My Dad gifted me his Nikkorex F many years ago, but I had never shot it until recently. During this time of “staying at home”, I thought it would be a great opportunity to put a roll of film through the now 55+ year-old Nikkorex. For my film choice, I decided to try one of the expired rolls of Kodak MAX 400 that I have laying around here. These rolls have never been refrigerated, so I knew I was taking a bit of a chance. To compensate, I shot the film at EI 200.
The Nikkorex has a snap-on selenium cell light meter. The camera does not take a battery. You adjust the shutter speed or aperture to match the suggested reading shown at the top of the meter. Amazingly, the meter on my Dad’s Nikkorex still works, although its accuracy was unknown. To test that out, I stuck with exactly what the meter was telling me. The Nikkorex F is a beast of a camera, weighing in at almost 2-1/2 pounds (>1 kilo) with the 50mm Nikkor prime lens. When that Copal Square shutter fires, it gives a beefy ker-chunk!
Staying true to the “stay at home” order in our state, I decided to shoot the entire roll around our house. It was a rainy day here, so I had beautiful soft light to work with. I developed the film at home using the Cinestill’s CS41 liquid kit. I’m having issues with deposits on the film from the Cinestill stabilizer chemistry, so please excuse the little white dots running along the bottom of the frames.
I scanned the negatives on my Epson Perfection V800 using the SilverFast software. I then imported the photos into Adobe Lightroom for minor adjustments and clean-up. I did not do any color grading.
I was surprised at how well these photographs turned out. The colors are quite rich and the grain is pleasing to my eye. I will log this as a successful experiment. I’ll be more willing to shoot expired film in the future.
~ Tom
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One response to “5 Frames… Of “stay at home” Nikkorex F goodness with the Nikkor-S 5cm f/2 (EI 200 / 35mm Format / Kodak MAX 200)”
I used my Nikkorex for several decades. It never failed me.