Well, here we are at the start of a new year and looking back at last year’s outstanding Frugal Film Project! I had a lot more fun with this project, and it helped nurture my soft spot for consumer 1990s/2000s SLRs. It’s funny; I never saw these as viable cameras before, yet they have a beautiful charm. You don’t have to worry too much because they can be a dime a dozen. Plus, they work with many lenses that most people use with their other autofocus systems. Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Minolta (Sony) all have lenses that work on both digital (full-frame) and 35mm bodies. So let’s look back at 2023 and then forward to this year’s edition of the Frugal Film Project!
Looking Back
For 2023 my camera of choice was the Konica-Minolta Maxxum 70, this was one of two final 35mm film SLRs from the company and while a bit more advanced than the lower end camera of the era, it still clocked in at under the price point and came with the less than stellar 28-100mm kit zoom lens. My film of choice for the year was Arista EDU.Ultra 100, the house brand of Freestyle Photographic and rebadged Fomapan 100. Now the one thing I had a lot of fun with was picking the developer each month; I usually would tie this choice to whatever developer review I was working on that month, so it helped clear out some lingering bottles. I also tried to avoid repeating in the developer (except for Diafine because you can expose Arista to two ways of developing). Some produced good results, others less. The one thing I always found weird, with the FFP being on a monthly instead of weekly schedule, I often forget that I had completed the roll for that month and then sit around and go, ‘Oh yeah, I already did that.’ Here’s hoping having completed the project for the year that 2024 will be easier. The year wasn’t without trouble, of course, the summer this year proved to have some nasty weather, rain, storms, and oppressive heat, so I had to keep multiple ideas on what to do for the month. Sometimes I had three plans for the monthly roll. Then there was the matter of the lens breaking in April; the 28-100 isn’t known for its build quality. Thankfully I had a selection of A-Mount lenses that came to me with my 7000, so I switched to the 28mm f/2.8 for a couple of months and used the 50mm f/1.7 for an entry, which required a faster lens. But onto my top twelve images from last year!
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Konica-Minolta Zoom AF 28-100mm 1:3.5-5.6 D – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Adox FX-39 II (1+9) 7:00 @ 20C
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Konica-Minolta Zoom AF 28-100mm 1:3.5-5.6 D – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Compard R09 Spezial (1+31) 10:00 @ 20C (Constant Rotation)
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Konica-Minolta Zoom AF 28-100mm 1:3.5-5.6 D – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – SPUR HRX (1+20) 10:15 @ 20C (Constant Rotation)
Konica-Minolta Maxxum 70 – Konica-Minolta Zoom AF 28-100mm 1:3.5-5.6 D – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Foma Fomadon LQR (1+10) 6:00 @ 20C
Konica-Minolta Maxxum 70 – Minolta Maxxum AF 28mm 1:2.8 (Yellow-12) – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Fotospeed FD10 (1+9) 8:00 @ 20C
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Minolta Maxxum AF 28mm 1:2.8 (Yellow-12) – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Tetenal Neofin Blau (1+9) 8:00 @ 20C
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Konica-Minolta Zoom AF 28-100mm 1:3.5-5.6 D – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Adox Atomal 49 (1+1) 10:45 @ 20C
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Konica-Minolta Zoom AF 28-100mm 1:3.5-5.6 D – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Foma Fomadon LQN (1+14) 9:00 @ 20C (Constant Rotation)
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Konica-Minolta Zoom AF 28-100mm 1:3.5-5.6 D – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-400 – Adox FX-39 II (1+9) 9:00 @ 20C (Constant Rotation)
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Minolta Maxxum AF 28mm 1:2.8 (Yellow-12) – Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Zone Imaging 510-Pyro (1+100) 7:00 @ 20C
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Minolta Maxxum AF 50mm 1:1.7- Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-200 – Diafine (Stock) 3:00 + 3:00 @ 20C
Minolta Maxxum 70 – Minolta Maxxum AF 50mm 1:1.7- Arista EDU.Ultra 100 @ ASA-100 – Adox HR-DEV (1+40) 10:15 @ 20C (Constant Rotation)
Looking Forward
So for this year I’m running with the Canon EOS 3000 and the 28-80mm II lens. This is a fantastic little camera with a wicked fast autofocus and the best part is that it allows me to manually set the film speed without needing to fuss with an EV adjustment, and having a camera default to ASA-100 when a non-DX coded roll loaded. Now I also have a lovely original series 50mm f/1.8 lens in reserve if I need something different or faster than the 28-80, and the best part is that the lens was a gift from a great-uncle. Now the film is going to be a fun one, I’m running with Arsita EDU.Ultra 200, a rebadge of Fomapan 200. Now I have struggled with Fomapan 200 in the past so I’m hoping that this year I’m going to have a chance to start nailing down the film and developments to the point where I enjoy working with the stock. And I already have plans to use some R09 Spezial, HR-DEV, and 510-Pyro. Unlike last year, I’ll be only reviewing three developers, so on the months where I’m working with those, I’ll be developing the monthly roll with said developer.
The methods I used last year seemed to work well, and as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So I’m going to proceed with 2024 as I did 2023. With some pre-planning, a same template for the blog entries. The one thing I will be doing differently is starting the year end ‘zine early. Last year I realised later on that I wanted to put a zine together of the project but it wasn’t until September that I started working on the content. My original thought was to copy word for word from the blog posts into the ‘zine, but then realised that it would make for a larger print project. I scaled down the entry into a short paragraph summary and focused mainly on the images. For 2024, I’ll be doing the blog posts and the ‘zine entries each month at the same time so that I’ll have it ready for publishing sooner.
Looking forward for a year of Foma 200 as it’s a film I enjoy finding devs for. I’m on my second bulk roll currently.
Happy new year!
Nice results from the Foma 100, which perked my interest up to see the various devs in conjunction with it.
I’ve got a load of that to work through in 35 and 120, and some bulk stock.
Not too sure about the 200, will look on with interest.
Reason your results grabbed my attention is your reluctance to do the ‘soot and whitewash’ dev, thankfully.
I try to keep in mind the fantastic tonality of some of the Hollywood photographers of the 30s and 40s and attempt to emulate it. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not.