 has the cutout or not.
In practical terms, tho, it’s not going to be that important. At least, not with colour negative film. It has quite a bit of exposure latitude. Esp towards the over-exposure range, iirc. Not to mention the latitude that the printing process brings to the table. And, up or down from ISO 200, you’re only talking about 1 step (stop) of exposure difference in camera.
Now, if you could find chrome in 110 still, it would start to become an issue that would be noticeable. But, yeah, K64 in 110 is not likely to still be found anywhere, if even made anymore.
So, I think you’re worried over much about a problem that isn’t really a problem.
Still, if tinkering with electronics is fun to you, then that makes it worthwhile in itself.
That Auto 100 was CUTE! I had an entire outfit for a while. Flash, winder, tele lens …
- anyone have a link to old Kodak films? I seem to recall Kodachrome 64 available in 100 and 126. I know Ektachrome was made in ISO/ASA 100 (as opposed to 64) pretty far back in time. I even remember selling 110 slide projectors that were horribly expensive.
Thanks for the help all. In reponse to Telemark, yes adjusting the exposure would be a simple cure, but this camera is fully auto, the only adjustment possible is focus. Thanks for the link to frugalphotographer, that is in fact where I got the ISO 200 film. Mr David Foy there has been quite helpfull in the past including an adventure into 127 B&W film for old Brownie cameras, and supplies to build a “Bathroom” darkroom to develop same and make contact prints.
In response to NoClueBoy, perhaps you are right, I may be trying to fix a problem that is at most minor. I have only had this camera for a few weeks, it was one of those “Boy that looks cool” things I stumbled across on E-Bay. I got some film from Frugal Photographer, have shot two rolls which are currently in the mail to Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas to be processed (no one around here will touch it, and my bathroom set up is B&W only). When I get them back it may very well turn out this is a non-issue as you have suggested. The ISO 200 film I have has a ridge on the right side of the cartrige which engages two tiny switches in the camera body. I do not know if that makes the camera think it is 100 or 400.
Just for clarification, I am not an amatuer photographer, I am not even sure I qualify as a hobbyist, more like a basement bumbler. I just love to tinker with stuff.
If it defaults to 400, then ISO 200 film will underexpose by about 1 stop. You could compensate for that by telling the lab to push the film 1 stop. Alternatively, you could scan the negatives and try adjusting curves in Photoshop.
If ISO 200 film defaults to ISO 100, then the film will overexpose by 1 stop. This is easily compensated for by using a 1 stop neutral density filter. I assume them camera has a filter ring?
Oops…this won’t work if your camera settings are fully automatic. You camera will just slow down the shutter speed. As NoClueBoy said, you’ll just have to hope your film has a lot of exposure latitude.
Wow, what a baffling camera.. Why would you go through all the trouble of designing an SLR and then not allow user adjustable exposures? I wonder who their intended market was? No serious photographer would ever use 110 film. (Not to heap scorn on your new purchase – it’s very cute, but you’re not going to be getting decent 8x10’s out of it.)
Aw, now be fair to the 70s!
Adding shit all over small things was quite the rage then. Minolta had some success with a fixed lens 110 SLR, Rollie, Vivitar, Canon, Minolta, Fuji, and Kodak all had fairly high end 110s they were marketing. Remember, this was the age of the Great Camera Race. If yours wasn’t the smallesty or the most featured, it had to be the most features smallesty or the smallesty most features.
Decent pics were indeed to be had from the high quality lenses of those higher end 110s, despite the small neg size. I saw 5X7s that looked fine, and 8X10s that were somewhat decent from some of my customers during those days.
As for exposure latitude [ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, TAKE AT YOUR OWN RISK], a Kodak sales rep once told me that their mass market, consumer grade colour negative film had phenomenal range. He said from 3 stops under to 5 stops over could still yield an “acceptable” print. As to who was judging the acceptability of said prints, I can’t say. But that’s what I was told, lo, way back in about 1980 or so. YMMV and don’t dare anybody ask for a “cite?” considering I already labeled this as anecdotal evidence.
Finagle, you are completely right. No serious photographer would give this a second glance. I am not a serious photographer. If fact I was looking for a medium format camera to pursue my photo object of choice, (hummingbirds) as my 35mm cameras were not up to the job. Well, I blame it on the equipment, Mrs. Seenidog seems to think it has more to do with my level of competency. I cannot afford anything like a Mamiya RB67, and I was hoping to score a Pentax 645. Searching pentax on ebay turned up this little thing, and the “Must have it, it is cute and gadgety” gene got the best of me. So I bought it. I found it is easily slipped into a jacket pocket and does not take the room any of my 35mm SLR’s take. I guess when I get those first rolls of film back I will know if it was worth the effort. If not, it was fun anyway. I still need a better camera for the hummingbird shots, and the Pentax 110 is not an advancement on my Olympus, Canon and Pentax 35mm cameras. It was just an enjoyable diversion down a different road. I am in the meantime trying to create a hummingbird attractive environment in my back yard. This works well with Mrs Seenidog’s passion for lillies and red flowers, makes the yard look nicer and is a whole lot cheaper than super-high quality telephoto lenses. A guy still has to eat! Thanks for the help.
Ah, I know the lure of the cute but baffling piece of technology. My dining room table is littered with impulse buys from Ebay. One ray of hope I can offer you – film got a lot better during the 80’s and 90’s. The grain on 35mm film pretty much disappeared for all intents and purposes. So I’d expect that 110 film stock also improved substantially.
However…if the Pentax 110 doesn’t work out, consider some of the new digital point and shoots. Some of them are surprisingly good and fit into pockets very nicely.
Out of curiosity, why are the 35mm cameras failing on the hummingbird shots? Is it a matter of enlargement?
To Finagle. Sorry to take so long to reply, weeding the garden and all. The answer to your question is yes. To get stop action on the wings of a hummingbird I have to open the lens wide open, (which is good, it blurs the background and puts full focus on the subject) but I also have to hit a shutter speed of least 1/250, 1/500 is better. So I have to go 400 or 800 ISO. The 35 makes good prints at 4", but at 5"x 7" it gets grainy and at 11"x17" it gets downright nasty. My biggest problem is getting the hummingbirds to cooperate. When light conditions are at thier best, no birds to be found. When it is too dim to shoot, they come out of hiding. They also love to to snub my wife’s red lillies in favor of the trumpet vines next door, just out of my camera range. When I move my tripod and camera in range, suddenly the lillies become the place to hang out. They are a wiley bunch them hummingbirds.
Ha. If I bothered to weed my garden, I wouldn’t post again til the first frost. Plant the seeds and then they’re on their own – that’s my motto.
Based on my experience with bees and larger, slower birds, I wouldn’t guess that even 1/500 second would be enough to get stop action on a hummingbird’s wings. In dim conditions, I’d try using a flash (or a main flash and a synched fill-in flash) and a smaller f-stop which has the benefit of eliminating the background entirely and giving you better depth of field on the bird. Of course, the success of that likely depends on the synch speed of your camera, and the lighting may not be as natural as you’d like.
If you get any good pictures, put them up on flickr and let’s take a look at them!
I found the following here:
So apparently there is no electronic switching that will allow you to properly use 200 film. It only set to 80 or 400.
Well, no weeding means less green beans, grape tomatoes, ( the best for salsa) and peppers, banana and bell. I admit my gardening skills are as poor as my photography skills, but even I can yank a weed out of the dirt. I am on my sixth straight year of failure as far as snow peas go. Carrots, cucumbers and squash are available at the exchange if you got beans or peppers. EVERYBODY has too many tomatos!
Back to photography, I talked with a local source and the young whipper-snapper said the problem is mostly me using the wrong equipment for the job, and me thinking I still have the steady hand, and sharp eye of thirty years ago. He informed me I don’t. He said lose my old pentax H1a, buy a better lens for my Canon Rebel EOS and invest in a better tripod. As far as the flash thing goes, I have no idea what you are talking about with fill in lighting. Like I said, I barely qualify as a hobbyist. I do not have a flash for the 35mm pentax. I have one for the Canon, but just living room picture type capability. And while I am not a tree hugger, I don’t want to blind some creature with a super flash just to get a picture. I think I will get a better lens for the Canon, a better tripod, and take a big dose of patience and wait for the right moment. Thanks for your help. The young whipper-snapper is my youngest son home for a few days, he was one of the cameramen filming the NCAA Wrestling championships in Iowa a month or two ago. No bad for a twenty year old upstart still in college! Sorry, proud father excercizing bragging rights whether he has them or not.
Don’t worry about it. As NoClueBoy said, you’re well within the film’s exposure latitude. One stop in either direction ain’t gonna kill you–even given the negative’s small size, it’s not going to matter that much.