Will These Print Tru?

Images from a long-expired roll of film.

Thank goodness for the DX coding that's printed on 35mm film cartridges, or in this case, the lack of it…

A familiar old ash

It's absence helped me to date a roll of Truprint 35mm film kindly given to me recently by my Mother-in-law. Apparently it's been skulking around in various drawers or storage boxes for at least forty years. As some folks may remember, Truprint was one of those popular mail-order photo labs from back in the day that offered a free film each time you sent one in to be processed.

Town Hall clock tower and St Ninians Church Hall, Castle Douglas.

Well, I just had to give it a go. Sadly, I was a little over optimistic with my age-related speed compensation, as I only derated it's box speed by one stop to 100 iso. This was, in part, due to a certain complacency from recently shooting an old roll of Ferrania Solaris (and from what I’ve read, the Truprint film was itself a rebadged version of this emulsion). From that earlier roll I’d managed to get some really pleasant, well balanced colours by only derating to 100 iso. I suppose to be fair, the Ferrania had been stored in the fridge for many years, so had a head start.

Views from down our lane.

I loaded the film into my Ricoh FF-3 AF Super. This is a great little compact camera from the early eighties that has a tack sharp five element lens (albeit with some character). This is another inherited camera from my late Cousin, along with my Minolta XG-M. The flash no longer functions, but I'm not too worried about that.

Spring's gold. Note the missed focus on the last image.m Sometimes the Ricoh seemed to miss it's target.

All things considered, what came back from the lab really wasn't too awful. At least there was a full series of readily visible frames, they were just a little on the thin side. The under-exposure along with the film's age resulted in an interesting colour balance. Although I am no expert in this regard, I can usually obtain a fairly natural palette by judging colour negative film stocks by eye (I don't have any form of automated profiles available to me at present). As you can see, the frames on this particular roll proved to be a little challenging.

Ricoh FF-3 AF Super. Not looking too shabby for it’s age.

The photos might not be entirely ‘tru’ to the original scene, but I rather like how they came out. I hope you enjoy this selection of images, too.

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