New Year >> New Camera, New Films

Being back home in a dreamy snowy cold winter wonderland...

Welcome to the monthly newsletter from eclectachrome headquarters here in snowy New England! It’s been a relatively warm start to the winter with not so much snow. The Lakes haven’t frozen over yet which puts local events like the ice fishing derby and pond hockey tournaments into jeopardy.

BUT who cares about that when we have FILM photography to talk about!! Because that’s what this newsletter is all about.

Let’s start with some news, shall we?!

FILM PHOTOGRAPHY HEADLINES

Adox Issues Update On New Helios Color Film - Watch the video I released about this here!

25th Anniversary of STRAIGHT 8 Goes Big on IMAX in 2024 - read more here.

BlackScale Lab Releases BlackBox 120 for Medium Format Film Scanning After 35mm Success - read more here.

Mint’s New 35mm Film Camera will use the Rollei Brand Name - read more here.

YOUTUBE VIDEOS

In case you missed any of these, this is what I published on YouTube in January!

FILM PROJECTS

I chose the classic Holga GCFN 120 camera and Kodak Gold 200 for my 2024 Frugal Film Project! There is a soft spot in my heart for this camera. Don’t let its quirky plastic exterior fool you, it is capable of producing fantastically cool photos. 

On New Year’s Day, my brother and I went to this place called FunSpot which is a HUGE arcade and arcade museum. 

IT…WAS…AWESOME.

I love arcades, especially ones that have a kitchen that makes great pizza. And because the kitchen is in the arcade and it’s a big open space with multiple levels, the smell of pizza drifts throughout the place, making it almost impossible to go there and NOT have it by the time you are done playing. 

This was my favorite photo of the day!

Ok, confession time…I ended up taking about 4 cameras to the arcade.

The Holga GCFN, the Olympus FE-100 (for Jankuary), the Canon Sure Shot u90ii (loaded with Revolog’s Nebula film), and the Photodom i217 camera that was just released (although I learned after this is the same camera as the Harman EZ one that costs half as much!!)

The Olympus FE-100 is a digicam with a grand total of 4MP. I brought it out of semi-retirement for Azriel Knight’s JANKUARY challenge. 

If you want to read my experience, then head over to the post on 35mmc here!

REVOLOG NEBULA FILM

Next up is the Nebula film I shot on the Canon Sure Shot u90ii. I processed this in a to-be-announced developer and it came out great. While the effect of Nebula is a little bit less than what I thought, it was still cool. Here’s my favorite shot:

The Photodom i217 camera is great. However, I wouldn’t have paid double if I had known about the Harman EZ camera, which is the same. The selling point of these cameras is the auto-wind function.

I did get some nice photos from this camera though, shot on Eastman 5222 film!

Eastman 5222 aka Kodak XX film is one of my favorite black and white films. I’m OBSESSED! Flic Film sent me their BW Cine Film Developer to test out along with some of their spooled-down 35mm XX film (no strings). It’s brilliant. 

I shot a lot of rolls of XX since moving back home, and I can’t get over the images I took in the snow. There was also a Cinesoft filter on my lens which is why there is some highlight blooming. It’s magical though. 

These images were shot on MY (because I’ve officially stolen it from my mom) Canon Rebel K2 with the 28-90mm lens. 

Later in the month, on a not-so-snowy day, I took the Rolleiflex MX with me to hang out with my sister in her area. It had just rained so the river downtown was insane!!

I’m working on a review of this camera! While it now has 7 rolls under its belt, I need more to get a sense of it. So stay tuned for that coming in the next few months! The MX is a great option for an affordable Rolleiflex. It ran me around $300, but it is the F3.5 lens of course, and has a rather dim focusing screen that I don’t think can be interchanged. More on this later though!

Let’s move on to INSTANT PHOTOGRAPHY! 

I have been shooting a lot more instant photography since I moved back to the US at the end of last year. It’s SO refreshing. There are no further steps to see the image, no developing, drying, scanning…it’s just there! 

Instant film has been in my life for a loooong time. I’ve shot it casually for fun at gatherings and parties, mostly for photos of people. 

However, this changed a little when I decided to take it on a road trip to North Carolina last September with my mom. It was so much fun to shoot more ‘photography’ images on it that I didn’t stop from there. 

So here are some of my favorite instant images from that trip!!   

Sidebar: I joined in on Embrace the Grain’s podcast in January too if you want to give that a listen here! Episode 91!

LOMOGRAPHY DIGITALIZA

Ok, here’s a newsletter exclusive 😛 I’ve been working with the Lomography Digitaliza recently (paid for it myself, Lomography did not send this to me) to scan film with my phone. 

The 411 on the Digitaliza is that it’s great for quick scans to see how the negatives came out and low-resolution results, as expected. The quality of the images depends on the quality of your phone camera. But I LOVE the product though, results aside. It’s easy and quick and the way you can roll through a 35mm strip is fabulous.

Here are some samples!

Now, I know a few of you are into motion picture film for still photography. Welllllllll, I have been shooting A LOT of it…and…I’ve developed it all using Flic Film’s ECN-2 Kit, which they sent me. It’s basically been Flic Film Month here, but it’s awesome. 

SO, another teaser, I am working on a few videos about the kit but also shooting several different types of ECN-2 films. Even in medium format!! (I ordered some 120 cine film from Reflx Lab.)

THE END

It was quite a busy month!! A lot of shooting and projects and filming. Ups and downs as always, mostly Up though.   

Let me know how your start to 2024 went in the comments here and what are you looking forward to next month.

See you next time!

Molly