I forget who gave me this roll of Lomography Redscale XR 50-200. Perhaps Stephen Dowling of Kosmo Foto? Perhaps the kind people at Analogue Wonderland? Well, it was somebody, and if it was you, I’m sorry I can’t recall.
Wherever it came from, it’s been rolling around at the bottom of my film box for at least two years now. There’s just never been a time when my subjects would have benefited from a strong red cast! But I’m busy shooting up everything in that box, and this roll’s number came up. I loaded it into my Pentax ME, which already had a 50mm f/1.7 SMC Pentax-M lens attached, and took it with me everywhere I went for a while.
You’re supposed to be able to control the red by setting ISO anywhere from 50 to 200. The more light you let fall onto this film, the less red effect you get. I set my Pentax ME right in the middle at EI 100 and got mighty, mighty red images.
It turns out you need to shoot this film in direct, bright sunlight. Shadows come out muddy and underexposed.
This shadowy tree-tunnel shot turned out okay, though.
If I had another roll of this stuff I’d shoot it at EI 50 to try to tone the red down. I tried to tone it down in Photoshop, but I couldn’t manage it without introducing other deleterious effects. These images are all straight of the processor’s scanner.
I know that plenty of film photographers love films that give them unusual looks like this. I’m not among them. As I looked through these scans for the first time, I wished I’d shot many of these scenes with one of my usual color films. Lomography Redscale XR 50-200 just isn’t my jam.
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