Shooting expired color film
I still haven’t found my go-to color film. I have some favorites, like Cinestill 400d and Lomochrome Purple but those are not exactly for everyday use. Cinestill sometimes struggles with shadows and Lomochrome Purple is well, special (although I really love it) and both are pretty expensive. I might need to go back to shooting Kodak Ultramax or Gold, or Fujifilm for a while to see how it feels.
I figured it was time to write about one of my favorite color films - Fuji Superia 200. Sadly it can’t be my go-to, since production of this filmstock was discontinued in 2017. I have a few rolls at home, all expired in 2013. Before shooting it for the very first time last summer I tried to learn as much as possible about expired film, and consensus seemed to be to overexpose one stop for every decade the film has expired. Some said to overexpose even more. Of course, it depends on how the film was stored as well - I got two rolls from my brother, and I knew he had stored them at room temperature but in a drawer, so they had at least been protected from light. Still, you can never know the outcome, and you might end up with a blank roll. As I know negative film likes light, I decided to shoot my first roll at ISO 50, so two stops overexposed. That one turned out just right, but I shot it with a different camera than with my second roll. After shooting the same roll with my new camera, I realized the lightmeter slightly underexposes all images, so in the end I could have given this one a tiny bit more light but I still really like the result! I have since adjusted the exposure compensation so the lightmeter reads more accurate. What I enjoy about this film is especially the blueish greens (which are nowhere to be seen right now), so it’s perfect for summer - but I wanted to see how it would look during winter too. Weirdly my frame counter stopped at 34 but I got 40 frames from this roll!
Trying out my 200mm lens
An accidental double exposure - the first frame was intentional but on the second frame I slipped and took a random photo
I had this idea for a double exposure for a while, didn’t quite turn out as I imagine - I might try again with the lights out of focus instead.
It was not easy shooting inside at ISO 50 in January
I don’t remember taking this triple exposure - I think it’s the last frame of the roll
Here are some frames from the roll I shot last summer:
The same lighthouse and same film from last summer - as you can see it looks a bit better with more light (but also it’s summer here)