Expiriment #3: Truprint FG+ (expired 2003)

I’m back with the third of my expired film adventures. When I started this series (and I use that term in a loose sense) I think I might have mentioned doing one every month and, for the first two at least, I was true to my word. But it’s now been almost five months since the last entry, so apologies to anyone who was waiting with baited breath. I do still intend to keep doing these though, and hopefully more frequently.

This roll is the youngest one featured to date, being a sprightly nineteen years over its expiry date of 2003. It’s another colour film, this time both in 135 format, and also, I think it’s fair to say, a consumer grade stock. I have actually shot another roll of this previously and you can see some posts containing the results here. I shot the previous roll at box speed and, while I got some nice results, they were somewhat grainy and more than a little vivid, so for this roll I decided to overexpose by a stop and shoot it at 100asa.

But first a little background on the film, and how I got it.

Truprint were a mail order photo processing outfit where you wuld post your rolls of film out in a special envelope and then, a couple of weeks later, you would receive a set of prints AND a free roll of film to shoot more. The Truprint brand was still in business as a photo printing outfit up until fairly recently until it was bought out by Snapfish. Truprint provided a variety of films in the usual 100, 200, and 400asa varieties but these were, I believe, re-branded stocks from other manufacturers. The Big Film Database shows Agfa and Ferrania as the most likely originators of the film stocks used by Truprint. The roll I shot here was Truprint FG+ – a 200asa film, and one which appears to have been manufactured by Ferrania. Although the Big Film Database doesen’t specify this, other sources seem to indicate this particular stock was Ferrania Solaris.

I got hold of my two rolls from a lady who had found them in their fridge in her garage and who had asked online if they would be of any use to anyone. She told me they had always been in the fridge since purchase, which was a good sign, and was the main reason I chanced shooting the first roll at box speed.

I decided to shoot this second roll partially for some multiple-exposure photography I was attempting, for which I didn’t want to risk wasting a more expensive roll of film, but as I had no intention of using the whole roll for this purpose, I also went out on a sunny autumn morning to shoot a bunch of other frames of whatever subject matter I could find. I ended up in the Attercliffe area of the city – a former industrial area home to Sheffield’s once vast steel industry, but which has now become home to service businesses, retail, and entertainment outlets (although there is still a lot of industry in abundance, including steel foundries). Most of the pictures feature Sheffield Forgemasters, a heavy engineering firm that has been in existence since 1805. In the 1980s the company attracted controversy for it’s part in the Iraqi Supergun Affair, and in 2021 was nationalised because of it’s importance to the nation’s defence industry.

So, on to the results.

This roll came out very nicely indeed, possibly due to the overexposure, or perhaps it had just fared better than its companion roll. Whatever the case I would not be disappointed with these if they had come from a fresh roll of film – the grain is minimal and the colours look natural with just a hint of warmth (and that might just be in the way I processed the pictures in Negative Lab Pro and Lightroom). I’m very happy with the photos and would happily shoot more Truprint FG+ (if I had any).

Autumn had arrived when the photos were made, and the colours reveal themselves well on the film – helped by the nice sunlight I had on the day.

More autumnal shades beside Sheffield Forgemasters.

Sheffield Forgemasters is a looming presence in this part of the city.

Another industrial building in the area. Not part of Forgemasters, I believe this might be a scaffolding supplier now.

One of the main entertainment facilities in Attercliffe is the Arena – currently the Utilita Arena, but it has gone under a number of sponsored names since construction though it is often known locally as the Don Valley Arena. There was a funfair taking residence in part of the carpark on the day I passed.

The arena itself.

Overall outcome: Success!

Expiriment #4 coming soon (I hope…)…

Nikkon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D, Truprint FG+ (expired 2003). Shot at 100asa and lab developed for box speed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 22 October 2022

Other posts in the Expiriment series:

Expiriment #1: Ilford HP5 (expired 1982)

Expiriment #2: Kodacolor VR400 (expired 1989)

Multiple exposure

Regular readers may remember me posting on occasion about the photo competition I enter each month, It’s approaching the end of the 2022 contest now with just three images remaining to be entered. October’s theme is multiple exposure.

I rarely shoot multiple exposure images (although occasionally accidentally), but I’ve shot quite a few this month, including a full roll of 12 shots with the Holga and also several shots on a roll of expired Truprint FG+. Of all the shots, the one featured in the blog today is my favourite and the one I’ve entered in the competition. It’s a picture of three overlaid camera – an Olympus OM-1, an Olympus XA3, and a Kodak Retina IIa. The resulting image looks a little like an x-ray photo, the sort you see from airport scanners.

I’ll perhaps post some of the other shots in a future post.

Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Truprint FG+ (expired 2003). Lab developed and home scanned.

Taken on 22 October 2022

Conisbrough Castle

This photo was taken the same day as the canal pictues that I posted here yesterday. Conisbrough is a mile or two down river from Mexborough and there is a nice railway viaduct there which spans the River Don. It was my intention to try and get a photo of the viaduct while I was in the area but, as it was the first time I’d visited and I’d not really planed a route, I ended up in the wrong place with quite a long detour if I intended to reach a spot where I could access the viaduct.

So, instead, I drove back the way I’d come and decided to take a few pictures of the castle. I shot a few frames on the expired TruPrint FG+ with my F80, and a few more with the Olympus XA3 which was, as usual, in my coat pocket. I had a polariser fitted to the 50mm lens on the F80 and, combined with the expired film, it resulted in some wildly vivid colours. I’ve actually toned down the blue in the sky for the shot posted here. The colours were reminiscent of an old postcard of the sort that used to be sold when I was little, with vivid, almost painterly tones.

Nikon F80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & TruPrint FG+ (expired 2005). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 2 April 2022

Mexborough canal

I’m not actually sure if this stretch of canal has a name. It’s a navigable route that runs beside the River Don at Mexborough, presumably because the river itself is not suitable passage in this area. The canal diverts from the Don just upstream of Mexborough and then re-joins it further along, just before the River Dearne also merges with the flow.

I’d visited Mexborough because I believed therewas a camera store in town, but when I got there the address appeared to be closed. Not wanting to waste the trip I had a wander around and took a few photos. The three here today are all taken close to one another from the canal towpath.

Although all three shots have been converted with the same settings, the first has a different tonality to the others. I’m not sure if this is a factor of the Negative Lab Pro processing in some way, or if it’s down to the camera’s metering of the scene perhaps.

I like all three of the photographs, but they probably would have been much better on non-expired film.

Nikon F80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & TruPrint FG+ (expired 2005). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 2 April 2022

Industrial streets

The tall chimney of the Veolia Energy Recovery plant stands sentinel over these walls on industrial streets to the east of the city centre. I was shooting a roll of expired film on the day and, when I left the house, the sky was clear and full of light. Unfortunatley, by the time I’d parked and started walking, the sky was mostly covered by cloud. This wasn’t ideal – I don’t like shooting colour film in overcast conditions at the best of times, but even less so with expired film.

As it is, the results aren’t too bad and the grit of the film perhaps suits the conditions. I have more shots from this same roll to come – mostly shot in good light – and the grain is equally prevalent on those too. I have a second roll of this same stock left to shoot and think I’ll overexpose it next time, which is what I normally do with expired C41 film (using the one stop of over-exposure per decade of expiry guidance). I didn’t do that on this occasion as I’d been told the film was fridge stored and wanted to see how it looked shot a box speed.

Nikon F80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & TruPrint FG+ (expired 2005). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 2 April 2022