You might have read here previously about last year’s Kodak 2238 Project and the resulting zine. You can also find out everything you need to know on our podcast episode with Michael Bartosek, the guy who had the idea in the first place.

Long story short, the film is a movie reproduction stock that he bought in bulk and began selling re-rolled into 35mm film canisters for use in conventional stills photography. A couple of things make this more challening. Firstly, it operates at ISO25 or less (I used ISO16 for these pictures) and secondly, there’s very little information around on how to process it.

Last year’s project began to change that as the Facebook film-shooters hivemind shared what it discovered through individual experimentation, trial and error and shooting the film became a whole lot easier.

Michael was good enough toi send me a film care package at the start of the year and it included a roll of 2238. I took it with me on a summer trip to Poland and used it to shoot my daughter, nephew and mother-in-law. The bright summer days meant that ISO16 was less of a problem than if I’d tried to use it back home in Ireland.
Apart from the horribly dusty negatives, the results were fantastic once again. I think that if I lived in LA, as Mr. Bartosek does, and had that terrific light all year round, it’d be my first choice. As things are, it’s just too slow for regular use.

Again, you may have seen previously on this blog that I start every roll through my M6 with a picture of my feet. That way, if I lose half a frame because of how the film is wound on, it doesn’t matter. I’m closing on my 100th feet picture. Once I get there, I’ll do something with them…

Gubbins:
Leica M6, Zeiss Sonnar 50mm f/1.5, Kodak 2238 processed in old Ilford DD-X for 10 minutes. Scanned (and the dust cloned out) at home