FPP Retrochrome - 35mm Slide Film

Bought a roll of this for a challenge on the AW facebook group to create something with the cheapest camera you could bear to buy. My selected weapon was a fixed speed, fixed aperture Concord plastic thing which, on a test roll of B&W was depressingly competent at taking snapshots.

I hoped that pairing it with this film, then pull processing a couple of stops in C41 chemistry might add a little "something". For a guestimated 1 minute 50 second developing time I wasn't disappointed!

Straight scans as negatives produced almost electric greens which suited most of the chosen subjects, rescanning as slides and flipping in Gimp gave a sort of post-apocalyptic cast, which suited others.

With a few tweaks it was even possible to equalize to almost normal colours. but with a very very retro feel to them. I've included examples of all three approaches in the samples.

Overall, it was a fun an instructive experiment which showed just how much you can abuse this film and still create images that work on some level. I can't really comment on well-suited uses because of the way I treated it but suspect it would work for most purposes if treated with a little more respect.

It's been a really enjoyable experience shooting with this film, even if the results are a little random at times. But my inner Surrealist loves a bit of randomness. Provia 400 (RIP) this is not. As someone who does a lot of experimenting with expired film, I'm used to strange colour shifts and lots of grain...just odd artefacts in general. But if you love the work of photographers like Sarah Moon and Saul Leiter, or 1910s Autochromes, then this is the film for you. It's very dreamlike, if not the most contrasty emulsion (it definitely does better in harder lighting). Go with the flow and you'll be rewarded. While I haven't tried using it for portraits yet, I feel it could work really well in this area, especially when you're photographing creative individuals. Why not give it a go?

First time using this film 🎞 used it in a canonAF35m2
Quite like the dark Sini retro look but!!! Would like that reddish that comes through in other photographers photos next time.. I guess I’ll try it in my Minolta next time 🎞📷

Well to be honest it was pretty much what I was expecting, probably a bit better.
I read all the reviews here before starting, and found it to have slightly more exposure lattitude than described by others.
It really does love blues and reds, I found my whites very yellow and found it to prefer slight underexposure to over exposure.
I wish the grain was slighly less chunky and overbearing, as I actually love the vintage look this stock has.
That coupled with it's price mean it probably wont go into regular rotation, but for certain things, it really has a feel that nothing else has!

I was hoping for a few more off-kilter images than I came out with, possibly down to my exposure or choice or subject. But easy to use nonetheless, and had me looking for different subjects to try out this different film with.