My Return to Film Photography - I

 

I haven't done any film photography for ten or twelve years, and at that time I was just experimenting with lomography. The other thing you need to know about me is that I'm addicted to bargain-hunting in thrift stores. In the photo above, you see two Canon film SLRs: an AE-1 Program and an EOS Rebel 2000. They are both in excellent condition, and only needed new batteries. I would have to call the AE-1 "pristine," because other than a few marks on the bottom plate from a tripod socket, it is like new. It was obviously kept most of the time in its ever-ready case, which is not even scuffed. The AE-1 has a 28mm f2.8 Canon FD breech-lock mount lens, and the EOS has a Canon Zoom Lens EF 28-80mm, F3.5-5.6 II. At today's prices (I checked online at KEH Camera), this is about $500 worth of equipment. I paid $50.

The red object on the table is a Wolverine F2D 35mm film scanner. It was made when Windows 7 was the newest Windows, but it works fine with my Windows 10. I paid about $10 for it some years ago, in another thrift store. On that same table are two small, yellow boxes: fresh Kodak 400 TX. I think you see where this is heading,

Of the two SLRs, the one on the left in the photo, the AE-1, is the one I really love. It's the older of the two models, offering auto-exposure but not autofocus, as well as manual operation. It is built like a tank, dating from the days before everything turned to plastic. When you handle it, you know that it represents Japanese camera-making at its finest. 

The camera on the right in the photo is the EOS Rebel 2000. It features both auto-exposure and autofocus, although manual focus is also an option. I plan to use this camera in less-controlled situations. We'll come back to it later.

I do not own any rights to the above illustration, which is from the 81-page AE-1 manual, all of which I've studied pretty thoroughly. I took copious notes, boiling it down to two pages. Quite a few of those pages tell you how to take pictures, rather than about the specifics of this camera. The dimensions of this camera are: 141mm x 88mm x 47.5mm (body only). The weight is 575g (body only), or 810g with 50mm f1.4 lens attached.

To summarize my plan for this project: The AE-1 has an unfinished roll of Kodak Gold 200-24, of which the previous owner used 18 exp., leaving six frames remaining for my testing purposes. Of course, the film expired long ago. The EOS contains Fujifilm HQ 200-24, also long expired, of which 18 frames remain for my testing. I have never done C41 processing. I plan to shoot test shots with both cameras, then hot-develop the film in D-76. After washing and drying, I'll scan samples and post the results here. I intend to document every step of this process of re-entry to film photography in this series of blog posts. Hope you enjoyed this first installment.

(to be continued)

Text and my photos Copyright © 2022 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.