1964. My parents had just sold their service station / taxi / towtruck / mechanical repair business. They decided to take a 12 month sabbatical and dad had bought a caravan shell and was busy fitting it out for a trip to the “mainland”, that big island north of Tasmania.
In 1977 I was working on secondment at an office on Euston Road in London. I had recently upgraded to a Minolta SRT 303b and happening to see an invitation for entries to a photo competition sponsored by Camden Council I decided to have a go. I can’t remember exactly what the subject of the competition was but I’m guessing that it was something to do with what it was like to live in the council’s area. The closing date was only a few days away so I spent the next lunchtime exploring the streets nearest the office to the south of Euston Road, taking a few shots and then rapidly developing and printing them for submission.
I got out of film something like 15 years ago. I can’t actually remember when precisely I put my film cameras down. My go-to color film was Fujicolor Super 100—plentiful and cheap at the time. This film was discontinued in 2009, so that puts an upper limit of the last time I got out with a film camera.
“Are you interested by this?” My neighbor and friend Philippe, hand widely opened, shows me a yellow canister tagged Gold 200. I grab it, a bit confused:
“I thought you only shoot digital.”
“I do. But I found this little baby in my attic yesterday and bet you should be interested!”
“In your attic…? But… when did you buy it?”
“In the late 90’s I think, may be 2000.”
“More than 20 years? I must try it!”
Next Sunday is carnival in Paris and the wheather forecast is pretty encouraging. Let’s give it a try. That day I grabbed my Yashica Electro 35 GSN, loaded it with the Gold 200 and rated it at 100 ISO to compensate the 20 years of the film.
According to camera-wiki.org, the Voigtlander Vitoret was in production between 1960 and 1971. At the time this 35mm camera was a low-cost camera for the mass market. It has a non-exchangeable Vaskar f/2.8 50mm lens. The Prontor shutter offers 1/125s, 1/60s, 1/30s & B; rather limited but more than adequate. The apertures are from f/2.8 …
5 Frames With A Voigtlander VITORET And Expired Kodak Gold 200 – By Iksung Nah Read More
