Kodak Gold 200

 I shot a roll of Kodak Gold 35mm colour film in the summer of 2025 with the intention of shooting more of it and, well, best intentions are often forgotten. Yep, this roll of film sat in my fridge for months before I shot another in 120 medium format and sent them off for developing. I can't remember what camera I used to shoot my roll of 35mm film, but I do remember what I used to shoot my medium format roll, my Agfa Isolette I.

I have a mind like a sieve these days and if it wasn't for this blog I would forget to go out....

I don't often use colour film and it's not because it's expensive to get developed. To be fair the days of getting film developed for a few quid are gone and the number high street photo stores with an in house lab is nowhere near what it used to be. The film renaissance is still building momentum and it's a lot healthier than it was when I came back to film photography in 2017, but I digress.

I shot my roll of 35mm Kodak Gold in the summer of 2025 on a gloriously sunny afternoon as I wandered around Wigan town center. Bright sunshine and blue skies are perfect for Kodak Gold and I remember it didn't take me long to make my way around town to capture the colour of summer here in darkest Wigan. I must have used a manual camera as I got 37 shots on my roll.

More recently I shot a medium format roll of Kodak Gold at Crooke with my friend Keith who came to visit during September. The last time he visited Crooke was many years ago when he was a live-aboard on a narrowboat. Again, it was a bright sunny day with a few clouds to make life interesting. It did, however, have one down side. I managed to drop my camera.

Most of my cameras have a wrist strap, but not my Agfa Isolette. I was bending down to retrieve something that Keith had dropped and I had forgotten I had my camera sat on my bag. Off it slid and hit the floor! Of course it took the liberty of popping open and I thought my roll was done for. rather optimistically I carried on shooting the roll as I had only taken three frames. I hoped I would get at least something from it and we carried on with our walk along the canal.

When we got back home I inspected the damage more thoroughly. Thankfully there was just a mark on the winding wheel on top of my camera where it met the tarmac and it was a little bent out of shape. Having learned a few skills with hammers over the years, I soon had it massaged back into shape and my Agfa Isolette still works as it should. My medium format roll of Kodak Gold didn't sit in my fridge for long, I packaged it with my 35mm roll and sent them to Analogue Wonderland for developing.

About a week later I got my scans and eagerly inspected them. My 35mm roll of Kodak Gold hadn't suffered from the few months it spent in my fridge awaiting developing. It looked nicely exposed and a memory came back to me. My Olympus OM-2 with Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens appeared in my thoughts and now I reckon that's what I used. Remembering that took some doing....

My 120 medium format roll of Kodak Gold surprised the heck out of me. Yep, I lost the first three frames and had one frame double exposed, but the rest turned out better than I had hoped for. 8 out of 12 isn't a bad hit rate considering I thought I had lost the entire roll when I dropped my camera.

 I love the look of Gold in medium format, particularly in view of my camera being from the 1950's. The Agfa Agnar 85mm lens on my Agfa Isolette really does render vivid colour and a sharpness I didn't get with my 35mm efforts. Not that my 35mm shots are terrible. They are decent too and I'm going to be using more colour film as autumn progresses. 

Here's a few favourites from my two rolls of Kodak Gold shot at both ends of summer 2025. I have placed them and more in albums on Flickr you can visit using the links below. I hope you enjoy them.

Kodak Gold - Olympus OM-2  

Kodak Gold - Agfa Isolette I 

Frugal Film Project 2025 - September

 I left it late to get out and shoot my September roll of Type 517 Cine Film with my Kodak Retina 1a for the Frugal Film Project 2025. August was mad busy, the beginning of September saw me do a lot of editing and writing and frankly, I was burned out. It happens, especially when you aren't supposed to be putting yourself through a stressful time. I gave myself plenty of time to unwind and managed to get out on the last day of September for a couple of hours to shoot my film. 

My compositions were nothing special, just documenting stuff I saw on my walk around town and the local farm roads. I took the time to measure the light with my trusty Gossen Trisix at various times to keep my exposures consistent. I didn't get constant light, it was cloudy with sunny intervals and I was able to switch between 1/100th and 1/250th of second at f/8 shooting my film at a nominal 100 iso. 

This kind of photography used to scare me, but using a basic camera is actually the easiest way to shoot film. Do it regularly, as I do for the Frugal Film Project each year, and it becomes second nature. Do I still make mistakes? Absolutely. I am human, it's what we do and I try to learn from them. However, with film you only find out if you made a mistake when you develop your film. Having finished my roll of Type 517 Cine Film at the local farm I headed for home to see how I got on.

I was still feeling a little burnout from the mad dash to get my holiday snaps sorted and it was 10 days later when I finally got to develop my film in Bellini Euro HC 1+31 dilution B for 12 minutes at 20 celcius. I mixed fresh chemicals for this session as my last developing session a few weeks previously didn't go well. I thought it best to start afresh and soon had my film developed, fixed, washed and hanging to dry in my bathroom. I digitised it 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. 

When I hung my film to dry I could see I have got it right for September. However, the proof is always in the final image. Whilst processing my RAW files I didn't have to worry too much about editing them because they were just about there and I soon worked my way through my shots. Mixing fresh chemicals always helps and I am happy with my results this month.

Here's a few of my favourite photos from my September roll of Type 517 Cine Film shot with my Kodak Retina 1a for the Frugal Film Project 2025. 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 - September 

Worthington Lakes

 Whilst we were away on holiday, our friend Keith kindly looked after our Cat, Dog and House for us. When we got back I took a few days to decompress and stop swaying until I was ready to walk on dry land properly before I was able to go for our customary photo walk before Keith had to go home. Keith was checking out local places on t' interweb when he came across Worthington Lakes, a series of reservoirs a short drive from my home. I hadn't been there before so we got our cameras ready and toddled off to see what the afternoon would bring us.

I loaded my Nikon F801s with the last roll of Kentmere 400 that I had taken on holiday and didn't quite get around to using. My lens was my AF Nikkor 35-70mm and I fitted a yellow filter as the clouds were showing a few blue holes that might give my photos a little more drama. Keith had his trusted Contax 139 loaded with Agfaphoto APX 400 and was using the Tamron Adaptall 2 28-70mm lens I had gifted him a couple of years ago.

It didn't take long to get to our destination and we soon had Keith's chariot, Nedward unloaded from his car and we headed to our first obstacle, a gate unsuitable for chariots to pass through. No worries, there's a path to one side that goes around it and we were soon on the shore of the first of the reservoirs.

Worthington Lakes is a series of three reservoirs built in the 1860's to provide the rapidly growing town of Wigan with clean water. The industrial revolution was in full flow at this time and people were moving into the town to work in one of the many coal mines and cotton mills that had sprung up in and around Wigan. Water being in short supply was given priority and soon a site was identified that had good inflow of water and work commenced.

The River Douglas, which was getting heavily polluted at the time, was diverted through a tunnel and the water for the reservoirs was sourced from the west slopes of the Douglas Valley. A water treatment works was added and Worthington, Arley and Adlington reservoirs have been supplying Wigan with water for over 150 years.

The path around the southern Worthington reservoir was our first route and we took a slow wander along it. It was just wide enough for Nedward squeeze along. We photographed things of interest along the way including some gnarly trees that got Keith's pareidolia all excited. Burls on trees may be the single most source of inspiration for Tolkein when he introduced us all to The Ents, a sentient species of Tree in The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit fantasy novels.

By the time we had got half way around Worthington Lake itself, we were both feeling a little tired and we decided to leave the other lakes for another day. It was a wise decision really as soon after we got back to the car and set off home it absolutely persisted down! Timing..... Keith had to go back home the next day and I left my developing for another day, happy that I had shot one roll and we both avoided a soaking.

I developed my roll of Kentmere 400 in Bellini Euro HC 1+31 dilution B for 6 minutes at 22 celcius and soon had it hanging to dry in my bathroom. I digitised it 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 Afinity Photo 2.

First impressions of my photos are they were well exposed and the yellow filter did the trick for the cloud cover. You can also see the level of water in the reservoirs is quite low thanks to the glorious summer we have enjoyed here in 2025. Drought was declared here in the North West of England and for the most part, people have been careful with their water consumption.

Here's a few favourites from our quick afternoon photowalk around Worthington Lakes. It's a nice place for a walk and a bit of fresh air with the added bonus of being not that far out of town and easy to get to. There's a link below. I have placed these photos and more in an album on Flickr for you to visit via the link below. I hope you enjoy them.

Worthington Lakes - About 
Worthington Lakes - Nikon F801S - Kentmere 400 

 

Olympus OM-1n - I Just Can't Get Enough.....

 The problem I mentioned in my previous blog about this camera, has happened. I knew it would, it was just a matter of time. I thought I would be able to resist it for longer, but no. The lure of my newly serviced Olympus OM-1n was too great. I loaded a roll of Rollei Retro 400S into it, screwed a yellow filter onto my Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens and went for a walk to see what I could find. 

You know when something is right, you can feel it in your soul. I have often said an OM-1 was my dream camera and I was fortunate enough to make it happen. Now it's even better because I have two, an OM-1 MD and my OM-1n MD. Olympus got the OM-1 right when they unleashed it upon the world in 1971. It's a compact, lightweight, single lens reflex camera that it's designer, Yoshihisa Maitani, had positioned to rival Leica in quality. Olympus was already known for it's high quality optics, Maitani san designed the body of the camera to be light, compact and a joy to use.

Maitani wanted Leica quality for everyone and he knew what he was talking about. His family owned a Leica IIIf, with which he started his love of photography. He also knew his design would have to be mass produced to bring the cost down. He wanted everyone to have a camera that produced photos every bit as good as those produced by Leica photographers, but for a fraction of the price. The fact I am waxing lyrical about it 50 years later is proof that not only did he succeed, he spawned an entire range that is beloved of photographers to this day. 

Anyway, I'm waffling. I headed towards Wigan Pier again to see what I could find on the Leeds-Liverpool canal heading towards Liverpool. I have wandered down there in the past, but it's been a year since I last walked this stretch of the canal, so I made the most of it. There were reflections, narrowboats, a couple of modern boats and on the side of the Stadium it now proudly proclaims that the east stand is The Sir Billy Boston Stand. Sir Billy turned 91 a few days before I wrote this and the town is cherishing every moment we have with him.

As is often the case when I am having a lot of fun, the light turned very grim as I got into my stride and I honestly thought I was going to get drenched as ominous black clouds threatened to the west. Thankfully they stayed there, but stole my light and I finished my film shortly after passing Woodhouse Lock at the bottom of Beech Hill. That was my cue to grit my teeth, walk up the hill and head for home. I definitely needed a drink after that.

I developed my roll of Rollei Retro 400S the next day with Bellini Euro HC 1+31 dilution B for 10 minutes at 20 celcius and soon had it hanging to dry. Once dry, 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 size led light pad. I processed the RAW files with Affinity Photo 2. 

I am happy with the roll, despite making a pigs ear of a few when the dark clouds rolled in. It was challenging to say the least, but my Olympus OM-1n handled it rather well, even when I didn't. Here's a few favourites from my roll of Rollei Retro 400S show with my Olympus OM-1n and Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 and 28mm f/3.5 lenses. I messed up when I used the 2x teleconverter and know what I did wrong now. I forgot to allow for the reduction in light. and hopefully I remember it when I use it again. I have placed these and more in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I hope you enjoy them.

 Olympus OM-1n - Rollei Retro 400S