The half way point of this years Frugal Film Project arrived and I have added one more item to my Kodak Retina 1a, a Yellow Filter. I have been looking for one of the right size for a while and was drawing a blank until one came along at a price that would keep my kit under budget. It is an Actina yellow filter and cost me the princely sum of £2.82 from the bay. It is a versatile item as it has a fastener to lock the filter on my lens and also fits onto my Agfa Isolette I and Kodak Sterling II cameras. Kerching!
I got out to shoot my June roll of Type 517 Cine Film during a heatwave on a day with clouds in the sky. To add an extra aspect to this months photos, a yellow filter darkens the blue areas of sky and helps with deepening the blacks. I began my walk at the entrance to Mesnes Park and made my way around town. The weather was perfect for using a filter. It took me a few shots to properly dial it in, but I soon found my settings and cracked on with the task in hand.
I keep saying it, but it's worth it. My Kodak Retina 1a is a great camera and I am glad I bought it. The Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Xenar 50mm f/2.8 is a superb lens mounted on an equally superb Synchro-Compur shutter. Once my settings are dialled in, I can use my camera as a point and shoot. With the yellow filter added to the lens, it brought a bright sunny afternoon under control.
I visited familiar compositions and tried to get a few different angles on some old favourites as I wandered around town. I like to capture the architecture high on the buildings as well as some closer to the ground to appreciate the skills of the stonemasons that carved them out of solid rock.
Wigan has a range of architectural styles from Mock Tudor of the shops in the town centre to the brutalism of the Civic Building, which has been freed from it's cladding of scaffolding. It is being re-purposed into offices and shared work spaces for small businesses and will be opening sometime this year.
It didn't take me long to finish my roll of film and, satisfied with my effort on this fine summers day, I popped my camera back into my bag and headed off home for a much needed drink and rest my weary bones.
Developing film in a heatwave is a tough task. I waited for night time and a cooler ambient temperature before setting up my equipment in my kitchen. Water straight from the tap was over 25 degress celcius so I use my jug of filtered water I keep in my fridge to try to keep my chems at a reasonable temperature.
By the time I had transferred my roll of Type 517 Cine Film onto my Paterson reel and into my developing tank, my Bellini Euro HC had come down to 24 celcius. I had some math to do. Last month I took 2 1/2 minutes off my developing time in similar conditions and decided to use it again. This brought my developing time down to 12 minutes and I soon had my roll of Type 517 Cine Film hanging to dry in my bathroom.
Once dry, which did not take long, I digitised my film with my Nikon D700, Tamron Adaptall 2 90mm f/2.5 macro lens, Valoi 35mm film holder, Pixl-Latr and A5 sized led light pad. I processed the RAW files with Affinity Photo 2.
Adding that yellow filter to my camera made all the difference this month. I didn't have to do much adjustment to my photos with Affinity Photo 2. I got my exposure settings pretty much right thanks to that filter. It was a 1/500th f/16 day without it, so it gave me some wiggle room with this most basic of cameras. I was able to bring some definition into the sky and the black areas are deep and oh so rich.
I am a very happy bunny this month. To be honest I was going to use one of my Cokin A filters by covering the lens with it, but that would have added a bit of shake and wonkiness to my photos courtesy of having to adjust the way I hold the camera. Buying the Actina yellow filter kept me in full control of my compositions and it shows, but I will let you see them for yourself.
Here's a few favourites from my June roll of Type 517 Cine Film for the Frugal Film Project 2025. As always I have placed them and more in my Frugal Film Project 2025 album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I hope you enjoy them.
Frugal Film Project 2025 - June
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