You folks out there in internet land have just been dying for this post, I know it. The August edition of the Frugal Film Project take two. Take a cheap film camera (a Lomo Lubitell 166 Universal) and shoot a cheapish roll of film each month for a year. I failed in this last year so to torture myself as punishment I’m actually doing two rolls of film this year. Kodak Gold 200 and Kentmere 100. I started in May this year and for three months I’ve managed to stay on goal. Today we add month number four, August.
The color pics go first this time, Kodak Gold. 12 shots taken in Boston while wandering around the Back Bay on August 15th.
Here we go!
A roll of 120 film through a 6×6 camera gives you 12 shots. Amazingly, all 12 came out… sort of. They all generated an image. I’ll take that as a win. Now let’s take a look at the black and white shots. Kentmere 100. These were also taken in Boston’s Back Bay on August 15th. I had a pretty busy photowalk that day.
There you go. Two rolls of film for two instances of the Frugal Film Project. 24 pics doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you add them all to a post here… 24 is a lot!
So I have matched last year’s failed project. I made it four months before crashing and burning. This time around? I’ve already shot the Gold 200 roll for September. I have them on my Flickr account but I’m not going to post them just yet. I still have to shoot the Kentmere 100 roll. If I can’t get that in this weekend then… well… then I guess that part will be a failure.
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.
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?
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.
Check out the amateur’s shadow. Friggin’ hack.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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……..
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.
