Frugal Film Project Take Two: June Edition

I am typing this post on a MacBook Pro using a Windows keyboard which means the keyboard shortcut for copy and paste is different than I am used to, which means that I am going to screw things up left and right. Enjoy.

The Frugal Film Project Lives. My second attempt at shooting a roll of (relatively) inexpensive film through a camera I spent less than $50 on each month for a year. I tried it last year and failed after four months. This year I am trying it again. I started in May. This post covers June. July’s edition is 50% shot but nothing has been developed yet. It’s only July 6th, give me a break, okay?

As stated in the May edition of the blog posts, I am trying to do this twice this year. One attempt is shooting Kodak Gold 200 through my Lomo Lubitell 166 Universal. The other is the same camera shooting Kentmere 100. 

First, we’ll look at the Kodak Gold images. There should be 12 but because I suck at life there are 11. The camera needs to be manually wound. There is a little red window on the back that lets you see the back of the film as you wind it. You’re supposed to wind it until you see the number 1 in the little window and then stop. That spot will be your first photo. Makes sense, right? Numbnutz over here wound too far and had to start on number 2. Idiot. 

So here come the 11 shots. First we have a sunrise at Hampton Beach in Hampton Beach, NH. I took these on June 14, 2026.

Okay, we’re done with Hampton Beach. Now we move on to the Newburyport Harborwalk Rail Trail in Newburyport, MA.

With that, our color experience comes to an end. There should be 12 photos but I am an idiot and there are only 11. Project 2A is complete. Now we move on to project 2B and everything is in black and white. These pics are also from the Harborwalk Rail Trail and they also have problems with too much sun… because I suck.

There we have it. Frugal Film Project 2B has been shared. Next time I will avoid shooting into the sun when it’s high and overpowering like this. Oh well. 

I said the July edition of the project is half done. I shot the roll of Kodak Gold yesterday (July 5th) in Boston. I was planning on shooting the Kentmere roll too but I got pulled away. I will have to go out and shoot one more time this month in order to stay on track. I mean, I can’t have a project go bust faster than last year, right?

Also, in closing… I feel like a putz for missing a shot on the first roll. I’ll share one more pic. This was taken one week later, July 21st, on Harman Phoenix II, which I have officially moved to the “never buy this film again” list. I just don’t like it. Unfortunately, I still have a bunch of it in my film stash. Crap. This one is the Concord River in Lowell, MA. It sucks, but at least it brings this masterpiece of a blog post up to 24 photos.

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PS: As I was posting these pics I was blowing them up pretty huge on my big gigantic monitor. These are medium format photos and even though they really suck ass, after viewing them… I get it. The medium format thing. I get it. The resolution is just… I don’t know. It’s something though. I get it.