Film Camera a Month - July

So July was meant to be featuring my pentax 6x7 but whilst out adventuring the shutter stopped (eep!) though I eventually (thanks google!) figured out it needed a new battery which I ordered online (takes time!).  In the meanwhile, I switched over to one of my toy cameras, the Sunny Juice Box - which along with the fuji film loaded inside (superia 200) pleasantly surprised me :) I ended up digging the tones and instead of complaining about how fuji film handles shadows I deliberately processed the photos on the softer side = a outcome fee was happy with :P

This plastic fantastic camera, literally has a shutter button, you can read more about it in my film camera guide but honestly, I 99% bought it because of its novelty factor :P I mean the shutter button is a fake plastic straw :p how awesome is that!

The mechanism to rewind the film is super flimsy, it stopped turning (but not freely!) so I was kind of stuck as to what to do, I took it in a darkish room and opened the back - oops! Film hadn't rewound completely, so I think that ended in a few light streaks, which I love but I probably wouldn't turn into a habit of doing. The trick to get the film to completely re-wind back into its canister was solved by pulling the little plastic release clip that sits under the film and turning it until the film canister started winding freely! lesson learned!

Second lesson learned, never take toy camera shots inside unless your film is a crazy high ISO or you have some crazy good lighting going on :p Still appreciate this shot of silhouette Peachy and the crazy light streak :)

You can check out the previous month's cameras over here

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Canon 1000f - Fuji Superia 200 - Expired Film

Okay it's round two for the Fuji Superia 200 expired film, paired with the canon 1000F and this time my commentary isn't much better.

STATS

13 keeps 12 fails (24 exposure roll, one freebie!)

Fail Reasons: I found the blacks too contrasty - if that makes any sense. A lot of my images were underexposed and then some were overexposed - to be fair though that's really my fault not the film!

Things to remember: Not to buy this film again :p I'd still like to try some expired film with some crazy colour casts but I guess that's one the joys of film - you'll never know what you'll get until right at the end!  To me I could just see that the images were of lesser quality than other films I've tried.  I love that everyone's tastes are different though and that the low quality that fuji superior has might in fact be it's selling point to others :)

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Canon EOS 3 - Fuji Superia 200 - Expired Film

I mentioned when I was in Singapore I visited the lomography store and picked up some expired film. I was really excited for this film, I'd read about expired film giving cool colours and unexpected results. Well I definitely got an unexpected result, unfortunately leaning more towards the boring side :P

I also decided then and there (after receiving my roll back) I could see a big difference in the quality of Kodak and even in Lomography films when compared to Fuji. Now that might be a complete and unreasonable call as I've only tried this expired Fuji film.  I've since bought some 800 Fuji film so I should probably reserve judgement until I've tested a few more rolls of non expired film :p

STATS

17 keeps 7 fails (rolls of 24 exposures)

Fail reasons: Focus issues, lens hood corner smudges.

Things to remember: To give the film credit, focus issues and lens hood smudges are really not its fault but I just found there weren't many stand out shots.  I used the roll up pretty quickly and in my mind was relying on crazy colour casts to save the day though perhaps I should of been more concerned with capturing awesome images!   I don't think I'd buy this film again, though I do want to give Fuji films more tries before ruling them out forever :P  I believe Superior is Fuji's consumer (read: cheapo film) but they also have Reala and Fujicolour Pro, lots of slide film (which I'm yet to try!) and some b&w film choices.

I think the main reason there was a lot keepers in this roll was that I had discovered the number one secret of colour film photography...to overexpose!  I personally like overexposed images so maybe this tip isn't valid for everyone's style but I definitely love my photos more since overexposing them :)

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