Fujichrome Provia 100 (Expired) – Contax RTS II, Yashica ML 50mm f2 and Pentacon 135mm Monster

I bought a roll of Expired Fujichrome Provia 100 just to give it a go a while back. I didn’t expect much – grain, colour shifts etc, but I’m a Slide Film lover, so what better to do use it with than my favourite 35mm Manual Focus Camera – my Contax RTS II.

I only have a few lenses; The Yashica ML 50mm f2 (with its distinctive Soviet style swirly out of focus areas). It’s also sharp and renders beautifully. It has so much character.

The Other I used is the sublime 15 bladed Pentacon 135mm f2.8 M42 portrait lens. I must say, it is probably the best longer portrait lens I have ever used. (I have a Helios 44-2 and Chinon 35mm f2.8 as well but didn’t take these).

It was a lovely summers day and from the Colne River in Essex, where I took some snaps, I drove to London and spent the day doing stuff, but did take a few snaps, mostly family stuff but did what I usually do – concentrate on composition. The light has to be good for me to lift a camera, for slide film it has to be even. There were a lot of pretty girls which would’ve been ideal as part of an urban composition on a Summers day, but alas, I drew out of focus blanks! Drat!

I often expose for the highlights then add two stops, but this day I couldn’t be bothered as I was snap shooting, so let the meter do whatever it wanted to do.

Let’s just say I was very pleased with the results, the Pentacon especially is a wicked lens, even shot wide open (the tele shots are with this).

The bottom line is, you don’t have to spend hundreds of bucks on Carl Zeiss lenses for this RTS II system, a simple M42 adaptor and a huge variety of excellent lenses. If you haven’t used a Contax RTS II before, then at least try one. Wonderful camera, relatively compact with impeccable build quality, reliability and a HUGE View Finder.

Just to add, the Expired Provia had a 1970ies slide film look to it, even though the colours were off!

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