3 ms·

> The Kodak Disc camera was introduced with great fanfare in 1982. The new cameras were lightweight, foolproof (with auto-exposure and built-in flash), affordab

by js2 4y ago

> The Kodak Disc camera was introduced with great fanfare in 1982. The new cameras were lightweight, foolproof (with auto-exposure and built-in flash), affordable, and used a brand new kind of film cartridge. My dad owned a darkroom/photoshop/one-hour lab for about 30 years starting in the 70s. I worked for him for about 5 of those years centered around highschool. There is absolutely no such thing as a foolproof camera. You would not believe all the ways people can screw up even the most "foolproof" of designs. As just one example: with a traditional 35 mm camera, the film unspools from its lightproof cartridge onto a take-up spool in the camera. When you reach the end of of the roll, you press a button on the camera to release a clutch, then you turn a knob to rewind the film back into its cartridge before opening the camera back and removing the film. https://filtergrade.com/load-film-35mm-camera/ https://filtergrade.com/load-film-35mm-camera/ One obvious and easy to make error is accidentally opening the camera back before rewinding the film, usually ruining ("fogging") all the pictures you shot. :-( But what you wouldn't guess someone would be able to do is to rewind the film without releasing the clutch. Doing so requires a large amount of force because you're tearing the sprockets off the side of the film where it travels over the gear that's normally used to advance the film. Any yet, this is something I saw more than one time. Customers would never admit to doing this, but I mean, come on, we'd open the cartridge to remove the film for development and the sides would have been torn off and there's only one way this happens. Then there's the questions... no, dropping the exposed film did not blur the images.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Did you ever see eye-raising photos from customers like nudes or even crimes?
- js2 4y ago
  Mostly people take mundane, boring and poorly shot photos. When they go on vacation they take pictures of the same landmarks and in the same ways. I probably printed[1] the Leaning Tower of Pisa approximately 8 million times. Everyone thinks they are clever posing so that it appears they are holding it in the palm of their hand. And while people also take pictures of other people naked, those also tend to be mundane, boring, and poorly shot. So yes, I printed nudes, but rarely were they notable enough to cause me to raise my eyebrow at them. I don't recall ever printing photos of criminal behavior. [1] The one-hour lab equipment we had was semi-automated. The printing machine was about the size of three refrigerators side-by-side. There was a console/desk at one end that I would sit at which had the projection bulb underneath shining up through a small hole over which I'd place each negative one after the next. The machine had a computer which assumed the colors and exposure in each photo averaged out to an 18% grey image. Looking at the negative, I'd have to punch in offsets: e.g. I'd recognize the image has a lot of sky, or a lot of green foliage, or it's at the beach, etc, or it was over or under exposed, so I'd add "+3 blue" or '+2 green", or whatever I thought was needed to offset from 18% grey, then punch "go". The machine would then expose the negative onto the photo paper above which was on a 4" wide by 1000 foot roll. So it would expose 4" x 6" above, then it would feed the exposed paper into tanks filled with the chemistry to develop the paper. About 12 minutes later (as I recall...) the photos I'd previously exposed would pop out of the machine. Another employee, or me if it wasn't too busy, would then do quality control. I was pretty good, but some photos I would have misidentified so we'd have to sometimes re-print a few. After we were satisfied with the quality, the photos would all go into a paper envelope and we'd cut the negative roll down from 12, 24, or 36 images into strips of 4 images. Those would go into plastic sleeves and get inserted into the same paper envelope with the photos. I never really thought about it before, but I guess I've traveled vicariously all over the world through other people's photos. I don't think we ever thought twice about privacy and I don't think our customers did then either. Occasionally someone might mention there were nudes when dropping off a roll, but mostly not. I vaguely recall we had a customer with a mistress and he would use a different name when dropping off photos that included the mistress because his wife would sometimes come in to pick up the family photos. Okay, one more: a guy who had a new girlfriend every few months and somehow he'd always get his girlfriends to flash the camera. It was amusing because we'd see he had a new girlfriend and knew it would be just a few weeks before he'd have a photo of her flashing her breasts for him. It's been more than 30 years, but those are two I recall.
IIAOPSW 4y ago
As a kid I took apart those old disposable cameras. That's when I had my first, but far from my last, bittersweet kiss with mother electricity. For better or worse, I soon convinced everyone (kids and adults alike) to commit wholeheartedly the folly of shaking hands with a charged flash capacitor. Thus they all became well acquainted with the finicky mistress of electrical discharge. Oh right, that machine was supposed to produce photos. You mean I wasn't supposed to open that? Well jokes on you. 7 year olds can't read won't read and won't listen either. Oops.
michaelgrafl 4y ago
Jesus Christ that's hilarious! I suddenly get an IT-Crowd vibe about a sitcom taking place in a photo lab.

by js2 4y ago

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

Did you ever see eye-raising photos from customers like nudes or even crimes?

js2 4y ago
Mostly people take mundane, boring and poorly shot photos. When they go on vacation they take pictures of the same landmarks and in the same ways. I probably printed[1] the Leaning Tower of Pisa approximately 8 million times. Everyone thinks they are clever posing so that it appears they are holding it in the palm of their hand. And while people also take pictures of other people naked, those also tend to be mundane, boring, and poorly shot. So yes, I printed nudes, but rarely were they notable enough to cause me to raise my eyebrow at them. I don't recall ever printing photos of criminal behavior. [1] The one-hour lab equipment we had was semi-automated. The printing machine was about the size of three refrigerators side-by-side. There was a console/desk at one end that I would sit at which had the projection bulb underneath shining up through a small hole over which I'd place each negative one after the next. The machine had a computer which assumed the colors and exposure in each photo averaged out to an 18% grey image. Looking at the negative, I'd have to punch in offsets: e.g. I'd recognize the image has a lot of sky, or a lot of green foliage, or it's at the beach, etc, or it was over or under exposed, so I'd add "+3 blue" or '+2 green", or whatever I thought was needed to offset from 18% grey, then punch "go". The machine would then expose the negative onto the photo paper above which was on a 4" wide by 1000 foot roll. So it would expose 4" x 6" above, then it would feed the exposed paper into tanks filled with the chemistry to develop the paper. About 12 minutes later (as I recall...) the photos I'd previously exposed would pop out of the machine. Another employee, or me if it wasn't too busy, would then do quality control. I was pretty good, but some photos I would have misidentified so we'd have to sometimes re-print a few. After we were satisfied with the quality, the photos would all go into a paper envelope and we'd cut the negative roll down from 12, 24, or 36 images into strips of 4 images. Those would go into plastic sleeves and get inserted into the same paper envelope with the photos. I never really thought about it before, but I guess I've traveled vicariously all over the world through other people's photos. I don't think we ever thought twice about privacy and I don't think our customers did then either. Occasionally someone might mention there were nudes when dropping off a roll, but mostly not. I vaguely recall we had a customer with a mistress and he would use a different name when dropping off photos that included the mistress because his wife would sometimes come in to pick up the family photos. Okay, one more: a guy who had a new girlfriend every few months and somehow he'd always get his girlfriends to flash the camera. It was amusing because we'd see he had a new girlfriend and knew it would be just a few weeks before he'd have a photo of her flashing her breasts for him. It's been more than 30 years, but those are two I recall.

IIAOPSW 4y ago

As a kid I took apart those old disposable cameras. That's when I had my first, but far from my last, bittersweet kiss with mother electricity. For better or worse, I soon convinced everyone (kids and adults alike) to commit wholeheartedly the folly of shaking hands with a charged flash capacitor. Thus they all became well acquainted with the finicky mistress of electrical discharge. Oh right, that machine was supposed to produce photos. You mean I wasn't supposed to open that? Well jokes on you. 7 year olds can't read won't read and won't listen either. Oops.

michaelgrafl 4y ago

Jesus Christ that's hilarious! I suddenly get an IT-Crowd vibe about a sitcom taking place in a photo lab.