With color films often in short supply and prices continuing to increase, it was sad news when Fuji “paused” Superia X-TRA 400 in April of this year. It’s reasonable to see this as yet another Fuji film being discontinued. Just a short time later, however, news of a new Fujifilm 400 surfaced. A similar sequence …
Fujifilm 400 (made in the USA) vs. Kodak Ultramax 400 – The Same, or Different…? Read More
What kind of idiot would go on a once in a lifetime trip, to a place they have never been, and take a camera they have never used? Well, me I guess. So this is the story of learning to use the Olympus Chrome Six. Let’s start with some context. In late March, I spent …
Olympus Chrome Six – An Idiot’s Guide / A Trip to Helsinki Read More
Using the Bessa L for a week in Berlin alongside a Nikon FE2 brought home all the things I don’t like about the Bessa, as well as reminding me why I’ll never get rid of it. In the spring of 2022, I found myself with a soon to be expired travel credit from a Covid …
Bessa L – Love and Hate in Berlin – By Mike Brookes Read More
Some of us know Kodachrome from the iconic Afghan Girl photo by National Geographic’s Steve McCurry. Some of us might even have watched the 2017 movie of the same name, about an estranged son trying to develop the last few rolls of exposed Kodachrome from his late father. Some of us, lucky enough, might have even shot, developed and marvelled at those glorious Kodachrome slides on a light table or through a projector.
But Kodachrome is no more: Kodak stopped its production in 2009, while Dwayne’s (the last lab that processed Kodachrome, and featured in the movie) ran out of K-14 chemistry in 2010. So it became more a memory of the past, like many other discontinued film stocks. But Kodachrome holds a special place in many photographer’s hearts, a nostalgic milestone in the photographic journey.
Then I found 6 rolls of Kodachrome.
If I had to come up with one thing, I thank Covid-19 for getting me back into film photography (if using my dad’s point-and-shoot to take family photos in the 90s counts as having been into it).
Back in the beginning of 2020 when I was stuck at home and only a few months into photography, the film SLR look of my recently acquired Fujifilm XT-30 reminded my dad of his good old days of being a photography enthusiast. Topics like how to get the perfect exposure, developing black and white films, composition in different circumstances, you name it, he just couldn’t shut up! So I asked him the whereabouts of those film point-and-shoots I used to use. To my surprise, not only did I reunite with the Pentax Zoom 90 WR after two decades, there was also a Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D sitting in the cabinet without a pairing body.
