A Day Out With The Sprocket Rocket And Expired Lomography Colour Film

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Sprocket Rocket. Whenever I can’t find anything to watch on YouTube, I always seem to gravitate to watching videos about peoples’ experiences with this panoramic toy camera from Lomography. Yet whenever I try to use mine, I’m filled with dread that I’ll break the film, like I did the first time. So it sits in its box, along with an Agfa Clack and a Reader’s Digest camera that I’ve always been promising myself that one day I’ll flip its lens. But whenever I’m going out, that ridiculous looking blue beastie always screams out to me, ‘take me! Take me!’ Normally I just ignore it, but last week I felt sorry for the Rocket, and out of its box it came.

The plan was actually to test a new (to me) camera, the Proud Chrome Six III, a heavily beat up medium format folding camera, and to try out an Industar 69M 28mm pancake lens that had fortuitously been recalibrated for micro four-thirds. Since the Sprocket Rocket was a bit of an afterthought, I didn’t want to use a ‘good’ film in it, so I rummaged around for something to use.

I have a small ‘collection’ of films that I keep in a box, just to see how they behave under ‘ambient’ conditions. They don’t go in the refrigerator, just sit on the side. Some of these are slightly expired now, including a few rolls of Lomography ISO 100 colour film (best before c.2023, I reckon). I had one of these rolls in the Zenit 11 for the Shitty Camera Challenge’s #CrappyCommieCameraParty, and it never got finished. So I rewound the film into it’s cassette in the Zenit and then reloaded it into the Rocket. I made a ‘best guess’ as to the number of exposures, then added the Rocket to my camera bag along with the Proud Chrome Six and an Olympus Pen E-PL3 and the Industar-69. 

https://flic.kr/p/2sdtGNb

It was a bright but overcast day, and we headed off to Barra and Costa Nova for lunch at the Marisqueira, the most wonderful fish restaurant. I also had a chance for a post-lunch walk around Costa Nova  — a ‘digestivo’, if you will — and at a derelict structure just outside of town. One of my favourite spots, but one that’s not too easy to photograph when the sun is in the wrong place, since the wall of the building can cast some strong shadows. The hazy day provided bright enough conditions for the Rocket without the inconvenience of harsh shadows. Not my favourite situation, but hey.

https://flic.kr/p/2sdp1ri

The Sprocket Rocket is a simple camera with just one shutter speed of about 1/100s (and ‘bulb’) and two apertures, one for sunny and one for cloudy weather (about f16 and f11, respectively). Normally, Lomography recommend using ISO 400 film with this camera, but I reckoned that all being well, if I left the camera on the ‘cloudy’ setting, it might work with the ISO 100 film, and fortunately it did. After completing the film, I had to wait a couple of weeks as the stormy weather started again. But a couple of days ago the weather cleared and I popped the film into Forever Blue in Aveiro.

https://flic.kr/p/2sduTUL

After development, I scanned the film at home with an Epson Perfection v750 Pro flat bed scanner and Epson Scan software. I tried to use the Lomography 35mm scanning frame, so that I could include the sprockets in the final image, but for some reason it didn’t work. I need to look into the scanning process for this. If you’re interested, I’ve posted the whole series in an album on my Flickr if you want to see the rest of the images.

https://flic.kr/p/2sdunMW

I was quite surprised that I got anything from this film, but in the end it worked quite nicely. As a panoramic camera, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Horizon (or the Widelux[x], or the X-pan), but it’s fun to use and I can always see the appeal. I’m also a bit agnostic over Lomography films. I absolutely adore Lomochrome Turquoise and the Red (though I’m leaning a bit more in favour of Harman Red), but this ISO 100 film actually produced some nice results.

https://flic.kr/p/2sdp1q1

The first image, of the driftwood on the beach at Barra, has two large white splotches that I thought was dust on the glass, but a closer look revealed that they were in fact images from the Zenit. Looks like I didn’t wind the reloaded film far enough after all. There’s still a couple of rolls sitting around, and now I’m wondering what camera I can put them in.

https://flic.kr/p/2sdunLt

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That Time I Broke A Roll Of Lomochrome Purple In the Sprocket Rocket

I’ve always been a sucker for panoramic images, and something like the Hasselblad X-pan panoramic camera has been on my wishlist for a long time. Of course, that’s way outside my budget, so back in 2022, or thereabouts, I bought the next best thing: the Lomography Sprocket Rocket. The Sprocket Rocket is a simple Lomography camera with just one shutter speed, of about 1/100s (and ‘bulb’), and two apertures, one for sunny and one for cloudy weather (about f16 and f11, respectively).

https://flic.kr/p/2rsaErG

Eager to try out the Sprocket Rocket, which I especially like since it has a film gate that includes the sprocket holes in the final image, I loaded it with a roll of Lomochrome Purple film. Given the 100-400 ISO latitude of Lomochrome Purple I kept the aperture mostly on the sunny setting, and set out. I took the Rocket to my favourite spots around our local Lidl supermarket, and finished the roll in the woods behind our house.

https://flic.kr/p/2rsa5Sb

After several exposures in the woods, I came to the end of the roll. As I had another roll of film with me, I thought that I would unload the roll or Purple and load the Rocket with the second roll of, whatever it was (I can’t really remember now). I started rewinding the film into the cassette, but after a few turns it seemed to ‘stick’ in the camera. I paused for a second then turned the rewind knob firmly but gently and the film started rewinding smoothly back into the cassette again. It was a little stiff to turn, but eventually it felt like the film was back in the cassette and I opened the back of the camera.

https://flic.kr/p/2rs8Vgr

Oops! I could see straight away that the film had broken, and a lot of film was still wrapped around the take-up spool. I quickly clipped the cover back onto the camera and knew that my outing for that day was over. I went home and readied my trusty dark bag. There, I rewound the broken film into a recyclable 35mm cassette in the dark bag and wondered what to do next. I knew that much of the film would have been exposed to light, but there might be something worth salvaging close to the take-up spool. The snag was that I didn’t have any facilities to develop films at home, and at the time it was expensive to develop and scan films at the labs in Aveiro and Oliveira do Bairro. So the film went into my bedside cabinet and remained there.

https://flic.kr/p/2rsaEs3

A few weeks ago, some three years later, I picked up a ‘not passed’ Epson Perfection v750 Pro flat bed scanner on the Kamerastore website. To begin with, I got this running nicely on an old Windows XP computer, but just before our holidays I bought a Lenovo M600 micro computer, and I’ve connected this to the scanner. I’ve also discovered that Forever Blue in Aveiro now provides film development only for the not unreasonable price of 4€. So, after three years in a drawer, it was probably time to get the broken film developed and find out if there was anything on the film at all.

https://flic.kr/p/2rsa5S1

Surprisingly, there were images on the film, and after scanning with Epson Scan software, I was really happy with the results. The colour shifting was quite phenomenal, although I’m sure this was a combination of effects caused by the light leaks and improper storage. Of course, I’m sure I’ll never be able to produce this effect again, and although I do like light leaks, I’m not sure that I really want to try. I’ve posted the whole roll in an album on my Flickr, light leaks and all, if you want to see the rest of the images.

https://flic.kr/p/2rsa5Qh

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#BrokenFilm #Experimental #Lomochrome #Lomography #Panorama #Purple #SprocketRocket #LightLeaks

11 Sentinels

🧻 FOMA Fomaspeed Variant 312 8x10
🎞️ Kodak Tmax P3200 (EI 1600)
📷 Lomography Sprocket Rocket

#BelieveInFilm
#35mm
#FilmPhotography
#Lomography
#DarkRoomPrint
#sprocketrocket

Through the narrow streets of old #Lviv

🧻 FOMA Fomaspeed Variant 312 8x10
🎞️ Kodak Tmax P3200 (EI 1600)
📷 Lomography Sprocket Rocket

#BelieveInFilm
#35mm
#FilmPhotography
#Lomography
#DarkRoomPrint
#sprocketrocket