5 frames with Kodak Shellburst 346 – the UFO film

In my previous article about a roll of 40-years expired Kodacolor II, I stated that one of the main reasons for my interest in expired film is the fun of trying to get usable pictures out of film that is well past its expiring date. Another important factor is getting my hands on rare and obscure stocks. Therefore, one of my most prized possessions is a bulk roll of 1966 expired “Kodak Shellburst 346” that, according to the seller, had been stored in a freezer all the time.

Some folks on the internet suspect that this film stock was used by the US Army to photograph unidentified flying objects. A more serious description in an old forum post explained that it was a “fairly high contrast and red-sensitive film” that was intended “to record the aerial-burst characteristics of early ground to air missiles and air to air missiles”. This was related to a 16mm movie film stock called “Kodak Linagraph Shellburst 7474” though, but to me the explanation generally seems plausible for film stocks with the addition “Shellburst”. Anyway, I found mentions of further Shellburst stocks like “Linagraph Shellburst 2476” and “Shellburst 697”, which all had expiring dates between the late 1950s and 1970s.

Further sources stated that this film was intended for aerial photography against bright backgrounds with high speed cameras. Which would support the already stated aerial-burst recording description. But doesn’t this also sound at least a bit like good old UFOs? And you know how the saying goes: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” So, a secret military film stock for UFO-photography it is.

Due to the apparent military background of this film stock I wanted to shoot a (somewhat) fitting location. In this case I settled on a decommissioned ammunition storage facility. My camera of choice this time was a Voigtländer Bessa-R, paired with my Canon 50mm f1.4 LTM, which is possibly my favourite lens for black and white film. The ISO was set to 50 due to a handful of experience reports that I found on flickr. Apart from that, I’m still not sure about the native ISO of this film.

This is the first frame of the roll. The marks were not present on any further frames, so I guess these have something to do with the long storage time and/or resulted when I fed the roll into the bulk loader.

One of the many storage bunkers on this facility. As far as I’m aware, these were basically not much more than a single large storage room. As you can see, they were well disguised from aerial detection.

A section of the old perimeter fence. I’m amazed how sharp and contrasty the images that you can produce with this over 50-years expired film are.

One of the various signposts that were once installed to guide the personnel around the extensive site.

One of the few remaining “regular” overground buildings on this site. This might have been a workshop or something related to the now abandoned railway connection of the facility.

It was a hot summer day with harsh sunlight, but as you can see, this almost 60 years-expired film handled the exceptionally bright sky and the harsh shadow contrasts pretty well. Of course you can see a certain amount of grain, but I don’t mind it. I think it rather adds to the character of this film.

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask the lab about the development process for this roll. Yes, I know, that might have been interesting… But I’ll make sure to find out after the next roll/s of Shellburst that I’m pretty certain will see some use in the nearer future after the success that I had with this one.

Share this post: