For today’s Tried and Tested Thursday, I will be talking about shooting a roll of Lomography Color Negative 100 on my Canon EOS 500n.
Another travel Throwback Thursday from April 2018 in Italy. I had been travelling through Nice in Southern France for a few days, then headed to La Spezia in Northern Italy (via Genoa), where I would spend some time there before heading home.
Cinque Terre (translated as ‘five towns’ in Italian) is the coastal area of towns in Liguria, also not too far from La Spezia. I went to all five towns within a couple of days by train, exploring them at my own pace; starting from Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and ending in Monterosso (also known as Monterosso Al Mare).
As usual, I was geared up with my camera and rolls of film for my Italian adventure.
I had already done a Tried and Tested Thursday of Cinque Terre last year, on Ilford HP5 with the Jessops brand Yellow Filter – on the same Canon EOS 500n camera. For the colour film, I shot all the towns on the Lomography CN 100.
Like my trip to Nice, I had the Lomo CN 100 as one of my colour films of choice. I was shooting with other colour film brands, such as Kodak and Agfaphoto (aka the famous ‘Poundland Film’). The Lomography film was very predominant in my film travel collection.
Unlike the trip to Nice, the results from Cinque Terre varied after processing and scanning. There were a few hits and misses with the Lomography film, although colour darkroom printing was slightly better, since I had full control on settings and colour balance.
Plus the Cinque Terre scans weren’t the same as the Nice ones, in particular when I had shot in Promenade des Anglais. The Nice beach shots had a pastel feel to them, almost washed out in light blues and light pinks. The Cinque Terre shots weren’t on par with the pastel colours, some did have a vintage postcard feel to them especially the colourful houses.
The Lomography brand is a mixed bag in the film community with some either loving or hating them. I do like the Lomography films, there are some I would like to shoot with many times again. I played it safe with the colour films, mainly the 100 or 400. The latter has been my go-to since purchasing from the brand back in 2017, but I didn’t take any with me to France and Italy. Despite the 400 ISO film being popular for being all purpose and versatile, I was a little concerned if some shots would have come out very overexposed due to the bright daytime shooting.
The Canon EOS 500n was my camera of choice for the holiday. I used the wide angle lens that came with the camera, 28mm – 80mm, which is great for landscapes and travel photography. I had placed an UV filter on top of the lens whenever shooting colour film, only to prevent dust and haze.
Whenever using the Canon film SLR, I always set it on Programme Mode. Similar to Auto or Automatic, often on many DSLR and SLR cameras, even a few digital compacts. Programme differs from Automatic; Programme enables settings change such as ISO, aperture, but exposure is automatically set. Whereas Automatic, is well automatic. I rarely use the other options on the dial, like Manual or Shutter – maybe I should by now…
I do think there’s some room for improvement, which does include a possible revisit to Cinque Terre in the near future. Film choice for next time, potentially warmer with good consistent colour quality, like Kodak Gold or Kodak Portra 400. I used both films before on bright days, the outcome came out brilliant once after scanning, plus darkroom printing on glossy paper. Possibly changing up the camera gear a bit, consider trying out a manual setting camera – Olympus Trip 35 or Minolta X700, both decent and a good way to test out its manual functions. Or maybe I should stick to my loyalty with Canon? Another manual camera to bring along with me, the Canon Canonet 28 – once I get that fixed.
Take care and stay safe
Photographic Jannine 
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