The rolls of Kodak Gold came back today and were… entirely underwhelming. Actually… worse than that… it was pretty bad. 3 rolls in, one was entirely blank, another had the one shot I really wanted on, but that one was blank. The other version of it was double exposed, then an actual proper exposure (which is dull) and then a blank frame.

The other successful roll gave me 2 out of 4 of the view from the front of the house.

So disappointed then. But not annoyed. These rolls were always about the learning curve, which I am right at the beginning of. I have moved on to black and white now to work on my technique a little more, without the expense of sending films off for processing. I can also practice scanning with those and the poor frames from this batch to hopefully improve that part of my technique too.

It has also shown me that Kodak Gold is probably not the film for me. The results from the scanner were very retro holiday snap rather than something I would look to hang on a wall! I have been told to try Portra 160 next though so will grab a roll of that and probably an Ekta too. The choices in colour film are pretty limited… Pheonix is described as being like Kodak Gold so that is probably ruled out, at least for now. Cinistill is interesting… and perhaps the Lomography stock is worth a look too. Mono is much better serviced, as is 35mm, but I haven’t settled on a system yet to run that through!

I am going to write some reviews on each film stock, but at the moment, I don’t feel like I am quite at the point of getting good, consistent results. This is mostly down to user error with the big panoramic beast! The Fuji 690 is now in service so once I have assessed a roll out of that I will see if the results are more promising – it’s a bit more “familiar” in terms of a shooting experience which helps!

But I am not disheartened. We have a ways to go!

This is my first example with Kodak Gold. It’s okay… but the composition isn’t right as I was in a rush and really intending just to finish the film to get at the previous frame which was, unfortunately, ruined.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have my first batch from the Lomography Earl Grey processed and ready to scan and share!