A Journey Through 26 Cameras and Expired Film

I started shooting analog in 2011, using expired film from the abandoned darkroom at the Microscopy Facility where I work, at the University of the Basque Country. You can read about this journey in my two previous chapters at 35mmc – Chapter 1 & Chapter 2.

As an irrational scientist, I waste part of my time keeping track of every camera and film I use. So far, I’ve gone through 26 different cameras (9 compacts, 4 rangefinders, 10 SLRs, and 3 TLRs), 16 types of film, and a total of 222 rolls — that’s roughly 8,000 shots over 5,000 days, averaging about 1.6 photos per day (for all you statistics lovers out there). If you’re curious, you’ll find a list of all the cameras and film I’ve used at the end of this post.

Well, numbers are just another form of language — not a real science — and statistics can lie even more than our light meters. Keep in mind that my choice of film or camera often came down to what was available, rather than any technical preference. Still, each of them played a part in shaping my interest in photography, in how I see the world, and in helping me chase those moments of inspiration.

But Inspiration’s a tricky thing to measure. It arrives in bursts, needs excuses, thrives on new stimuli, and it often grows from the contagious joy of seeing others create. Other times it just appears through sheer serendipity and luck — like being in the wrong place at the right time and walking away with that camera you definitely didn’t need, but that somehow gets you back out shooting (yes, I know, a terrible excuse).

I’m a photographer with no public social media presence. I rarely interact with other photographers — though I do enjoy it when I do — and my hobby mostly lives on the simple pleasure of going for a walk with a different camera every now and then.

I still don’t quite know why I own so many cameras. Over the years, a few — like my Minolta X-700, Olympus OM-2n, or Nikon FE2 — have stood out for months at a time, inspiring me to wander the streets of Bilbao or along the coastline of my hometown.

Lately, though, they all look on jealously from the shelf at the new kid — a beautiful Nikon FA that’s lived in my tote bag since late 2023. I’ve just realized that 39 of my last 44 rolls were shot with it. Maybe I really don’t need any more cameras.

Most of the film I used had been left behind in a lab fridge after the switch to digital microscopy. Every roll had expired at least a decade before I started shooting. I wish I’d known more about the technical details of each film and how best to develop them back then. Trial and error was my main source of inspiration, and I probably squandered the potential of many Ilford Pan F 50 rolls by shooting them at the wrong speed or using outdated developer and fixer…

Sadly, almost all of the expired film from the lab is gone. I still have a couple dozen rolls of Kodak Kodalith and Eastman Fine Grain Release (both ISO 6) to experiment with on extra sunny days, plus a few hundred electron microscopy 6×9 plates for whenever I feel like making life unnecessarily complicated.

These days, I usually buy Fomapan 200 and 400 in bulk and load the film into empty canisters myself. I develop it at home using highly diluted Rodinal and semi-stand development. After years of trying different setups, I now digitise the negatives with my Olympus EM1 Mark II and a Nikon Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 macro lens.

Here are the results

Similar to a “whole roll experience”, I’ve decided to include only one photo from each of my 26 cameras — a choice that was much harder than I expected. Most of my shots (around 70%) were taken with just five cameras, which meant I had to leave a lot of favorites behind. At the same time, it gave me a reason to organize my photos and even reflect on how much I have changed over the past 14 years. To add a bit of randomness, I’ve arranged the images alphabetically by camera name rather than by film, camera type, or chronology — which probably would have made more sense. I’ve also included the year and film type for each photo… because, well, I have the data.

If you’d like to know any specific details, feel free to leave a comment or get in touch. Thanks for reading!

Here’s a list of the cameras I’ve used and how many rolls I’ve shot with each one:

1. Canon Prima Twin S (3 rolls)
2. Canon Canonet (6)
3. FED-2 (3)
4. Konica big mini (1)
5. Leica M2 (13)
6. Leica MDa (7)
7. Minolta FS-E (2)
8. Minolta X-700 (39)
9. Minolta XD7 (4)
10. Nikon FA (39)
11. Nikon FE2 (41)
12. Nikon FM2 (2)
13. Nikon Lite touch zoom 130 ED (2)
14. Olympus AF10 XB (2)
15. Olympus AF10 super (2)
16. Olympus Big AF (2)
17. Olympus mju Zoom 110 (1)
18. Olympus OM10 (1)
19. Olympus OM2n (17)
20. Olympus Trip AF Mini (3)
21. Pentax Super A (10)
22. Rollei SL35 (10)
23. Rolleiflex Automat Model 1 (1)
24. Seagull 4A (7)
25. Yashica FX3 super (1)
26. Yashica Mat 124G (1)

And here’s the list of film stocks I’ve experimented with along the way:

1. Agfapan 100 (5 rolls)
2. Fomapan 100 (1)
3. Fomapan 200 (8)
4. Fomapan 400 (36)
5. FUJI NPH400 (1)
6. Fuji Superia 200 (2)
7. Ilford HP5+ (10)
8. Ilford Pan F Plus 50 (35)
9. Ilford Pan FP 4 Plus (2)
10. Kodak Eastman Fine Grain Release 5302 (9)
11. Kodak portra 400 (3)
12. Kodak Tmax 100 (37)
13. Kodak Tmax 400 (39)
14. Kodak TriXPan 320 (14)
15. Kodak Kodalith (20)
16. Kodak Electron Microscope Film 4489 (6x9cm plates)

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