Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Films I Have Known

Some of the films I've used over the years.

As I said in my previous post, I photographed on film for 35 years before switching over to digital photography in 2003. It's safe to say I burned through thousands of rolls of many different kinds of film in those years. Some of them are in the picture above.

In the early years, when I was still a teacher and yearbook sponsor obsessed with photography, I bought many out-of-date rolls of Kodachrome X, the predecessor to Kodachrome 64, and Kodachrome II, the predecessor to Kodachrome 25. I still have many of those slides, and they still look good.

In 1970, we moved to Chattanooga. Throughout that decade I shot many rolls of Kodak's Ektachrome 200, especially after I began working for Continental Film Productions in 1972.

In those days I could buy rolls of Agfa black and white film in 120 size for 25 cents at a local discount store. I shot many rolls of it in my Rolleicord and Yashica TLRs and developed it in Diafine at my kitchen sink. It was easy to do because Diafine's processing temperatures were not critical.

After I opened my own business in 1978, I continued using Ektachrome 200 for color work, gradually moving to Kodachrome 64 in the early '80s. K-64 was a beautiful film, but had to be sent out for processing. Which was expensive, and required several days turnaround time.

In 1986 and '87, I did two major audio-visual projects for a local college and began using Fujichrome 100D film. It offered several advantages: the colors were rich, rivaling K-64's; it was 1/3 stop faster; I could send it out to a lab or process it myself, which I had been doing with Ektachrome 200 for a long time; and I could buy it in 100-foot rolls and load it into cassettes myself, which was a major saving.

I stayed with Fujichrome 100 as long as I continued to use film.100D eventually morphed into two films, Provia and Astia, which are still available. Provia has what many would consider purer colors, but I prefer the warmer color rendition of Astia, which is more like the original 100D. I never cared for the exaggerated color saturation of Velvia and shot very little of it.

Actually, I would have been content to keep using film for the rest of my life. The move to digital was a business decision forced by my competitors, who were able to offer clients faster service as well as lower prices because they no longer had to charge film and processing fees.

I'm finding that I have much more to say on the subject of film than I realized. I haven't even begun to talk about black and white. I'll continue this discussion in my next post.

(The boxes of Kodachrome X and Ektachrome 200 came from my souvenir shelf.)

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags: photography film photography film processing Kodachrome X film Agfa black and white film Kodachrome II film Kodachrome 64 film Kodachrome 25 film Ektachrome 200 film Fujichrome 100D film Fujichrome Provia film Fujichrome Astia film Fujichrome Velvia film Rolleicord TLR camera Yashica TLR camera

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

The Joys (?) of Doing It Yourself

Film Processing Equipment

If you can bear with the ramblings of a senior flatulent (a few of you will get that), I'll tell you how it was back in the day when film was all we had.

First, let's see what's in the picture. In the front are a few rolls of hand-rolled HP5+. The yellow things are two empty cassettes, ready to be loaded from the 100-foot roll of film in the daylight film loader, which is the black box with the red cap. The stainless thing on the left is a processing tank, and on the right are two 35mm film reels. The tank holds two of them or one 120 reel. I also have a larger tank that holds four 35mm reels or two 120 reels.

The long black tube in the rear is a Unicolor Film Drum. It can be used to process black and white film, but I only used it to process color slides -- seven rolls of 35mm or four 120 rolls at a time. I used it in a homemade water bath (a restaurant bus tray) with a fish-tank heater to regulate the temperature.

My photographic obsession began in 1968. Over the next 35 years I shot many thousands of rolls of film (not to mention some sheet film). Some of the film, including all color negative, was sent out for laboratory processing, but much of the color slide film I processed myself, using Unicolor or Kodak chemistry. I also processed all the black and white film in house.

Being thrifty (okay, cheap), I saved a lot of money over the years by buying my black and white and slide film in 100-foot rolls and loading it into cassettes myself. (You can do it while watching TV.) This, by the way, is something you can still do. The equipment is still available, as are many black and white films. Color is more problematic.

But it all ended in 2003, when I bought my first digital SLR. I've shot a few rolls of color transparency since then, but sent them out for processing.

Do I miss it? I miss the days of shooting and processing film keenly. Would I go back to shooting film? No. It's far too expensive to shoot color these days, and I'm a color photographer. I could shoot and process my own black and white film at reasonable cost, and I love black and white. But color is the way I see. So no, no going back for me. YMMV.

Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags: photography film photography film processing Film processing equipment black and white film bulk film loading