Kodak - Who Loves Ya Baby?

So, the final 'final' expired film, which of course means the point has now been reached where I run out of excuses and need to start delivering competent images on fresh new film stock...

This Kodak Colour Plus 200 is a mere 16 years past it's 'Develop By' date, so after the total fail of the previous ancient roll I was feeling reasonably optimistic about this one. Optimistic and a little more confident with the camera it has to be said. Some of the learning of the last few weeks include a sneaking suspicion that the FED's Shutter Speeds may be a smidge slower than advertised. I'm finding that the negatives appear slightly over-exposed to my eye. Better than under-exposed of course, most of the information is there, it just needs 'tweaking' out with the editing software. Nevertheless, it's annoying, and may go some way to explain the slightly less than sharp results on some of these photos (below).

More often than not I've been shooting at my personal favourite shutter speed of 1/60th of a second, often the best I can manage without the use of a tripod on less sunny days. If this speed is in fact a bit sluggish, camera shake when shooting could be an issue, particularly given that the shutter itself on this old Soviet camera is hardly the smooth and quiet type. So with the bright days of Summer 2026 approaching I'll likely start using 1/100th as my minimum hand-held setting for this camera, and may have to start squeezing the Aperture in a half-stop or so to compensate for any potentially lazy shutter speeds. 

Another thing is a better understanding of what this camera is actually good for. My understanding is that the original Leica II camera that this FED-1 aimed to copy was marketed as a camera suitable for 'Architectural' photography, which I guess also includes Landscapes, and what we now know as Street Photography aka. Social Documentary. Portraiture, indoor subjects, sporting and other 'action' shots are entirely possible on a camera like this, but perhaps not ideal subjects, and of course macro photography with the standard 50mm lens is totally out of the question.

So I’m beginning to tailor my subjects to things that interest me, obviously, but not so much capturing ‘movement’, or straightforward close detail ‘objects’. Shapes, patterns, geometry, subjects with context in the landscape, these are the kind of things I like and that the camera is good at.

It’s also quite a slow camera to operate, a major part of the appeal of a fully manual film camera of course, but I now have a second vintage camera (above), also a fully manual Rangefinder, but slightly better designed for faster use. All the better to capture those fast moving Morris Dancers…

The Judith Stone, a Glacial Erratic boulder in a field between Market Harborough and East Farndon village, believed to have been named after Countess Judith, niece of William the Conqueror who allocated land in Farndon to her following the Battle of Hastings.

These two 'monochromed' subjects are from a stroll around Kettering General Hospital. The ever-evolving architecture of older hospital sites are full of geometric 'shapes and angles' like this. 

Demolition work in the centre of Northampton Town is exposing hitherto difficult to frame subjects like this block of flats, previously obscured to long-range views. I would have liked to linger on this subject a bit longer, but shortly after I took this photo there was a cloudburst that sent everyone scuttling into nearby shops, and me to the car and back home.

Idle time in the pub is often a good time to play with the camera, but low light levels mean I've struggled to exploit these (many) opportunities. Shooting out of a 'branded' window on a greyish day in my local Beerhouse means there's plenty of light to play with, and a good opportunity to play with depth of field.

More 'shapes and angles' at Kettering Hospital

Ghost Signs are a favourite subject if you can frame them well with a 50mm lens. These two in Northampton have come out far better than my previous efforts in Bedford.