I recently received a shipment of expired slide film from a seller in the States, and among the rolls of old Sensia and Provia I found several rolls of Photo Porst ChromeX100. I’d never yet shot with this film stock before, though I’d read many good things about it from local users. I was eager to try it out.
Loading a roll into an Olympus XA3, I took the film for a spin in and around Manila, Lemery and Taal. Below are some of the results.
Sky over Taal
Sidewalk Nap
Ex-house
Leggy Wife
School Zone
Intramuros Skate Park
Inside Orale!
Mother and Child
Not bad for film that expired in 2003, no?
When you analyze the photos in Photoshop, you’ll see that the age of the film has caused it to lose image data from the low end of the red channel and high end of blue, resulting in the distinct color tint you see in the photos. There’s almost a Mello Yello-Mountain Dew quality to the shots.
I tried to find out more about the film but didn’t learn much more. It was sold and distributed by Photo Porst, Germany’s largest camera retailer at one point but is sure to be a rebadged film stock from Japan. Some folks say it’s Fuji Sensia under all that Deutsche-ness. I can’t tell. What I can tell is that I have only two rolls left.
Gotta make those count.
For the full set of photos, go to the Travelomo Facebook page.
April 26, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Hi, sir! May I ask where you got your exposed Photo Porst films developed? As they are rare and require a different chemical for developing.
April 26, 2012 at 8:48 pm
Hi Ezra, I just had them cross-processed in C41. Very few labs here in the Philippines still do E6 processing, quite expensive too. I just have all my slide film X-Pro’d.
April 26, 2012 at 8:49 pm
Nice blog, by the way. Following.
April 26, 2012 at 11:17 pm
Thank you! Will do as you said!
Thanks to you and your blog I’ve learned a lot about film photography and discovered rare great films such as this one!
April 26, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Glad to be of help. If you want, add me up on facebook, facebook.com/travelomo or an twitter @travelomo. I update the Travelomo Facebook page far more often than my blog. Cheers!
May 15, 2012 at 7:12 pm
I’ve been looking for this film for quite some time now but I failed to get some from our local sellers. I’ve seen several photo sets with superb outcome, including yours, using this film. Hope I can get hold of one.