A reader of my blog reached out and asked if I wanted some Cinestill CS41 developer. This was easy.
Yes, please, and thank you.
Followed up that he had a roll of expired film if I was interested.
I was.
A few days later they arrived.
What a nice fellow.
The timing of the developer was perfect. I had been pushing my last batch to the highest number of rolls I ever tried.
20 rolls. And the last roll was just fine.
But I took this as a sign to push no further. A $5 a pop for color development at my local camera shop works out to $100 of development for $30. That would pay for a TCS1000. Add in scanning, which I also do at home, at $10 a roll for those same 20 rolls and another $200 in savings. That pays for over half a scanner right there. All in $300 of development and scanning for $30 once you have all of the kit. Years on now I am very happy that I decided to develop film for myself. Ok. Enough of that.
The film. Fujifilm 400H. A discontinued film that I had used before (here and here). I had already started scanning my own film, but had not started developing my own film yet. This roll expired in 2011. The rule of thumb says 1 stop for every ten years so I shot the film at ISO 200. And that worked out just fine.
Not legendary nor does it have Zeiss written across its lens, but a fine tool. Can easily be used fully manually also, but bring autofocus, auto exposure, and TTL flash to the party making for a fine medium format point and shoot. If there are any unpredictable elements I will reach for this Pentax all day.
Add in things like great ergonomics, intuitive controls, and consistently squeezing 16 exposures out of a usually 15 exposure 120 roll over the 12 with 6×6 and the Pentax is a pleasure to use. When quizzed by Wilson what film camera would I have if I could only have one it was the first one that came to mind with little hesitation. Not a perfect film camera. No such thing exists. But one of many great options. To the photos.
Photos were taken as my son were out galavanting. Includes a request by my son to recreate an old photo of mine.
Here are my favorite exposures.
A kind gift, good company, and good times.
Happy capturing.
-ELW
Eric L. Woods 