The Father’s Day Film Haul: aka I Guess I am Obsessing Over Film Now.

My son recently asked what I wanted for Father’s Day.

The only thing I could think of was film.

As has been well documented on these pages I have run through digital cameras of almost every brand. Have long settled on a flash system that conveniently plays well regardless of brand. Have run through most any film camera type, format, or brand I have ever wanted to try. All I have interest in now would be the occasional overachieving inexpensive camera.

When it comes to technology of any vintage or type I am strictly team whatever floats your boat. So no attacks on AI or other new technologies will be found here. Do I have my personal preferences? Yes. Does it matter with regard to whatever someone else may choose? Nope. Are you having fun and/or getting the results you wish? Great. You do you. I have no more desire to dictate to others what they should be doing regarding matters of personal preference than I would to have such dictated to me. To be clear, no interest.

It all happened suddenly. On the film side, I have tried just about anything that I would be interested in. If not exactly close enough. On the digital side I noticed that new camera release notifications were met with a meh. Sure, the new cameras offered new features. But my required spec bar was passed a few years ago. I could get on fine with nearly any camera produced by any manufacturer over the last few years. Same follows for lenses.

So for me, that leaves film. A week does not seem to pass without some film release announcement or another and I am here for it. I may be waking up to it but I am realizing there are a number of new and interesting releases coming. And that is one of the reasons I love film. In the digital world it would be the equivalent of swapping out the sensor. Outside of the quirky ability to remove the Infrared blocking filter from a SIGMA sd quattro…

…I do not know of another way to significantly change the image capturing capabilities of a digital camera. Monochrome only digital camera for thousands? Pfft. Just grab any film camera and throw in a roll of B&W film. Voila. Monochrome only image capturing.

Have tried and liked positive slide film in the past.

You have my all time color negative favorites like the Lomography triplets 100…

..400 (Formerly dubbed my favorite of the three. But I could be easily swayed otherwise.)…

…and 800.

You have your Kodak Gold 200.

You have your Kodak Portra 400…

… and very kindly gifted, free to me expired but refrigerated Porta 160 VC and standard issue 160.

Of course there are the multi pack WalMartGreenVS bargain grade Fujifilm Superia X-Tras and the like.

…and Lomography Turquoise.

The high ISO Black and White films like Kodak T-Max P3200…

and Ilford Delta 3200.

And more recently I have dipped my toe into a few low ISO films like FPP Sun Color ISO 1 (ISO 1!)…

…and Rollei Ortho 24 black and white film.

Then you have your good old Ilford HP5 Plus.

What I would call my favorite black and white film, Rollei RPX 100…

…and 400.

I am also liking Kentmere Pan in 100…

…and 400 strengths.

…ok. This walk down film memory lane has gone on longer than I expected. Enough of that. I picked up some old favorites and a few newbies that have caught my attention recently.

CatLABS X Film 100

Who is to blame?

35mmc. They wrote a post about it. I ordered it so fast that I had forgotten about it by the time it arrived.

Why?

It was reasonably priced and the sample photos on 35mmc and their website pretty much did me in.

FPP Low ISO 1.6

Who is to blame?

35mmc. This time indirectly. I had written a post about the Rollei Ortho 25 film mentioned above. Someone attempted to one up Ortho 25 in the comments by mentioning that they shot with ISO 1.5 film…

Why?

…to which I countered with my experience with FPP Color Sun ISO 1 mentioned above. But in their comment, they said something. I could find no reasonable way to meter for ISO 1 film that jived with my short attention span so I shot it using FPP’s open sun shutter speed recommendations and tweaked for conditions. They mention that with ISO 1.5 film they set their camera to ISO 6 and dialed in a -2 exposure compensation…

Dude what?…

6 divided in half is 3, 3 divided in half is… <whoah> I have a couple of cameras I can do that with. To the internets to order this film he mentioned… and they are sold out. I then landed on the ISO 1.6 film mentioned here from FPP. Really looking forward to giving it a spin.

FOMA 100/200

Who is to blame?

Dillon.

Why?

Easy. He mentioned the film the last time I stopped in the camera shop. Showed me the box. It looked cool. Southeastern Camera had 100 and 200 speed in stock for about $6 each. That is practically free in film speak. Chris ordered 400 and I will get that too when it comes in.

Lomography Lomochrome Purple

Who is to blame?

Me.

Why?

Before the FOMA episode above I asked what the least expensive 35mm films were and they were the Lomography tinted triplets. As mentioned above I had already tried Lomography Lomochrome Metropolis…

…and Lomography Turquoise.

Purple seemed gimmicky but after thinking the same of Turquoise and liking it I decided to give it a shot.

Well that about wraps things up. Now to shoot some film. Already finished a roll of the Kodak Gold 200…

…and started on some FPP ISO 1.6. Good times.

With the internal GAS wars apparently having been won this is a nice and relatively inexpensive way to try out some new things in photography.

-ELW