18 Comments
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Dave Mead's avatar

That’s amazing Ralph, I love how you experiment in this way. Who’d have thought you could get decent photos from a Truprint film after all this time. Thanks for sharing.

Ralph Turner's avatar

Many thanks, Dave. It's all good fun🙂

Amanda Claire Vesty's avatar

Wow 40 years! Amazing anything came out at all and actually nice photos. The technical side of things flies above my head but I do like the kind of vintage quality of these ...lol well they ARE vintage! Well done on managing to get them printed out and thanks for sharing. I always enjoy seeing your lovely photos :-)

Ralph Turner's avatar

Many thanks, Amanda. I'm glad you enjoy seeing them still. 🙂

Vincent Wagenaar's avatar

These look amazingly good for such an old roll of film, Your mother in law's storage can't have been that bad, I like the warm tones, I don't know if we have the filmstock, the age or the development to thank for that, or maybe all three of them. Good stuff!

Ralph Turner's avatar

Thanks, Vincent. I suspect it's most likely down to it's age and, to that end, my insufficient extra exposure allowance (only one stop instead of at least two or three). Then again, who knows? As this is most likely a rebranded version of Ferrania's Solaris, then as Alex mentions above, that emulsion does seem to keep well. If you're interested, a little while back I shot a roll of Solaris in my old Certo Dollina that a wrote a post about on here. That roll had spent it's early years with us in waiting in a drawer, rendered redundant in the mid noughties when we went almost solely digital. It had probably only been kept in the fridge for the last (at a guess) ten years. I only allowed an extra stop for it and it yielded fantastic results. All good fun🙂

Vincent Wagenaar's avatar

I’ll check that post too. You’re really into this, which I think is the only way to go if you shoot film; you have to be immersed in it, and you are, obviously. I don’t think I’ll do any developing and printing anymore, but I did buy a roll of Agfapan 100 lately to take a walk down memory road with one of my film cameras (I still have a few lying around, I used to clean and ‘fix’ them for people too, but didn’t like it anymore). That’s why I’m more into vintage lenses on digital cams these days, and for most types of shots (like birding) fully digital of course.

Ralph Turner's avatar

Ah, you wait... you'll shoot that roll and it'll be brilliant, just like old times, and you'll be hooked again 😜. Seriously, though, as much as I love shooting film, I wouldn't be without my trusty 6D - it's just such a versatile tool. It's usually my go-to for colour work.

Vincent Wagenaar's avatar

We will see…but I’ll keep shooting digital for sure, just like you.

Susanne Helmert's avatar

For a roll of colour film that hasn‘t really stored properly the past forty years I am amazed how they turned out.

Ralph Turner's avatar

Thanks, Susanne. It was one of those situations where, had it not been a 'gift out of the blue' so to speak, I probably wouldn't have had a go. I'm glad it came along and gave me the nudge. Shooting it in a compact camera of that era seemed appropriate, too.

søren k. harbel's avatar

Fun! They feel particularly warm. Really nice.

Ralph Turner's avatar

Thanks, søren. I can see why folks enjoy shooting expired film, though it's probably not something I'd do regularly. Now 'n' again, though.. 😎

søren k. harbel's avatar

I am always worried that you get ‘the shot’ and then find that the film you used sucked! I am a little too risk averse for this stuff, though I do get the thrill of it!

Ralph Turner's avatar

Yeah, likewise. I’d only want to do this again if I purposely remained philosophical about it, that it could be really good, but could just as easily all be junk in the end.

Ralph Turner's avatar

I suppose it's a bit like the days of taking your snaps to the local chemist/lab and the expectation of what will come back, but taken to another level of the unknown lol.

Alex Luyckx's avatar

Solaris films were pretty good and handled aging well! I’ve shot three rolls, two badges from Ferrania and Lomography F2. These look pretty good!

Ralph Turner's avatar

Thanks, Alex. I hadn't realised Lomography did their own version of it. I've only shot three rolls myself; this one, one a few months back with the normal Ferrania 'livery' that I'd had in our fridge for many years. The first one I shot about twenty years ago. I seems a very user-friendly emulsion, particularly at the scanning/editing stage.