Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“May the glow of the Christmas tree and the company of loved ones warm your heart this Boxing Day” ~ Anonymous
Boxing Day is traditionally the day after Christmas and the tradition originated from rich families giving gifts to the poor, and from employees receiving gifts from their employers or customers that were known as a “Christmas box.” Depending on where you live in the world, Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated in many countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Great Britain.
Film for Boxing Day
One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2025 is to shoot more film and and write about it more here than I did in 2024. I plan to scan the film, work with its pixels in the digital darkroom and keep trying to “save the world, one pixel at a time.”
Many years ago I sold most of my 35mm film cameras. I now realize how this was a dumb move, especially selling all my Contax gear, one of which I have since replaced with a 167 MT with this blog’s increased focus on film photography. The original film cameras that I kept include a Zeiss Ikon SW and Leica M6 TTL because these are such beautiful instruments that I could not bear to part with them. Similarly My Minolta Prod 20, which was a gift from my wife and has sentimental attachment as well as appealing aesthetics. In addition to my new/old Contax I have managed, again with my wife’s help, to acquire all six of Canon’s A-series cameras that you can read about in my post A Look at Canon’s A-Series Cameras.
As far as film emulsions are concerned, I have picked up several boxes, including four from Lomography: Berlin, Metropolis, Purple and Potsdam. I also purchased a couple boxes of the new Ilford Ilfocolor Vintage Tone 400 from Reformed Photo Lab in Florida who seem to have the best prices for this film. I’m really looking forward to making photographs with this film in 2025 plus some others including Rollei’s infrared film and their twin-pack of Paul and Reinhold black and white film!
How I Made this Photograph…
I made this image when I was doing a test on some really old, expired AgfaColor 50 film to see what the best film speed to shoot it would be. This was truly a wonderful films—i still have some 120 rolls —and was the last roll of 35mm (C-41) AgfaColor a really beautifully contrasty and saturated film I had . It turns out that I ha inadvertently (foolishly) ruined the other rolls while trying to fix my Hassleblad XPan, which I eventually sold. Based on this test roll, shooting at an Exposure Index of 25 was perfect. If I get a medium format camera next year, I’ll be sure to shoot the 120 rolls of AgfaColor at that setting.
For this shot, I used a Canon AV-1 with FD 50mm f/1.8 lens. Exposure was unrecorded. You can read about my Canon AV-1 in A Look at Canon’s A-Series Cameras. The film was perfectly processed by Mike’s Camera in Lone Tree Colorado and scanned at their regular (2048 x 3072) resolution.
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