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. 

Fun with Film: Cross Processed Ektachrome Elite 100

What two things will make me cross process slide film?  Well...

• Slide film that is expired and that I worry won't process accurately, and
• A mixed set of C-41 compatible chemistry from which I've gotten my desired rolls of color negative film developed. 

In these instances, the cost of running a roll of slide film through and processing it in the existing chemistry is really only a matter of one's time, and doesn't involve a financial outlay, so it's like the frosting on the cake.  

I had a 10 year old roll of Ektachrome Elite 100 that I put through my Ricoh 520M and dunked in the Unicolor chemistry.  Though it took a bit of trial and error to scan the results to a nice result, I managed to get some very vivid end products from this experimentation, that you can view below:

The rendition from this shot is reasonably close to life, aside from some pastel hues in the cooler end of the spectrum.

Ricoh Rarity: The 520M CDS Rangefinder

Rarity and value in the film camera collecting world can often have no seeming relationship.  One can head over to ebay and see a huge quantity of "rare" cameras for sale at the same time, and see people snapping them up at extreme prices.  And then there are those unknown models with truly small production runs that appear for sale only on rare occasion, and for a comparative song.  Witness the following:

Simply adorned but easily navigated, the Ricoh 520M CDS, occasionally seen as a model of the Sears 35RF, is an infrequently spotted example of mid-late 1960's rangefinder.

The camera model depicted here is Ricoh's 1966 vintage 520M CDS, and it is a surprisingly rare find on the film camera marketplace.  Head on over to eBay, Etsy, or Goodwill right now, and I can largely wager that you won't find one for sale. Heck, even searching the web for ANY mention of this camera model or its older sibling that lacks the "CDS" suffix will yield a pitifully modest bit of results.  As such this review for this rare camera that few seem to care much about is likely to sit about as the only formal review of this camera model on the web for some time, provided that late 1960's Japanese styling doesn't suddenly become the must have in late 2017, and the 520M CDS doesn't become the next big hipster thing.