Haven't shot film in a while, and this roll of film was sitting in the camera for well over two months! The sun was just too much to tolerate during the peak days of summer. Though I finally finished it with a mix of Armenia and Georgia. I had a ton of fun shooting this one though, it's expired Kodak Vision2 250D cinema film. Kodak stopped producing it a while back and replaced it with a modern update called Vision3. I haven't shot that one yet, but I think I'd prefer this one given Vision2 doesn't have the anti halation layer, and the halation present in highlights is actually a part of the photographic charm to me.
Sometimes it's visible with other film stocks. Cinestill, much more expensive, has that halation. But much harder to obtain in this part of the world, and I'm not that interested in paying near $20 per roll of film, that's for sure. This film stock was used in Hollywood for years, some of your favourite films were probably shot on it back in the day. It produces a tone that is very reminiscent of cinema, and that's something I really loved about the final outcome. Given the decade of exposure now, I shot the film one stop lower than its intended one: 250D. Instead stopped down to about 150. Typically we set film that's expired a stop lower each decade of expiration. Cinema film tends to be made to be used much faster than photographic film as well.
I'm really surprised how these came out though. I shot them with the Canon AE-1 on the 28mm lens and with that lower stop, I had to really be careful as it required shooting on far lower shutter speeds than I'm used to. In daylight it performed wonderfully at least. But anything that wasn't strong daylight? Down to 2.8 and 1/15th of a second! Not the most ideal scenario for images, but that lens really helped, I think. Nice and wide!
I really want to shoot more of this stock, though I think it may grow harder and more expensive to find as it's generally cheaper than other stocks online. Currently out of stock, for a film stock that isn't produced anymore, yeah, you can picture the challenges of being in Armenia and trying to source a film stock that isn't even produced in the west anymore. Perhaps time to check out Vision3? Though again, that lack of halation is a bit of a bummer...
