Fun with Film: Imation Chrome 100

One of the more interesting and encouraging bits of news that emerged a couple of years ago as I was getting back into film photography was the initiation of an effort to save machinery and restart production of transparency film by Ferrania in Italy.  Though the project has been fraught with a number of unforeseen challenges, it is moving forward at a better pace now, and is showing signs of emerging at some point hopefully within the year. 

As a result of this, the "Ferrania" name carries a significantly higher profile than it did during the 1990's onward, when it was largely a "private label" film maker that produced many "store brand" films until about 2007 or so, when its production lines shut down.  In addition, Ferrania produced branded film as well, but this typically was marketed under the "Scotch" and later "Imation" lineups. I took a lot of shots in the early 1990's on a private label "Seattlechrome" brand that I suspect may well have been made by Ferrania. 

While I've managed to find a decent amount of Ferrania color negative films over the past year under various labels over the past year, the slide film product that Ferrania now seeks to replicate for its new product had been pretty elusive in searches on ebay.  I HAD been able to find a single roll of Imation Chrome 100 early last Summer that I excitedly snapped up in hopes it would give me a vague idea of how the forthcoming film will look.  

I split the roll between my Ricoh 520M CDS and the Olympus OM-2, with shots on the former taken on a Maine trip, and shots on the latter taken locally.  I anticipated there may be an extreme amount of color shifting, and some loss of speed, so I rated it around ISO 80 and hoped for the best.  The results from this 12 year old film, while not pristine, were appreciably better than I'd feared they might be.  The film had a slight amount of grain, and some color shifting towards the blue end of the spectrum, but didn't look nearly as shifted as the 2008 vintage Ektrachrome I took along to Oregon in 2015.  Here are samples of 12 year old Imation Chrome with some degree of post processing...

Loaded first into the Ricoh 520M, I had a lovely day before me to see what the Imation Chrome would do.  The color rendering is exceptionally on the cold side, but contrast and detail remain adequate. 

Oh Me Too? (What more can I add?) The Olympus OM2

Some camera reviews are easier than others for me.  Give me an overlooked quirky model and I can readily reveal the fun aspects of shooting one of these unique models supplemented with what little bits of interesting information that I can discover about the model and its maker.  It's a fun process that makes for a fun to write review that I always feel proud to share.

But give me a well-known and well-loved model with oodles already written about it, and I will be crippled by a severe case of writer's block.  After all, what more can I add to a conversation that has already been so extensively covered from more or less every conceivable angle.  And that is just where I am in trying to pen a fitting review of the Olympus OM-2N.

A special thanks to my Minolta 5D for producing such a wonderful vanity shot of the OM-2

The Olympus OM-2 is perhaps the most well known camera for which I have in my stable and I've yet to write a post.  On its debut in the 1970's (arguably the prime period of manual focus SLRs), the OM-2 was very well received for its compact size and easy to use feature set. Forty years later, the OM-2 is still a darling of a camera for many of today's film shooters, and has any number of positive write-ups online.  Two of my film shooting buddies, Mike and James both have favorable reviews posted of the OM-2 that can relay more about the camera's history and attributes than I can ever hope to convey here.