5 Frames… Of Summer PNW days on FPP LOW ISO COLOR film (35mm Format / EI 1.6 / Minolta X-700) – by Lorraine Healy

Five Frames With Minolta X-700 And FPP’s Slow Iso Color Film (1.6 iso)

By Lorraine Healy

The lovely people at the Film Photography Project sent me some ultra slow iso film last year, some of their color and black & white stock. I shot this particular roll of 1.6iso color in August, during the lovely long Summer days in the Pacific Northwest, using my Minolta X-700 with a 28mm f2.8 lens, and a 0.4 graduated ND filter.

The FPP website explains that this special stock is a “low-speed duplicating film intended for making digital duplicates in motion picture post-production.” In spite of motion picture uses, the film uses standard C-41 processing—in my case, done by the fabulous Old School Photo Lab in Dover, N.H.

The Minolta X-700 ‘s iso counter only goes down to 25, so I set it for 25 and then used the Light Meter app on my phone to take down the values 4 stops under that. Exposures were between 1 and 5 seconds, with the camera set on travel ME tripod, and using a shutter release cable.

You can see that the film introduces some interesting color shifts, tending to the blue/cyan end of the spectrum. The two water images were shot without the ND grad, because they were about 1 second each, and I figured I could get away with a straight non-filtered shot. The remaining three were taken using the ND grad, and there is a bluer, more magenta tint to those skies.

I had no idea what to expect in terms of color or results, and I think the two water images, with their turquoise tints, are my favorite. I still have a b&w roll to shoot this Summer or to take on the first road trip after COVID insanities.

I think this would be an interesting addition to a road trip… What would the South Dakota Badlands look like in this stock? Hmmmm…

~ Lorraine