Happy New Film Day

I shipped seven rolls of film to the darkroom in California on Monday afternoon and I got the scans back on Friday morning! Talk about your epic turn around time!

Happy Film Scans Day

Four rolls of film. One of them is medium format. Nerd boy is giddy with glee.

Fail

That camera I bought on ebay a couple of weeks ago? The Nikon F-401? The camera with the autofocus that was going to make my film shooting life so much easier?

The aperture dial doesn’t work. It just spins, it doesn’t click. It doesn’t actually affect the lens’ aperture at all. Not even a teeny tiny bit. If you try to use the aperture ring instead of the dial as a work around? The camera doesn’t fire.

Failure. Total. The lens is nice though so I probably won’t send it back. Anyone know any place that fixes cameras?

Frugal Film Project

I wanted to do this back in January but it was cold out there and I forgot.

The Frugal Film Project is an internet challenge to buy a cheap camera and shoot a roll of cheap(ish) film through it every month for a year. The rule used to be that you had to grab the camera for under $50 but that was before prices ballooned during the pandemic so now it’s $75.

I bought my little Soviet TLR camera, a Lomo Lubitel 166 Universal, for about $40 so it qualifies. You’re supposed to use budget film but I don’t think such a thing actually exists anymore. Even cheap film is grossly expensive. I am going to play this game with the Lubitel and Kodak Gold 200 film. I started it on Memorial Day at Riverside Park in Methuen, a couple of weeks ago, so month number one is May 2025. I’ve already shot a roll in June too, in Harvard Square, but I won’t get that developed for a couple of weeks.

The camera only shoots 12 pics to a roll and (magically, for me) all 12 on the May roll came out okay. Here they are……..

Film Thoughts

Two thoughts on the mountain of film I got back from the development lab today.

First, I need to learn how to hold my camera without leaning to the side.

Every square format shot is tilted. Do I have one leg longer than the other or something?

Second, I am not vibing with this brand of film. I bought two rolls of 120 and two rolls of 35mm. I shot the two 120’s last week and one of the 35mm’s today. After I finish the last roll I think I am done with this brand. Oh well.

Film Scans

I got my new batch of film scans back today! Can I get a WOOHOO from the audience?

Travel Plans and Parental Controls

Bellana came home late last night. Late enough that I was asleep. I woke up at 4:00am for some reason and checked the driveway and her car was there. Wonderful! My step daughter is home!

By 8:30am though we had dropped her off at the airport. She’s flying to Denver, meeting a friend, and then driving back to somewhere in North Carolina. From there she’s going to Atlanta and flying to Orlando where she will meet up with the rest of us for our Disney trip the week after next.

That’s a lot of traveling!

Her flight hasn’t boarded yet, but according to flightaware.com it is still on time. Safe travels, Bellana! We love you!

On an unrelated note, I think I need to set up parental controls on my computer. I think I need to block ebay. Yeah… I bought another camera last night. What the fuck, Robert? This one is a 35mm with autofocus. It has a 50mm lens too. Bonus! I still don’t think I will take any film on our vacation, but it is pretty clear my self imposed two month film hiatus isn’t going to last more than a few days. Oh well. I tried.

While we’re on the subject of film, I got a notification from the lab I sent the last batch of film to that it arrived. That was Thursday afternoon. I was hope hope hoping that I would receive word that the scans were available yesterday but I gots nuttin’. I doubt they’ll be working over the weekend, so hopefully early next week we’ll have the results. I’m optimistic that the five medium format rolls come out okay. Four of them might at least. One of them might be a smidge under exposed. I had the light meter app on my phone set wrong during one roll. Dumb ass. Everything else (hopefully) was free of user errors or dumb ass fuck ups. Fingers crossed.

Giddy

Look at the nerd boy being all giddy.

The film lab sent him an email saying the received my latest film order. We’re going to have new film shots to play with at some point over the next couple of business days.

Squee, bro… squee.

Medium Format

I just got the scans from the four rolls of film I sent out for developing! My new/old ebay purchased medium format camera works! Well… it produced an image. Moron over here didn’t figure out how to actually use it correctly until he’d basically ruined two rolls of film, but those two rolls of film both produced images that look mostly okay!

My Lomo Lubitell 166 Universal works!

That image is from the second roll. Note how there are two images over lapping. That is because I am an idiot who is bad at geometry.

The second roll came out much better than the first, but the first one was exposed when the back of the camera popped open on me. Everything was messed up to various degrees.

The next roll I shoot will be better… I think. We’ll have to find out. Focusing this thing is a bitch, so who knows.

More Fun with Film

Did I take advantage of the perfect Spring weather to go out and take a shit load of photos today? No. No I did not. I suck. To make up for it, here’s another bunch of pics taken with my father’s Pentax K1000.