After twenty years hiatus from film photography, I sold all my digital gear and got back to my roots, and what better film than two fifteen-year-old expired rolls of Agfa Scala, to play with! The shots were taken in different lighting conditions most in natural light conditions or just normal room tungsten lights, I find flash harsh and startling to people when you want to take that candid shot without the person blinking!

The shots here are of my family and friends. I’m not much of a landscape photographer, I love documentary and reportage, I have worked on documentaries and advertising and the Scala was my perfect personal choice out of Fuji or ILFORD. I know very well that the Scala is recommended for architecture predominantly, but if you play with it in the developing process, you can get some nice grainy images which are more interesting.

Scala is by far my favourite film from the past, and eBay provided me with 10 rolls at a very reasonable price, no haggling. I felt overjoyed when the film arrived and I loaded it into the camera. Because of my love for the grain, I developed one roll in One-shot R09 stand developing for one hour, with one thirty-second agitation in the middle, and the other in Adonal ten minutes developing with ten seconds agitation on every minute, both developed as normal negative.

Now some might think, “goodness me the grain on those shots is harsh!” but for me, this is raw photographic evidence of chemical reaction and desired results, I love it! When I see all the smooth finish on B&W photos it reminds me of digital de noise post-processing and this is what I am not after.

The King Regula Cita III I chose out of my Mamiya C220 and the Nikon F100 for this assignment is a bit on the slow side but it does the job nicely with a steady hand and patience! My goodness, how I missed shooting film, it’s a beautiful thing indeed when you see the images appear on the film! I don’t strive for perfection, I imprint moments in the fabric of time just as they are and you get rewarded with true results.”

~ Y.Savoy

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3 responses to “5 Frames… Of 15 year expired Agfa Scala 200 on a King Regula Cita III (35mm Format / EI 200 / Tessar f/2.8 lens)”

  1. Tomasz Szerszeń Avatar
    Tomasz Szerszeń

    What a great photo number 1 with a girl… Wonderful image !!!

  2. A learning experience for me — a film and a camera that I hadn’t heard of before!

  3. Such great images 😉 BRAVO
    Your gears : King, Mamiya, Nikon F100 very very great especially in your hands.
    Thank you so much to show again that film can provide wonderful results and there is many gears which can be used with film photography 😉 (you will not get better with a Leica)

 

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