What started with the relatively cheap purchase of a Canon EOS 5 (which I considered to be an old camera at the time) now seems to have become an expensive habit, with me mulling over the purchase of small colour processing kit capable of taking 5×4 film.
This seems crazy to many people – myself included until recently – with the usual phrases including things like “you can do whatever you like with digital”, “each shot is free with digital”, “you can see what you’ve taken straight away” being trotted out frequently. All of these are of course valid points, and I have no intention of putting my digital kit away but there is something inescapably fun about film. Maybe it’s actually using the cameras themselves that is fun, I don’t know – what I do know is that unless I need digital quality results I find myself choosing a film camera to take with me when I go out now instead.
I was slowly working my way through all the different types of film I could find (although I tend to prefer B&W as I find it hard to get excited about colour film) and also enjoying the different characteristics, and faults of the various cameras when I suddenly remembered the old Box Brownie. The Kodak Six-20 Brownie Model C, made between 1946 and 1953 – surely it wasn’t possible to still get film for it?
A bit of searching led me to http://www.photosupplies.co.uk/ who offer 120 film respooled for use in 620 cameras. Not only that, but they also provide affordable, more than adequate quality processing (which is more than I can say for my local camera shop)
The image above was taken on my first trip out with the Box Brownie, taken on Fuji Neopan Acros 100 and processed by http://www.photosupplies.co.uk.
