Tag: film photography

The Frugal Film Project Lives Again

I bet you’ve been seeing this coming for a while now… or not because no one actually reads this, but that’s not the point. I’m trying to connect here folks, gimme a break, m’kay?

The Frugal Film Project, Buy a cheap film camera, buy some relatively cheap film (there is no such thing as cheap film in 2026), shoot one roll each month for a year. I can do that, right? Hell yes, I can. Except of course that I tried it last year and failed. I started in May and made it through four months. In September I did not get a single shot in, never mind a whole roll. Oh well.

Now, one year later, let’s try again. There’s a twist this time though. Last year I decided to use my little Soviet TLR, a Lomo Lubitel 166 Universal that I bought for a little less than $50 on eBay and much to my surprise it actually worked. I also decided to use Kentmere 400 film only to realize as I was packing up to shoot the first roll that I didn’t actually have any of that film so I changed my mind and went with Kodak Gold 200. How’s that for thinking on my feet, eh?

The twist this year is that I am actually going to try and do this twice. I am going to follow last year’s plan of the Lubitel and Gold, but I am also going to try to follow last year’s original plan of the Lubitel and Kentmere, though I don’t have any Kentmere 400 right now (deja-vu all over again) so we’re going with Kentmere 100. Let’s call the Gold roll Frugal Film Project 2A, and the Kentmere roll Frugal Film Project 2B. I have a roll of project 2A from May 1st and project 2B from May 5th. Both rolls have been developed and all 12 shots from each roll came out okay. We’re off to a good start. Two of them, actually!

Here’s the first roll. These were taken at the ocean.

We start at a little spot off the road where you can see some fishing and charter boats. This is not actually the ocean, of course. Is it a bay? A little harbor? I’m not nautical enough to know the proper term. Also, dig that friggin weird line through the photo. My first roll or two that I shot in this camera last year had that on a few shots but then it went away. Now it’s back. Hooray.

000388600012
000388600011

Next we go to Hampton Beach and we see my biggest issue with this camera. Not only is it almost impossible to focus on the little focusing screen, but for some reason I cannot keep the friggin’ images level. I don’t think I lean this much when I stand still but who knows. Do I have one leg significantly longer than the other? What is the actual deal?

000388600010
000388600009
000388600008
000388600007

On the road to Plum Island, stopping to look at planes. Some day I am going to hang out here and shoot some planes actually taking off. Someday.

000388600006

Check out the amateur’s shadow. Friggin’ hack.

000388600005

Next we have Plum Island itself. This is the mouth of the Merrimack River, where it dumps into the ocean, and the Plum Island Lighthouse.

000388600004
000388600003
000388600001
000388600002

And there you have it. The Frugal Film Project take two, roll A. I am such a nerd.

Now we move on to take two, roll B. We leave color film behind and move on to the magical mystery tour that is black and white. We also travel from the ocean to Boston, where I sort of expect to take most of these pics in the future. This was a walk along Newbury Street, a little stretch of Mass Ave near Berklee College of Music, and then on Comm Ave.

000307340001
000307340002
000307340003
000307340004
000307340005
000307340006
000307340007
000307340008
000307340009
000307340010
000307340011
000307340012

So maybe I finished the roll before I made it over to Comm Ave. Sorry about that.

Right then, two rolls of medium format, 120 film shot on a cheap camera by a cheap, talentless red head. Two instances of month one of the Frugal Film Project. I haven’t figured out where I will go for June’s pics. I’d guess that at least one of the rolls will be in Boston again. We will all just have to wait and see together.

It Works

Check it out, folks. My new/old/used camera works!

My first Digital SLR camera was a Nikon D90. This is a Nikon N90… no relation. Though if I am honest, once I found out that the camera with almost the same name as my first camera could autofocus and do all of the stuff I was looking for, it made it seem like a no brainer that I would eventually get one… because I am a nerd, through and through.

The first roll used a AF Nikkor 70–210mm 1:4–5.6 lens and Kodak ColorPlus 200 film. I took some pics at home in the back yard, in Lowell along the Merrimack River, and then downtown in Methuen. At first I thought they were a little overexposed, but on second view I think they are pretty much okay. Here’s a random sample (of the pics that suck the least).

000745150002
000745150009
000745150012
000745150017
000745150023
000745150025
000745150030
000745150032
000745150035
000745150036

The second roll was through a AF Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8 (2) lens. I added the (2) to the name because I already had a lens with the same name, but this one is a little different. Is it better? Well who knows. I do know that it fogged up on me a little. At some point I’ll do a side by side comparission and see which one I prefer. For now, I think this 50mm prime might be the better of the two lenses that came with the camera. The film in this round was Kentmere 400. Also known as cheap black and white film. I went to Walnut Grove Cemetery in Methuen and then walked across the street to the Methuen Rail Trail which includes the Mighty Spicket River.

000746210003
000746210002
000746210009
000746210020
000746210023
000746210027
000746210032
000746210034
000746210035
000746210036

And there we have it. A shit load of examples of how my cool new autofocusing film camera actually works and isn’t a leaky mess.

Insert an emphatic sigh of relief here.

Might Change My Workflow

This is another in an endless line of posts about getting photographic film developed. As usual the main theme is that I am an impatient asshole. Consider yourselves warned.

When I first started mailing film off to a development lab I was sending it to a place in New Hampshire. The lab is close enough that I could probably drive to it and drop it off in person. It’s a little too far to do as a spur of the moment, off the cuff kinda drive, but it was close. When I dropped the package in the mail it was usually at its destination the next business day.

Then I changed labs. Instead of shipping to New Hampshire I was shipping to San Clemente, CA. All the way across the country. The service was a little cheaper, and to my very ignorant untrained eyes the end result looked a teeny tiny hair’s width better. Was it actually better? I don’t have a clue. The question was, does the slightly lower cost offset the extra 4–5 days of travel time to get the package of film to its laboratory destination? At first I thought yes. Now?

My plan for this summer is to shoot film once a month. Last year I was trying to go out and take pictures of stuff any time the sun was out in the early morning on the weekend. It got the point where I was sneaking out of the house 2–3 days each week. That was silly. This year I am going to blitz for one weekend, weather permitting, each month and that will be it. This month had an extra day because I needed to test drive my new camera, but outside of that I plan to stick to once a month.

Next month I think I am going to go back to the lab in New Hampshire. Hell, I might even drive there. Probably not, but if I can find some excuse I might. At the very least I will compare prices between the two labs directly and if it’s even remotely similar I am going to go with the faster shipping turn around time with the closer to home service. 

I dropped four rolls of film in the mail on Saturday. I don’t expect them to get to California until Friday. I am generally a patient person and that wait should not bother me… but in this case I am completely impatient and it does bother me.

Damn it, I am such a freakin’ nerd.

Photos: The Next Generation (Film Edition)

I put up a post the other day with some photos I took when I went to the ocean and Plum Island. At the time I said there would be a film edition of the post to follow and this is it.

Sort of.

I shot two full rolls of film. One 35mm and one 120. I also finished off the last few shots from an old roll of 35mm. I got them all developed and the scans came back the other day and last night I uploaded them all to Flickr and now it’s time for another post here.

Sort of. I am saving the 120 shots for another post. These are just 35mm pics. I’m also thinking of trying to sort of mirror the previous post. This plan probably won’t last for long, but let’s see.

The sunrise view sort of sucked, but I got a little glimpse of it. This is my Nikon FG-20 shooting my first ever roll of Lomography 800. I like the way the sun flares. At least the tiny bit of the sun we could actually see.

000442330001

I think my plan to follow the first post is already dead… maybe not. I think this is from Salisbury Beach but I’m not sure. This is from my Pentax K1000 shooting Kentmere 400.

(note: on second look, I’m pretty sure this is Hampton Beach when the digital post was still at Salisbury Beach. Let’s not worry about that now though)

000966080029

This next picture is crap, but speaking of sun flares! Woah!

000442330018

Here’s one that I took on both film and digital. I can’t tell which is better. Maybe the film?

000442330010

Another that I can’t tell whether it is better or worse than the digital version. This was with a 50mm lens and the digital was with an 85mm so the crop is different. Is crop the right word? I don’t think so.

000442330012

The digital version of this is way better. Oh well.

000442330016

Shooting black and white at the beach seems sort of silly, but I kinda dig it.

000966080032

That moment when the sun came out… nice.

000442330019

I thought maybe the light was better at this spot when I was shooting film than it was for digital. Maybe not.

000966080034

Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. Please don’t explode, m’kay?

000966080035

For the birds, at Hampton Beach.

000442330022

More birds. I don’t think I have enough bird-centric film pics to stay on track with the previous digital post. Sorry.

000442330023

Plum Island airport.

000442330029

Why do I always stop here on the way out to the lighthouse? I haven’t a clue.

000442330030

The Merrimack River from Plum Island.

000442330032

Dig that blue water.

000442330033

And by this point both 35mm cameras were out of film and I was not going to take the time to reload so this is where this post ends. There will be another post from this day that will have the 120 film shots. That’s going to be grouped with some pics I took in Boston last week. I’ll explain later.

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……..

000472110008
000472110010
000472110009
000472110001
000472110004
000472110005
000472110002
000472110006
000472110007
000472110003
000472110011
000472110012

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.

000472120012

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.