I don’t have much to say about this roll of film, other than the fact that it’s a negative from 2024 that I actually scanned twice. The first time was likely around the time I realized my film scanner was truly broken. At that point, I was so frustrated that I didn’t even bother uploading the scans. Looking back at them now, they weren’t actually that bad. Two years later, I had obviously forgotten that these negatives had already been scanned, so I re-scanned them with my shiny new setup. The new setup is essentially a mask to hold the […]
Tag Archives: kodak
Aside from the usual pictures of my cat and an old car, there are a couple of projects in this roll of film. One of them is a sort of “aborted” project, as I quickly realized I wasn’t quite up to the task. My idea was to document a scene that I’m not sure will last: the ubiquitous presence of street food trucks in my hometown in Sicily. They specialize in horse meat sandwiches with a variety of condiments—mostly cheese and ketchup, though some people add oil-preserved spicy mushrooms, onions, or eggplant to make them even heartier. This year, a […]
When a roll of film stays in the camera for a very long time, like in this case, the experience of reviewing the images is always quite amazing. It’s not like scrolling through your Google Photos app, where there are no gaps. Here, you can find yourself jumping from a picnic in late winter-ish fashion to a climbing session in summer, then to Sicily for a tense meeting between a winery owner and her consultants in the middle of a vineyard, and finally back to Rome in winter again to finish the roll in the same spot where it was […]
It seems unreal the last blog post is from June 2023, and itself a post about an old roll shot during the pandemic, and here I am writing a new post in December 2025 and yet I don’t feel like I never abandoned analog photography for a moment in my life. It’s just that I progress quite slow, I have to admit it now, probably more than I use to tell to myself. Anyways. Another Kodak Gold, why not. I think this is the one that more than any other recent film I shot has the highest percentage of out-of-focus […]
This is clearly one of the thing I love the most, that’s “finding” films I forgot to develop, scan, whatever. And when I see them I’m like amazed. This happens more frequently on film, because I bet it’s more difficult to forget that you have a treasure trove of hidden pictures in the SD card you use every day. I suppose that if you have like many cards, and you change them frequently, well, ok, this can also happen in the digital realm. It depends if you’re the kind of person who frequently displaces things you think are very important […]
Ok, let’s try an expired 3200 iso film on the streets of Naples! I’ve been quite optimistic in shooting this roll at 1600 iso because most of the “sunset” pictures are way underexposed but the results are intriguing anyway. I’ve had this poor unused Kodak film in the bag for years, at very variable room temperatures (even around 40 celsius during summer) so I could not realistically expect more than this. Oh, Naples is gorgeous but I’m sure you already know it.
Hello Superpan 200, it’s been a long time, isn’t it? I like this film but I’m definitely not impressed by its behaviour in low light – and I have my share of fault of course. Grain is absolutely visible and, at this point, I would suggest to use any developer that can mitigate it. In this case I used D76 but it’s been a pain to scan because the negative came out with poor density and the scenes were all very flat and boring. This guy needs contrast – and a lot more sun.
It’s inusual for me to push film but this time I felt it was safer to begin the roll with a more versatile setting, just in case. And it’s been a good choice because the day at the beach wasn’t really sunny, but most of all because I’m generally more comfortable shooting at 1/250 and above. 100 ASA is’nt really flexible enough for handling heavy old cameras like my Yashica FR1 in a not-so-sunny day. Another reason to be happy is that Kentmere 100 seems to appreciate a lot to be pushed to 200: it does produce a very fine […]
Probably not a super-interesting batch because sometimes it happens you just have a b/n film loaded but you’re visiting a place that’s more interesting in colors. So, if you’re wondering what’s this sort of a crater with some milky-looking water springing in the middle, that’s the “caldara” you can read about in this wikipedia page. I was expecting stranger pictures, probably, shooting that day, but it’s ok anyway. Shooting green areas in b/w is always a mixed bag and not everyone’s cup of tea. Oh, I have not digitally removed the usual amount of dirt and scratches (how many!) from […]
Finally a good old Kodak Gold 200 on this blog! You can find plenty of them in the old blog, actually. Being one of the most easy to find film in brick-and-mortar stores, it’s inevitable to use it sometimes. Unfortunately this is just a sample of the 37 shots I was able to capture with my adorable Canon compact: they are mostly shots of my daughters and my friends on the beach (or in a swimming pool), so very undressed, so I don’t want to publish them. But how NOT lo love a Kodak Gold 200, even from just 4 […]
Oh boy, sometimes things they go the right way! Five years after discontinuing the venerable P3200 Kodak decided to restart the production and in 2018 the familiar black-and-yellow boxes returned on the shelves. For those of you still scratching their heads I’m talking about the Kodak T-Max P3200, that is the professional 135 format film with the highest box-speed on the market. Since its introduction in 1988 it’s always been the favourite (almost mandatory) film to use at parties, weddings, concerts, smokey bars, poor-lit rooms etc. No serious photojournalist would go outside after sunset without some P3200 in the jacket. […]
This is nice. I had this roll of expired (since who-knows-when) Ektachrome 320T in my Yashica FR last summer. Then in autumn I had to leave the Yashica in Rome while going back and forth from Sicily, only to rediscover the poor abandoned camera this winter. So, not only the film was expired long ago, but it also stayed non-developed in a camera for months, at variable room temperature, then developed by a lab without any special care or precautions taken. It’s a miracle there’s something “readable” in the slides and, in fact, I had to use a new invented-by-me […]
Developed in 2017, when I decided to try C41 and E6 chemicals at home (and almost instantly I gave up), this roll has been scanned and “digitally restored” because the original colors were badly messed up. This way of dealing with analog materials could be rightfully dismissed as nonsense, considering how easily everyone can obtain the same results shooting digitally and saving a lot of time, money and pain in the ass. But I think it still makes sense because when you work with these files they have already some kind of “voice” and it’s just a matter of making […]
Surprise! I had another two rolls of Plus-X in the bag and (double surprise) they were in a lovely state of preservation, without the dark spots of the previous roll. Now I can really say my story with the Plus-X ends here, with these scans you see below. They also look very different from the other scans, and for an obvious reason: I developed them in a punchy Rodinal 1+25 bath, and even over-deloped a bit (like one minute and half more) so, yes, contrast and grain are quite evident. I would not say I “ruined” this classic emulsion in […]