Shooting: The Canon T70 And Fujicolor Press 800

Shooting: The Canon T70 And Fujicolor Press 800

I’ve recently acquired this interesting SLR from a friend of mine. He found it on kijiji, along with a pile of other goodies.

To make sure the camera was working, he popped in a roll of Fujicolor Press 800 that the seller had. When I got it, it was at frame #2 of a 36 exposure roll. I had never shot a T70 before, nor had I ever heard of Fujicolor Press before. So seeing as it was already loaded into the camera, it was sure to be an interesting 34 exposures!

The Film

Neither of us knew how old the film was, nor did we know how it had been stored. I shot the roll at 400, but looking at the results, I wish I had gone for 200. However, seeing as it was a total test roll, I was quite pleased with it! I’m fully aware of the element of the unknown when it comes to expired film, and that’s part of the fun. Sometimes it can really surprise you!

I’ve heard that higher speeds films don’t age as well as the slower speeds. I certainly see this in the images from this roll. The grain is very pronounced and while there wasn’t too much color shifting, I still had a little bit of correcting to do.

The Camera

The Canon T70 is such a cool camera. It’s an auto-advance, auto-exposure camera with a manual focus lens. The lens mount is the classic Canon FD, so there’s an endless selection out there.

Introduced in 1984, the T70 is as retro as they come. The styling is cool, and the auto-advance sounds like the inserting of a VHS. It’s not the most stealthy of cameras, but if you want people to not only see your out-of-date fashion, but hear it? This is the camera for you.

I’m not entirely sure how to work all the different settings of the T70 yet, so I put my trust in it’s Program mode. So far, it seems pretty reliable. However, I’ve never been a huge fan of not having control over my aperture; though I didn’t seem to mind. Program mode essentially makes this camera a glorified point and shoot with manual focus and I quite like that.

Results

It was pretty cool shooting with a camera I know nothing about and a film I know nothing about. There were several shots that didn’t turn out, but that’s to be expected.

I really do enjoy how unpredictable expired film can be. This can be terrifying for some people. For me however, it’s a lot of fun. I love the artistic effect it can have on an image. Besides, you can’t shoot on an expired SD card and get these results! It’s an organic, chemical and physical effect that takes place by it’s age. To me, thats fascinating.

While some pictures turn out super grainy with crazy color shifts, others can look totally normal. Sure, this has to do with lighting and different exposures, but it’s hard to know exactly what that proper exposure is. So you just have to cross your fingers and hope for the best!

I’m assuming this film had at least been stored in a fridge as the color shifts weren’t to bad. There’s certainly alot of grain, but again; this was an expired 800 speed film.

So without any more waffle, here are the shots that I liked from when I was “Just Shootin”.

I hope enjoyed this article! Thanks for reading and hope to hear from you in the comments!