In Autumn 2022 my friend Sid gave me a couple of Pentax cameras that belonged to a relative that had passed away. In one of the camera bags was a roll of Kodak Ultra 400 that expired in 2006 and, as it was autumn, I decided to give it a whirl and see what I could get from it. It was my birthday weekend and I was heading out and about to finish a roll of Agent Shadow in my Olympus OM-2, so I popped the Kodak Ultra in my bag and toddled off around my local countryside. You can read about my roll of Agent Shadow here Getting Back On Track With Agent Shadow
I was half way around my walk when I finished my Agent Shadow and loaded my Kodak Ultra 400 into my OM-2. I set the speed to 100 asa to allow for the ravages of time on the light sensitive emulsion and decided to use the Auto setting. My Olympus OM-2 has an excellent automatic setting which allows me to set the aperture on my lens and the camera chooses the appropriate shutter speed. I set off looking for autumn colours.
I didn't have to look very far as the Beech trees on the spoil heap were still holding onto their brown leaves as Autumn made way for winter. I was glad to be out in the sunshine and took a few photo's of them. I made my way to the field where the horses spent the summer and saw the trees around the edges were showing glorious orange and gold hues as they gave their last display of the year. Autumn is always the most colourful season.
I crossed the stile into the Corn Field and sadly had missed the harvest, which was a shame as I was hoping to photograph the Farmer in action, gathering his crop. I still managed a few shots trying to follow leading lines that crossed the field where the corn had been growing straight and tall a couple of weeks earlier. I also tried a few shots of the various trees and hedges as I made my way through the field looking for compositions.
It pays to have your eyes and mind open as I found some hoof prints made by a Deer earlier that day. The local Deer hide in the woodland during the day, but do visit the fields at sunrise and sunset foraging for food. It's a magical sight for the folks who have been fortunate enough to see these shy creatures, nature puts on a show for us if you're willing to be patient. I left the corn field and finished my film whilst making my way down the farm road. I had enjoyed a nice afternoon of autumn film photography and headed off home.
I developed my film a few months later. I wanted to build a bit of a queue so I wasn't just developing one film in my Cinestill Cs41 home developing kit. Processing colour film doesn't take long and I soon had a few rolls hanging to dry in my bathroom. I scanned it using my Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and It took a couple of tweaks using the
auto settings in Affinity Photo 2 and a quick clean up of dust spots and
scratches to make them presentable.
I'm quite pleased with how this roll of expired colour film has turned out. It was 16 years out of date and I have no idea how long the film had been in the camera bag I found it in, but it turned out pretty decent, if a little grainy which I expected. Here's a few photos from my 16+ year old expired roll of Kodak Ultra 400 and I have placed them and more in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I hope you enjoy them.
Kodak Ultra 400 expired 2006
No comments:
Post a Comment