Expired Kodak Gold 200 - Kinetic Toy Camera - Landscapes

As some of you know, I've been working my way through a year long Roll-A-Week project. Essentially, I've been shooting a minimum of one roll of film per week, every week. Occasionally though, I will end up shooting more than one roll of film in a week, and, in those cases I don't always post all of my photos over on the blog dedicated to the Roll-A-Week project. 

Week 23 of 52 happened to be one of those weeks. Since I was shooting a roll of ORWO NP 20 that had been expired nearly 40 years at the time of exposure, I decided to shoot a back up roll of film to be sure I had at least something to show for the week should the ORWO not work out at all. Luckily, the ORWO did produce some images, which left me with these photos to share here on this blog. 

These photos were all taken on a roll of expired Kodak Gold 200 that I ran through a small plastic/toy camera called a Kinetic. Often rebranded as one of the more popularly known toy camera's stamped "Time" or "Sports Illustrated" the Kinetic is a full plastic body/plastic lens camera with an auto fixed focal 50mm  f/1.6. Essentially a toy point and shoot with three pre-set focal distances (the always useful person, group of persons, mountains) this little camera actually turned out some decent results.

 Ater scanning these images I wasn't overly enthused or concerned about going through them. Once I saw that my roll of ORWO NP 20 for the week had turned up some decent images I figured there wasn't really much use in going through this 12 exposure roll of cheap film that I had run through and even cheaper camera. Today though, when I decided that I may as well look and see what I ended up with, I was more than pleasantly surprised with the final images. 

This roll of film has actually been a good reminder to something I've always known but often forget... the cost of your camera, film, supplies, etc., only go so far. Beautiful images can be created by even the cheapest cameras. Like with any trade or hobby, better tools can help you do a better job but are not always necessary. A highly skilled photographer could essentially use a disposable camera and take better images than an amateur with their choice of the most expensive gear. I'm not saying I fall into either of those camps, but I do think it's nice reminder that sometimes you can achieve more with less. To put it simply, as a friend of mine always says, "Only a bad carpenter blames their tools." 

Expired Kodak Gold 800 - Canon Canonet QL17 - Cancun Mexico

When I was packing for Cancun I had a difficult time narrowing down what cameras I would take with me. My SX-70 Sonar was a no brainer as I pretty much use it exclusively for my Impossible Project films. I wanted to take a medium format camera to shoot some 120 slide film, and, decided pretty quickly on my Mamiya 645 as I've been shooting it more often lately. When it came time to pick a 35 mm camera thought I was a bit stumped on whether to take my usual kit - a Canon FTb with a 55mm f/1.2 - or something much smaller, lighter and much less valuable - the Canon Canonet QL17 Rangefinder that I've never even run a roll of film through.

In the end I decided to go with the Canon rangefinder for it's portability, and, in all honesty because if something tragic happened to it I wouldn't be heart broken over it (which would not be the case when it comes to the Canon FTb kit). Upon getting my film back from the lab this week and taking a couple days to scan it all I was really surprised with the quality of the images that I got and pretty happy with the decision I ended up making. I'd even go so far as to say after shooting with this camera (which has a great feel in your hands) and seeing these photos that this camera moves up my list as one of my favorite cameras to shoot with.

As I mentioned, the Canon Canonet is a 35mm rangefinder that is relatively inexpensive (unless you can find the more rare solid black model) and easy to use. There is, of course, a full auto mode on this camera that essentially turns the camera into a type of shutter priority mode that only allows the shutter to fire when the exposure falls safely in the camera's range of f/1.7 to f/16. The only issue with this automatic setting is finding the proper battery to get your light meter to work. Originally this camera used an old mercury battery (1.3v) which you can no longer buy. There are, however, plenty of resources out there for replacement batteries for this type of camera. The one I ended up with was the PX625A - a slightly higher 1.5v Alkaline battery. While I couldn't tell you exactly how far off the light meter is from using a higher rated battery, I'd guess to most it's negligible. 

 

As far as today's photos... they were actually all taken on a roll of expired Kodak Gold 800. This was, by far, the cheapest film that I had with me on this trip and, surprisingly, ended up producing some of my favorite photos. There's a fair amount of grain in some of these darker photos, but, I think this film actually rendered out some beautiful, soft colors that are sometimes reminiscent of a painting. 

This would also probably be a good time to give a little plug to the lab who developed all of my film from this trip - Old School Photo Lab in Dover NH. I went with Old School for a couple of reasons - they are friends and a great asset to the film community, and, I had some slide film in the batch that I wanted processed from a reputable source. Needless to say, Old School did a great job with this film and have with any film I've ever sent their way. If you are not familiar - I highly recommend them for all of your film processing needs.

I think that about wraps up everything I wanted to say in today's (lengthy) post. As always... I hope you found some of this information helpful, educational or even slightly entertaining. If not, then I hope you at least looked through these photos and found one or two that you like as much as I do. There will be more photos coming soon and if you've read this far... thanks, and I hope you've enjoyed.