I’ve been very happy with the photos I’ve taken with this expired (in 2008) Kodak Plus-X. I bought it several years ago, five rolls in a pro-pack, and stored it in the freezer. Being conscious that it’s a stock that’s no longer available, it was another film in my stash that I was saving for “special occasions”, but I’m fighting against that urge to store such film for occasions that never seem to arise and instead just shoot the stuff.
Plus-X is quite nice, but I’d probably get a very similar look by using Ilford FP4+, so while I now have none of it left, it’s not something that I will miss too much.
Something good that happened today…
Today was my first day back at work, which I wasn’t looking forward to after a couple of week’s off over Christmas, coupled with the loss of a number of colleagues who all left the business at the end of December. The good thing is that it hasn’t been a bad day at all. I took the advice that you should try to ease yourself back into work gently, and spent the day catching up on emails, and also pulling together a to do list. The list got up to about fifteen items, some small and easy to achieve, others that will require more work, and a couple that are projects that I’d like to kick off. I managed to clear a number of the low-hanging items from the list, so I finished the day with a sense that I had achieved something.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Plus-X (expired January 2008 and shot at 100asa). Adox Rodinal 1+50 13mins @ 20°
I’ve definitely posted pictures of this fish & chip / ice cream shop in Mablethorpe before, but I don’t think any shot on the Fujica GW690, and definitely not on expired Kodak Plus-X.
It stands on a small promontory so is very apparent on the otherwise straight Mablethorpe shoreline. I’m not sure when it was built, but it’s been there as long as I remember, so I expect sometime in the 1960s, or maybe even earlier.
Something good that happened today…
I finally got around to resetting my old PC, which has been sat on my office floor since early 2024 when I bought my son’s PC as a replacement. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it now it’s reset, but the fresh install of Windows means it is now actually useable again and doesn’t take nearly ten minutes to boot!
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Plus-X (expired January 2008 and shot at 100asa). Adox Rodinal 1+50 13mins @ 20°
Jumping back to last September again with today’s pictures, taken on my regular trip to Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire.
I guess they’re both pretty mundane “record” shots, but I like the way the GW690 has rendered the scenes with tons of detail.
The first picture is looking west towards the sea. When I used to visit Mablethorpe as a child the view would include a helter-skelter and big-wheel looming over the buildings at the end of the street from their location in the fun-fair. The big-wheel went ages ago, although a replacement helter-skelter did remain for quite a while longer. There are some old postcards of the town from the 1970s on this blog that show both rides still in situ. There’s also a postcard with a very similar view to my second photo of the view west along High Street from the pullover beside the fun-fair at the edge of the beach. I often think it would be nice to be able to step back in time to revisit the town as I remember it as a child. I wonder if the reality would hold up to my memories? I think it probably would, but who knows?
More pictures from Mablethorpe to come in the next few days.
Something good that happened today…
We did the top-to-bottom clean of the house today. I don’t enjoy doing the cleaning up, but knowing we don’t have to do it again (aside from the usual vacuuming etc.) for a few weeks is a nice feeling.
The first post of another new year. I’ve now posted daily for six full years!
For once, it’s some photos that’re relatively fresh, having been made less than a week ago at time of typing.
We had misty weather across large parts of the UK in the days following Christmas, so I made an effort to go out and take advantage of the atmospheric conditions. I probably missed the best of the mist on this particular day as I didn’t venture out until the afternoon, but there is still enough of it around to add a little to the pictures.
These shelters spring up every now and again in the trees close to the Trans Pennine Trail. I’ve never seen anyone building them and I don’t know who makes them or if they serve any particular purpose – there’s the remnants of a small camp fire in front of the second one, so I guess somebody spent at least a little time there, but they don’t look like they will give that much protection from the elements.
Somehow, another year has concluded. I feel that I’m spinning closer and closer to whatever is at the centre of everything, each orbit feeling shorter than the last. At this rate, I expect a year to feel like five minutes before too long!
So as the year comes to a close I’ll pick my annual selection of favourite pictures, one from each month. very subjective as usual, and as always I could have picked one of several from some months. The pickings have become much slimmer over the past couple of months though, mostly due to other matters being on my mind and not shooting as much. December’s entry (given I’m keeping this selection film-based) is one I’ve only shot since Christmas, and only developed and scanned today. I expect this one may be usurped as I have a couple more rolls yet to scan (and one roll of colour from Barcelona to send off for processing) which may contain a preferred picture. We shall see.
One thing I’ve noticed is that I seem to have gone for a bit of a bridge theme for this selection. 🙂
I’ll end this bit by wishing you all a very happy New Year and wish good things for us all in 2025. Have a good one!
This big boat of an Oldsmobile made for a pretty nice picture. I think the touch of corrosion on the bonnet (hood) adds to it.
I think that this is a Cutlass, but please correct me if I’m wrong.
EDIT: The owner of the car has discovered my blog post and contacted me to let me know that the car is actually an Oldsmobile Ninety Eight, which was the flagship model. I did speak with him on the day I took the picture and he told me that the corrosion on the bonnet was on his list of things to sort out, and he’s re-confirmed that, along with a few stats on the vehicle, namely that it has a 425 cubic inch engine, which means it is a 7000cc V8 engine. Around town it manages 8MPG, and 13.7MPG on the motorway.
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008 and shot at 100asa). Adox Rodinal 1+50 13mins @ 20°.
It’s been a while since the last one of these posts, but with a shorter gap than before – 7 months this time, as opposed to the 17 month gap between the last two Expiriment posts.
This time, the subject was a roll of Kodak Vericolor HC which had expired in 1992. I have no idea of the entire provenance of the film before I got it, although it’s been in my freezer for about three years now.
Kodak describes Vericolor HC as follows:
KODAK VERICOLOR HC Professional Film This improved color negative film has greater sharpness and finer grain than KODAK VERICOLOR II Commercial Film, Type S. This film is ideal for commercial illustration, industrial applications, low-level aerial photography, environmental portraiture, and other applications that call for increased contrast. It may also be used for any copy work that needs increased contrast, and for outdoor portraiture under low-contrast lighting conditions, such as on cloudy days or in deep shade.
FEATURES • Extremely fine grain, extremely high sharpness, and high resolving power • Built-in dye mask • Balanced for exposure by daylight, blue flash, or electronic flash • Designed for processing in Process C-41 chemicals
BENEFITS • Produces excellent-quality high-contrast prints even with a high degree of enlargement • Makes excellent-quality color reproduction possible without supplementary masking • Allows exposures from 1/ 10 second to 1/10,000 second without filters • Can be processed with KODACOLOR and other KODAK VERICOLOR Films
I took a different approach when shooting this time. Usually I only have a single roll of a particular expired film and tend to take a chance and shoot the whole roll with the same settings, without any bracketing. This going-for-bust approach risks disaster if I misjudge the settings, but the reward is a full set of different images if it works well, rather than a curtailed set of identical compositions taken at different shutter speeds.
This time though, I decided to take the cautious apoproach. The primary reason for this being that I have an entire pro-pack of the film so using one roll as a sacrifice would mean I can shoot the other four knowing what settings will work well. In order to still maximise the number of different compositions, I chose to shoot the roll with my Bronica ETRSi, which gives me 15 shots per roll of 120 film. I decided to shoot each composition at three settings, allowing me five different compositions from the roll.
I didn’t see any point in shooting any of the shots at box speed, so planned on shooting each composition at one, two, and three stops of overexposure. As the film is rated at a box speed of 100asa, I chose to set my light meter to 64asa as a baseline, take a reading for the composition, and then shoot two additional frames with an increase of one stop of exposure for each. That was the plan, at least…
This plan worked ok for the first shot, and the results can be seen below, withe the first image shot at the settings given for 64asa, and the following two images with a stop more exposure over the previous one:
Fot this first shot, the results were all good. The middle image (effectively shot at 32asa) is the one I prefer. The first doesn’t show any major issues with underexposure, although the sky is a bit deeper, and the third, while clearly brighter, is still very acceptable (and I would have been perfectly happy with it if I didn’t have the others to compare it to).
The results were similar for these shots of a willow tree:
Again, the middle image is the best exposed, I think.
The next six shots had an issue – not only did I tamper with the process by changing lenses, I also managed to somehow mess up the metering – shooting each shot at box speed, then one and two stops over for both these compositions. While this was an error, it just means that the best exposed image is now number three, with the fist shot in each sequence being at actual box speed for the film. It clearly shows problems rated at box speed in terms of underexposure.
—
For the final composition I realised my error and got back on track. The middle shot again being the best exposed.
Beyond the issues with underexposure and some small spotty defects in the emulsion, the results are pretty outstanding for a film that expired over thirty years ago. The colours still look very nice too.
I feel confident that, if I meter for 32asa, that I can expect pretty good results from the remaining four rolls I have, although I’ll perhaps overexpose a little more in dim conditions.
Overall outcome: Success!
Expiriment #6 coming soon (I do actually have some more expired film I’ve shot recently, so this might actually be true)…
Bronica ETRS1, Kodak Vericolor HC (expired 1992). Shot bracketed and lab developed for box speed.Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 11 November 2024
I’ve uploaded the images above directly to my blog, but if you want to see the ones with the best exposure at higher resolution, they can be found here on my Flickr account.
I don’t often photograph cars from the side, usually because there’s always something else in the way or the lens isn’t wide enough to fit it all in. But I had the chance to do so with this Austin 7 (which I think is a Ruby Saloon from 1936).
I’ve just managed to squeeze it into the frame (and I’d normally leave a little more space) but I think the shape of the car lends itself to this tight framing.
I like the way the guy is framed through the window. You can also see me in a reflected selfie. 🙂
Fujica GW690 & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008 and shot at 100asa). Adox Rodinal 1+50 13mins @ 20°.
Steel City Snapper photography 