Old Boots Universal film

[JimDun]

So I recently went into the loft to retrieve my old Yashica 35mm camera with the intention of taking the lenses off to use on my new mirrorless (M50 MkII) and found it had an unused film left in it. It's been in there for at least 20 years, and then some probably, but I though it might be fun to use it up and sent it away to just get the negatives developed with a view to scanning them myself if anything comes out. It's only about 6 quid apparently.



I've seen some advice on google about exposing an extra stop per decade, but I'm not really sure if that's right, or what my best way forward is, so I'd appreciate any sage advice please. As per the title the film is a Boots Universal colour negative film 400asa.

 

[FishyFish]

Hi Jim. I always use the "1-stop overexposure for each decade of expiry" rule* when shooting expired colour negative film (unless I know it's been cold stored). As the roll you have has been sat in the camera, then any shots already on the roll can't be changed (and might not be any good after all this time), but any new ones you take can have the rule applied and you can then have the film developed normally.

There's a guide here:

The complete guide to shooting expired film

Shooting expired film is a photography adventure that's both exciting and affordable.

www.popphoto.com

*It's not really a rule, more general guidance / advice and bear in mind that the end results from expired film can differ wildly from looking really nice, through to getting nothing useable whatsoever. Using the "rule" has generally worked ok for me for the most part though.

Also - don't forget to share your experience / results with us. We love this sort of thing.

 

[JimDun]

@FishyFish thanks for the advice and that link - very useful.

And of course I'll share it (if anything appears on the film!).

 

[JimDun]

Well, I haven't got far with this yet! I want a nice sunny day to take some outdoor shots and there haven't been any yet.

In the meantime I've dug out my old flatbed scanner and I'm working my way through the old negatives that I never got round to scanning. It's not the greatest scanner ever, but it does the job and to be honest, some of these old photos are dire.

 

[swanseamale47]

I hate to be the voice of doom, but attics are about the worse place for it. It's cooked in summer and frozen in winter. You might get something but I wouldn't have high hopes of it being much good.

 

[JimDun]

I hate to be the voice of doom, but attics are about the worse place for it. It's cooked in summer and frozen in winter. You might get something but I wouldn't have high hopes of it being much good.

You're most likely right, but it's only £6 to get it developed and since the alternative is chucking it in the bin it's worth a go as far as I'm concerned.

As it happens, most of its life has been spent in a drawer in the spare room (so fairly stable); it ended up in the loft a couple of years ago when I had a clear out.

 

[swanseamale47]

Oh defo worth a go, I've deved some really old stuff over the years, it's supprising what you find sometimes.

 

[JimDun]

Just thought I'd give an update on this. I've used up the film, all shots taken outdoors in good light of high-contrast subjects - mostly anyway - so hopefully given it the best chance of something coming out. It's currently winging its way to Analogue Wonderland for processing (though like an amateur I lost the leader of the film inside the cassette - doh!).

Anyway, while eagerly awaiting the return of the negatives, here's a bit of vintage camera porn. As you can see, my FX-D is going bald, as many of them apparently did due to poor quality leatherette covering. If the price of film comes down again I might think about buying a 're-skinning' kit for it.

 

[dmb]

I've not replaced the velour finish covers on my FX-D, actually makes a comfortable grip especially in cold weather.

 

[excalibur2]

I've not replaced the velour finish covers on my FX-D, actually makes a comfortable grip especially in cold weather.

IIRC Yashica had links with Contax and my Contax camera body has lost the vinyl and looks similar to yours....well I assume it was black and shiny once ?

 

[woof woof]

I love threads like this

 

[Plain Nev]

I'd like to see how the photos turned out.

 

[JimDun]

I'd like to see how the photos turned out.

Me too! Apparently the turnaround time for processing is nearly 2 weeks and the post office strike is making things worse.

Once I get them back and scanned (assuming there's anything on the negatives to be scanned) I'll post them here.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

IIRC Yashica had links with Contax

Contax was originally a Zeiss brand applied to their 35mm interchangeable lens rangefinder camera. Yashica bought the rights to the name Contax and applied it to a range of electronic / mechanical shuttered film cameras, which were sold alongside a similar but cheaper range branded as Yashica. Great play was made of the Contax range's body exteriors being designed by the Porsche Group. Kyocera (who owned Yashica/Contax) got out of the camera business in 2005, after producing some technically interesting but not very successful digital cameras.

 

[JimDun]

Well it's been processed and will be posted off within 2 days. Maybe I should have gone for somewhere with a quicker turnaround - the waiting is killing me.

At least there must be something on the film, as otherwise they apparently ask if you still want it sent back or have your postage refunded instead.

 

[woof woof]

Well it's been processed and will be posted off within 2 days. Maybe I should have gone for somewhere with a quicker turnaround - the waiting is killing me.

At least there must be something on the film, as otherwise they apparently ask if you still want it sent back or have your postage refunded instead.

Argh!

That's two things I/we will be waiting for this week.... The new James Bond announcement on Wednesday and your prints coming back!

Hope they turn out well

 

[JimDun]

It came back. It's not very good (understatement). First impression of the film was that it was uniformly black (no trace of the usual orange tint), but with a bright light behind it I could just about make out a few faint images against the black.

Oh well, I had to try. I'm doing a few scans of the 'best' ones just to show you.

 

[JimDun]

OK, just out of academic interest, here's some samples. These ones are straight out of the scanner (I had to turn all the knobs to 11 to get anything out of it, hence the noise).

I've been bored tonight so I've been trying to enhance these in the editor (without great success) - I might post the results later.

 

[Plain Nev]

You gave it your best shot.

 

[woof woof]

Well, it was an interesting project and in your place Jim I'd probably convert these to mono and keep them on the pc as a record and I'd probably look at them from time to time too

 

[JimDun]

Yeah, at best it gave me something to do for a while. Even with tweaking in the edit they're still basically crap (though if I had the nerve I might try to pass them off as artistically aged lol).

 

[excalibur2]

H'mm are the negs thin (well underexposed) as I was wondering about all the noise (artifacts)........ it could be the scanner? If you are interested enough you could look at the film through a loupe or if you have an old projector that would show if it is the film or scanner.

 

[JimDun]

H'mm are the negs thin (well underexposed) as I was wondering about all the noise (artifacts)........ it could be the scanner? If you are interested enough you could look at the film through a loupe or if you have an old projector that would show if it is the film or scanner.

Some look very underexposed to the point that virtually nothing comes out on the scan except noise - that's probably down to me as it's a long time since I've used a film camera - but some look fine, apart from the overall dark tint of the film (even on the unexposed edges). The scanner is certainly not state of the art (it's an old Epson RX640 printer/scanner) and I did have the thought that since the orange tint is gone from the negs it might be worth scanning them without the colour negative compensation (i.e. scanning them as slides) and reversing them in the editor - it might make the colours better. Overall though, it's a lost cause I feel.

 

[excalibur2]

Some look very underexposed to the point that virtually nothing comes out on the scan except noise - that's probably down to me as it's a long time since I've used a film camera - but some look fine, apart from the overall dark tint of the film (even on the unexposed edges). The scanner is certainly not state of the art (it's an old Epson RX640 printer/scanner) and I did have the thought that since the orange tint is gone from the negs it might be worth scanning them without the colour negative compensation (i.e. scanning them as slides) and reversing them in the editor - it might make the colours better. Overall though, it's a lost cause I feel.

All strange as colour neg film is quite tough and have used PRO film stored in a cupboard for at least 15 years and even film from the bootie and had no problems.....maybe 20 years in the loft is the death of film but also surprised there was no fungus on the lens.

 

[swanseamale47]

Back in the day all the lens were tested against the Zeiss planar 50mm, supposedly the best lens ever tested in those days, my father had one, it was a cracker.

 

[JimDun]

Still buggering about with this. I reckon the attached is the best it's ever going to get with the scanner & software I have available. I did the orange colour cast correction & inversion in the editor after scanning as a positive and using the actual colour cast from an unexposed area of the negative rather than the built-in 'ideal' value in the scanner software. It's actually a lot better, but still noisy.

 

[FishyFish]

I think it’s likely that the film has deteriorated in this case. I have a similar set of images from a roll of film that had been sat in a camera for a couple of decades. The shots that had already been taken gave results that looked similar to yours. The new shots I took on the remaining unexposed frames produced nothing at all.

 

[JimDun]

I think it’s likely that the film has deteriorated in this case. I have a similar set of images from a roll of film that had been sat in a camera for a couple of decades. The shots that had already been taken gave results that looked similar to yours. The new shots I took on the remaining unexposed frames produced nothing at all.

Did you expose a couple of stops extra when you took the later pics FF? There was one shot at the start of my roll that was taken when I loaded the film (my habit was to take a shot after the first 'wind on' after the camera back was closed), and this is of the room in our old house (we moved out in 2003). The first digital pics in our archive were May 2001, so this film was probably loaded just before that. I probably didn't bother setting the exposure and this is what came out:

 

[JimDun]

Just to put this saga to bed, here's a few other shots from that roll. It started out as a revival of shooting on film but ended up as a miracle of digital image recovery - the images on the negs were so faint I had trouble telling which way up the strip was). As it happens, I found a magic button in Gimp that did a far better job in one click than I managed in 10 minutes of faffing on with the image adjustments (colors/auto/equalize in case you want to try it).

 

[BADGER.BRAD]

Good Old Gimp , it's my go to editor as I run Linux.

 

[excalibur2]

Number 3 picture looks interesting and looks like a seat in between the stones and a windmill without the sails and an imitation of the Parthenon

 

[JimDun]

Number 3 picture looks interesting and looks like a seat in between the stones and a windmill without the sails and an imitation of the Parthenon

The strange 'seat' is part of a stone sculpture in Herrington Country Park called 'site lines'. Each one points to a particular part of the landscape. The 'Parthenon' type building is a Penshaw Monument - a Victorian folly. Here's a couple of links.

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.co.uk

Penshaw Monument | Tyne & Wear

Learn about Penshaw Monument and find information to plan your visit, from opening times and where to park, to the things to see and do when you arrive.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk

There are quite a few different stone sculptures in the park as well as the lake with waterfowl. It's a great place to visit with a camera!

 

[excalibur2]

The strange 'seat' is part of a stone sculpture in Herrington Country Park called 'site lines'. Each one points to a particular part of the landscape. The 'Parthenon' type building is a Penshaw Monument - a Victorian folly. Here's a couple of links.

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.co.uk

Penshaw Monument | Tyne & Wear

Learn about Penshaw Monument and find information to plan your visit, from opening times and where to park, to the things to see and do when you arrive.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk

There are quite a few different stone sculptures in the park as well as the lake with waterfowl. It's a great place to visit with a camera!

Lol From the google map the white dunces hat is on top of the seats

 

[JimDun]

Lol From the google map the white dunces hat is on top of the seats

Yeah those things are really weird-looking. I reckon the artist was on something when he came up with that!

 

[FishyFish]

Did you expose a couple of stops extra when you took the later pics FF? There was one shot at the start of my roll that was taken when I loaded the film (my habit was to take a shot after the first 'wind on' after the camera back was closed), and this is of the room in our old house (we moved out in 2003). The first digital pics in our archive were May 2001, so this film was probably loaded just before that. I probably didn't bother setting the exposure and this is what came out:

On the roll that turned out badly? No, I didn't know to do that at the time, plus it was a compact point and shoot that used DX coding with no real way to override it unfortunately.

 

[JimDun]

On the roll that turned out badly? No, I didn't know to do that at the time, plus it was a compact point and shoot that used DX coding with no real way to override it unfortunately.

Right, that probably explains it. Even with the 2 stops extra exposure mine were only just visible.